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Right now I’m splitting my time between flipping and a part time at my boring retail job. I’m looking to go full time flipping. Here are the preliminary facts:
-I’m losing hours at my boring retail job. I’m going from like 25 a week to 8-14. So, I already need to make that $$ up somewhere.
– I’ve grossly been neglecting my amaozn sales. I sell books and when I work at it I can make an extra $500 a month or so for 18 hours a month of work
-More emotionally based. We are in a pandemic. My mom is imunocomprimised. I came down with a stomach flu today and was told to figure it out and not miss my shift, even though I was vomitting and really sick. It took 2 calls to convince my boss I really shouldn’t go in, and then he got mad and hung up on me. People don’t wear their masks. I’m tired of dealing with it.
So, the numbers. My personal bills come out to about $1250 a month total, and there’s really no wiggle room there. Additionally, I’ve taken on some expansion over the last few months that total about $1200 a month in expenses. So, 2400 total. Factoring in taxes on self employment if I were to make the 1250 to cover my bills off ebay/whatever alone, I’m looking at needing about $2850 in profit to cover all the bills, or $95 a day.
I have about $1100 in savings
My rent is paid through 9/27
I am getting an amazon check for $150 and a boring retail check for $500 on Friday
If I put in my 2 weeks tomorrow I’d get another paycheck for around $400, and paid out of my vacation, which equals around $200
So, all that together is $2350 guaranteed by the time I’d be out of a job.
I already started applying to other jobs part time to have a fall back plan. Lots of people are hiring low skill work around me.
So, Here’s the stream of income numbers for this month
Ebay: $700 profit, not including shipping. 290 listings currently, but I have enough stock I should be able to reach 500 by the time my 2 weeks at work are up.
Amazon: $200 profit. This is with no effort. I’ve been neglecting it since the ebay expansion. I have boxes to send in and will start seeing sales around 2 weeks from now, and I’ll have money in about a month from those sales. If I put in about 18 hours a month, I can make $500 profit historically. If I expand and put in 30 a month and travel a bit farther out, I could be looking at around $800 profit. I see books as an oppertunity to make back up $$ while Ebay is getting rolling.
Redbubble: about $50 a month. This is completely hands off, but is also the lowest amount of $$
FBMarketplace: I made $255 in profit on FBM this month. The plan is to list my entire ebay stock on fbm and do local pickup. I ask ebay prices, and let them talk me down a couple bucks, but I’m not necessarily loosing money selling items on FBM versus Ebay.
So, right now the business is paying for itself. To put it in conext, a month ago I only paid half the bills for the business with business income, so I’m growing exponentially, and I can see it continue by moving to fulltime.
I have full support from my parents so on the offchance I need to borrow some $$ and not be homeless, thats totally an option. I also have the option to do this for a month and if it isn’t quite there yet, I can just pick up a job. I’ve also done a lot of gig work and used to make $100-$150 on random jobs a week through something similar to taskrabbit.
Also, these numbers are in august. Winter is coming, and I sell a lot of gift-able things. My sales in Amazon quadrupled last year from 3rd to 4th quarter compared to 2nd.
Gut reaction typing this out is that its really tight, but with some hard work, and a little luck, this could be doable. I’m also keeping in mind that my hours in 4 weeks go from 25 this week, 20 the next, 8 the week after, and 14 th week after that. We are hiring more people and I’m getting less hours. So, the potential loss of funds by the end of the schedule is like $100-$150 a week. So, I’m already screwed. Do I just bite the bullet and dive into the unknown or keep working for less and less money and still have to make it up with self employment anways.
Thoughts? Opinions? Musings?
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I’m not good with numbers, but I was sort of in your position at one time. I had a 20-25 hr week entry-level job and the hours dwindled and was to the point where driving to get there and all the costs of working there weren’t leaving much leftover. I quit there and ramped up reselling, while I’m glad I did, I also regret it, because I missed the people I worked with, but also added up to a lot of money that could be rolled into the business and also any savings I had, I depleted. I also discovered getting inventory in my part of the country wasn’t as great as in others, even Walmart has no clearance cuz its the only big box store in town. Eventually, I moved closer to civilization and started working 25-30 hrs a week again at a different place and now have more money again to invest in the business. Maybe just a change of job would do you good until you have the business ramped up to over guarantee numbers? Even if you gave the full time reselling a shot between shopping for a new job.
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Three things jump out for me. First, your retail hours are being cut drastically. It’s like your employer is making you walk a ledge that keeps getting narrower. Two, it appears you’re confident you could step into another retail-type job without a lot of trouble. My sense is that you’re right in that assessment. Three, you have a safety net, your folks and a roof over your head. You say your parents will support you if you stumble and you will not be homeless. That part is really key. When I was young I took a chance but didn’t have a good support network. It ended up working out but for a while life became very dark. Found out being broke means your options are terribly limited.
Anyway, I would say you don’t have a whole to lose by going full time. You dislike your current job and they’re practically inviting you to leave by cutting your hours. You have a good grasp of what you need to make happen to get by. Sounds like you have the energy and smarts to make flipping work for you. Best of luck to you whatever you decide!
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Unless commuting time/cost is an issue, I’d continue working for the time being. Their gradual cutting of your hours actually gives you a way to gradually increase your self-employment income until you are at a point where quitting the job is a no-brainer. For me, gradual change and progress sounds much easier than the stress of having to make up the income super quickly.
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Now that your hours have been cut at your job, use that extra time for your online reselling business and see how it goes. Keep that steady income flowing in the meantime, as you’ll probably need it. Pay off any debt you owe (especially credit card debt and car loans), and build up a large reserve of cash. Having 3 to 6 months expenses in savings would make a full-time reselling transition much less stressful. If your current employer sucks that bad, though, certainly find a different part-time job. In any case, don’t jump into full time reselling expecting it to pay your bills within a month or two.
I had a somewhat similar situation about 5 years ago when my full time temp job was cut to 24 hours/week. Rather than get another job, I stayed at the temp job and put all the extra time into eBay. It’s worked out well for me. I basically still can work 40 hours many weeks on eBay, but also maintain the steady income from my other part-time job. I could live off my eBay income, but some months would be pretty tight and I don’t like that stress. Plus, it’s nice to have the social interaction of my part-time job, as reselling often can be isolating.
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@Lauren – You’ve obviously given this a lot of thought. You look at the facts and seem to be thinking this through rationally. That tells me that you are organized and ambitious. The key to success in this type of endeavor is all persistence and determination. Unlike many careers and jobs, especially retail, what you put into it comes back to you. You’ve already seen that it is something you enjoy doing and you’ve found some things that you know you can sell. The safety net helps. I think you can do it! Good luck!
Mike
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Looking just at the existing numbers:
You need $2,850 per month.
On quitting your job you will have $2,400 ($450 short.)
Your savings are $1,100 ($1,750 short.)
Your current income for August was $1,205 ($1,645 short)
Your only buffer is your parents.
Historical selling figures indicate an uptick in sales, but we haven’t had an historical COVID crisis. For this reason, I would go with existing figures rather than projections. Looking at the numbers only, I agree with Sonia and Zach.
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Yeah, as Amatino broke down the numbers, your option right now looks like either move back in with the folks or get another job. For me, I value my independence so I would get another job (that they are reducing your hours is really writing on the wall something is up). You may need some more time to build your online selling up to be self sufficient. Either way, wish you the best and sorry your boss is a jerk.
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Others have given good advice. Its difficult (unwise) for any of us to give you answers since we can never know all the exact circumstances of your life.
I’ve taken on some expansion over the last few months that total about $1200 a month in expenses.
This really jumped out at me. What expansion is costing you $1200/month? Is this for your eBay business? That’s a lot of money when you aren’t even making that much yet on eBay.
If you truly want to go full-time selling for yourself, two pieces of advice that helped us:
–Cut your expenses to then bone. Ryanne and I lived in a family basement for a 1.5 years while we built our eBay business. We stored everything in a bedroom. We live incredibly cheap.
–If you really do work yourself, put in 40 hour a week or more. I’ve heard stories of some folks who think the idea of working for yourself means not really working 🙂 Those early days are really a grind. There’s no getting around just photographing and listing hundreds and hundreds of items as fast as you can. We just had fun scavenging and listing. It felt like an adventure.
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When Cortez came to the new world in 1519 and decided to conquer the Aztecs, he burned his boats, so his men knew there was no retreat. Are you ready to burn the boats?
As always, the devil is in the details. Is the the $1200 expansion a monthly expense? If so it’s a big one.
I would take the steps to increase your Amazon sales and expand your Ebay inventory, before making any permanent moves. A couple of months may be all it takes and if your numbers pan out, you’ll know a lot more about your income.
In the meantime, treat your job is a means to an end and temporary. If you get a different job, that’s fine too.
Remember, there’s never a perfect time to quit a job, buy a house or even have kids. Even with extensive research, it’s always a leap of faith to some extent.
Good Luck.
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Thanks all.
So it looks like I’m stuck at my boring retail job for now at least. I’m planning to put in my two weeks at the beginning of October and be out of there by October 17th.
The $1200 expansion a month is all encompassing of all side hustles. I have a great little apartment which it’s biggest problem is that could only fit 200 items in it max and was limiting to my mental health because I was working at all hours of the night. The 12006yyy includes a hefty amount of inventory up front right now (about $400 a month) while I’m bulking up numbers. The new office can fit 2000+ items, serve as a meeting space for FBM, gives me table space to pack, ship, and package amazon. I knew it would be tight this few months because I didn’t have a real option to do a mid-size grow from 200items to 1000, which is why I’m listing like crazy this month. Storage units are especially sketchy in my neck of the woods and the thought was to make one larger jump instead of smaller jumps.
Thanks for your advice. We’ll catch back up in a couple months.
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If you’re willing to do whatever it takes to make the jump to reselling full-time, and you have at least a one bedroom apartment with no roomates, then maybe consider moving out of your bedroom, reconfiguring your apartment as a studio (i.e. sleeping space in the living room), and then using your bedroom as your ebay storage and work area.
That way you have a door to shut between your “living” and your “work” areas, which may help you enforce the work/life boundaries that you want. I have worked remotely from home for 15 years, and I have found that having a clearly defined work space that I can walk away from is key.
It seems to me that the office space, no matter its perceived boon to your mental health, is a significant drag to your financial forward momentum. The numbers would be so much more in your favor without it.
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