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I’m a 29 year old stay at home dad from North Carolina. I have been selling full time for two years now. My wife was making more money than I was when our twins were born, so we decided I would stay home with the three girls. It made the most sense at the time. I got into reselling shortly thereafter.
I have 900+ listing and bring in 3-5k gross per month as of right now. I am currently pushing to hit the “next level” where my wife will quit her job and I can go from full time to full time plus. I sell mostly estate items and like antiques especially.
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Welcome Paul!
I’m curious how you manage the kids plus list. Maybe it gets better as the kids get older? I have a 5 month old son and when he is sick and has to stay home from daycare with me my productivity drops to almost zero. I’d love to get rid of that $700 a month daycare bill though!-
Jason,
It does get easier as they get older. Then it gets hard all over again. I’m at that point now. My oldest is 10, she is pretty self sufficient apart from the occasional science project which sucks all of my time for that week. The twins are 2 and they have just now decided to stop taking naps. But there is a sweet spot you’re about to hit where they can entertain themselves and sleep through the night.
I am at the point now where money is coming in steady, but it was definitely not the case when I started. The first month I made $600 I was king of the house haha.
I manage to list whenever I get a free second. I try to clean items and do all of the busy work I can while the kids are up. I wake up at 5 every morning to take pictures. I try to list while they sleep or when my wife gets home around 730pm. I shoot for 50 items a week. Sometimes it’s a lot more, sometimes a lot less. It’s really tough sometimes. But the great thing is I work until I hit that breaking point, quit my job, then hire myself back whenever I feel like I’m ready to work a day or so later. I do that once every month or two.
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Where do you scavenge and what do you buy? For the money you make, you must be fining some good stuff.
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I scavenge mainly at estate sales at the moment. I travel to Cary/Garner NC which is a little more upper class. Some people don’t like going to rich people’s sales because everything is priced so high ( art, coins, silver etc.) But I’m not there for that. I’m there for the junk drawers closets. I find that higher end sales don’t really care about the “junk” and have box lots for pretty cheap. Wealthy people have nice things. Even the junk is nice sometimes.
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Exactly. I find that the people who go to buy at these sales are not interested in junk either. So I usually have some elbow room and I don’t feel like if I take a right turn instead of a left when we first walk in that I’ll miss the “gold.”
I have all the time in the world to go through boxes of pencils that turn out to be a pretty serious calligraphy pen and nib collection worth close to $1000 after all was said and done. The whole shoe box was $10. To be fair it did look like junk the way it was scattered around.
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Yes, welcome.
You;re doing extremely well with your monthly income…and raising so many kids.
Hope you stick around and share your experience.
You;re obviously doing something right. -
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Paul,
It’s obvious you are very dedicated and able to work a flexible schedule. I’d love to hear more about your finds at estate sales. As you’ve pointed out the nice stuff at estate sales seems to be too pricey for my taste but I never though about the box lots of stuff they deem “junk”-
The estate sale companies are dying to get rid of that old junk. Fishing lures, erasers, playbills, golf balls. All kinds of stuff. I have come across some pretty random things. Most times they are looking to get rid of it from what I have been told. Boxes of pictures look like garbage but in the right hands they are 1920’s photos of New York City.
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Hey Paul,
Just joined the forum.
I’m in NC too, Winston Salem.
Estate sales are very fun, ya just never know what goodies you’ll find.
Haven’t gone to any over in the Eastern part of the state.
Sounds like you do a great job with the listing and the kids.
Keep up the good work.
Happy 4th of July!
Robin
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