When the first item sold on July 31st an unexpected thing happened after I made my purchases to reinvest in flips. The item got more bids and sold for more than my initial amount I had as a starting bid on Ebay. This meant I needed to invest $1.25 to be fully invested. I was at the grocery store on August 3rd and wondered over to the toy section to see if I could find something in this price range. I found two Hot Wheels for $1.05 each with tax. I decided to buy both because I could package them together as one item and double the amount invested easier. The cost of shipping would not change much with items this light and gives me a better chance of selling. I think this strategy will work well on smaller items and help to make resell items move faster than listing only one Hot Wheel at a time. Both Hot Wheels were on sale and would have normally been $4.99 each, but you can find things like this very often if you take a couple of minutes to look in most stores. Total inventory amount is at $44.75 right now and I am over invested again slighty based on these purchases, but am good with the amount because it is not much more than I could find in change in my car. The over invested amount is $1.29. I have 16 total listings for sale, but 17 items because I am putting the Hot Wheels as one listing. I will update again when there is another sale. I am going to guess it will still be in the 30 to 60 day range for another sale.

Current Inventory and Cash

Item	Cost	Date Purchased	Sold	Profit
Autumn Puzzle	$1.18	6/13/22
Bridge Puzzle	$1.18	6/13/22
Ireland Puzzle	$3.45	6/27/22
NFL Puzzle	$2.37	6/27/22
Globe Puzzle	$.60	6/29/22
Animal puzzle #1	$1.18	6/29/22
Animal puzzle #2	$1.18	6/29/22
Music Album puzzle	$1.18	6/29/22
Iowa Puzzle	$1.18	6/29/22
3 Hole Punch	$1.18	6/29/22
Biscuit	$7.03	6/29/22
Silver Plated Vase	$4.64	7/20/22
Serving Dish and Bowl	$9.29	7/20/22
*Antique building Puzzle-	$4.64	7/25/22
*Star Wars Puzzle	$2.37	7/25/22
*2 Hot Wheels	$2.10	8/3/22
Cash	-$1.29	Over invested
Total inventory amount	$44.75

Good news to report for this date is I have made my first sale in change jar flip. I sold the Disney Puzzle on July 31st. It is exciting to have the first sale happen, because it reaffirms my experiment to see how much a change jar can be turned into is a realistic thing to do with a small amount of money. Even better news in this situation with the sale was instead of doubling the amount I hoped to make on the $1.18 invested in the puzzle I made $7.08 of profit. This is a 600% profit on that initial amount which will let us buy more than one more additional item to add to the inventory and get me closer to the 30 items so I can get on average of one sale a month. The $1.18 turned into $8.26 and has grown the total amount can potentially invest to $43.46. My return of $7.08 on my $36.38 in about two months shows that with small amounts you can make enormous return percentages and I believe this will be proved over and over again as this continues on in the future.

Annual Return Thoughts When Flipping Small Amounts

Annual return on your investment is a strange concept to think about with a small amount of money invested, but I will talk about it time to time as this progresses. Here is the understanding of what occured with just the Disney puzzle selling. If this money was never reinvested than when it was 6/6/2023 the annual return would be 19.46% on the $36.38. If you could maintain buy and sell one item a year and get 19.46% on the total moving forward after 30 years you would grow the $36.38 to $7,542. There is great power in compounding amounts over and over again. This is the path most people are able to take to build up their nest eggs over time through standard investment medium like 401(k)s and Individual Retirement Accounts and investing in them on a regular basis.

What the First Sale Lead to- July 25, 2022

I used Ebay to sell the first puzzle and got a bid on it early in the week and knew it was going to sale. On Ebay I assume the buyer was going to pay based on the bid, because they had a good feedback. Knowing the sale was going to happen I decided to go an try to find items to add onto the amount of the potential profit. I went to Goodwill again and bought two more puzzles. The first is of a historical building and cost me $4.64. This one could end up being a doubling of the cost based on what I found, but I feel confident I can double my invested amount on this flip. The second one was a Star Wars branded puzzle and I paid $2.37 for this one. I likely will make a little less than this one when it sells, but in the past I’ve had good experience with Star Wars items moving fairly quickly. If it doesn’t move I’ll buy another Star Wars item and package them together to get them out the door and flipped.

Current Inventory and Cash Equivalent

Item	Cost	Date Purchased	Sold	Profit
Disney Puzzle	$1.18	6/6/22	7/31/22	$7.08
Autumn Puzzle	$1.18	6/13/22
Bridge Puzzle	$1.18	6/13/22
Ireland Puzzle	$3.45	6/27/22
NFL Puzzle	$2.37	6/27/22
Globe Puzzle	$.60	6/29/22
Animal puzzle #1	$1.18	6/29/22
Animal puzzle #2	$1.18	6/29/22
Music Album puzzle	$1.18	6/29/22
Iowa Puzzle	$1.18	6/29/22
3 Hole Punch	$1.18	6/29/22
Biscuit	$7.03	6/29/22
Silver Plated Vase	$4.64	7/20/22
Serving Dish and Bowl	$9.29	7/20/22
*Antique building Puzzle-	$4.64	7/25/22
*Star Wars Puzzle	$2.37	7/25/22
Cash	$1.25	Needs to be reinvested

I didn’t go out to look for new items for a little while. On July 20th I went out and got two more items to flip. These items are more expensive like the biscuit form that I purchased on June 29th. The first item is silver plated vase which I paid $4.64 for. The second item is a two piece set of serving bowl and tray.

My thought on the silver plated vase was with the price of silver being as it high as it is at around $18 an ounce I could sell this to a silver metal shop for at least what I paid. This means the risk of the item is almost zero in my mind. I have not done this before with a piece like this, but know this is a potential out to get my money back to reinvest again, if it does not sell. Multiple ways to get your money back and make a profit are always good things to have when you are flipping. I should be able to double my money on this item when it would sell. That is always my goal when buying items at this price point level. If I can sell all of my initial inventory from the change jar then I’ll have about $70 in inventory as I reinvest.

The serving platter and bowl together cost $9.29. I could have sold each separately, but think they will sell for more together. Again, I think this will allow me to double my money on what they cost. These two items together put me slightly over the total I started with by $.44. I am going to try and stay as close to the amount as I had when I make purchases, but with a $.44 overage I am not worried about it. If I looked around my car there was this amount in the cup container. I may use additional change to do this later to help buy more as the change builds back up, but for now I am going to show the overage and let items sell to make up for overages.

Current Inventory and Cash Equivalent

Item	Cost	Date Purchased
Disney Puzzle	$1.18	6/6/22
Autumn Puzzle	$1.18	6/13/22
Bridge Puzzle	$1.18	6/13/22
Ireland Puzzle	$3.45	6/27/22
NFL Puzzle	$2.37	6/27/22
Globe Puzzle	$.60	6/29/22
Animal puzzle #1	$1.18	6/29/22
Animal puzzle #2	$1.18	6/29/22
Music Album puzzle	$1.18	6/29/22
Iowa Puzzle	$1.18	6/29/22
3 Hole Punch	$1.18	6/29/22
Biscuit	$7.03	6/29/22
Silver Plated Vase	$4.64	7/20/22
Serving Dish and Bowl	$9.29	7/20/22
Cash	-$.44	Over invested

On June 29 another trip to Goodwill allowed me to purchase seven items for the initial purchases of the change jar flip inventory. I purchased five puzzles, a 3 Hole punch, and a biscuit form. My thoughts on puzzles continues the same as before. I believe these will be a reasonable item to flip for the three reasons I wrote about on the June 13th post. Two of the puzzles are by Ceaco and cost $1.18 each. Another puzzle is fifty percent off of the $1.18, and only cost me $.60. It was a puzzle of the globe. The fourth puzzle is of a music album cover and cost $1.18. The fifth puzzle is of Iowa and also cost $1.18.

The three hole punch was $1.18. I believe I have made a mistake on the purchase of the three hole punch right after buying it. I looked more at pricing of it and realized with shipping I will likely not be able to compete against others selling them new. I will list in at a price level where I will not lose money. If I cannot sell it after a while I will try to find something else I can pair with it and sell it as a set of office supplies. I will need to keep an eye out for something to pair it with once other items have sold which will allow me to not lose out on what I’ve spent. This could be a bad decision, because I would be trying to cover a potential losing item buying investing more into it. This will require more thought from me as this flip adventure continues on.

The last item I bought was a biscuit form. I spent $7.03 on this item. These were selling for money than $20 online and I feel this will be the first larger item purchase which could get close to doubling the amount of money easily on a larger item. Once looking more online I do have some flipper’s remorse on this. I could have bought six more items which would allow for a higher turn over on them and have put me at an equivalent level of profit with less risk. I think this item will sell at a certain point though and free up the initial amount put into it. Almost 20% of the change jar initial flip amount in this one item is part of the way flipping goes early on a lot of times.

Total inventory sell through expectations at this point

At this point I have 11 items. This means I could expect a first sale at some time in the realistic future. I’m guessing with eleven items online I should average selling an item every 30 to 60 days. To get to a high level of expectation of selling something every month I believe I need at least 30 items based on my previous history of flipping. Sell through rates in my experience with inventories have been around 3% of inventory a month, if the inventory is in good condition and properly listed.

Current Inventory and Cash Equivalents

On June 27, I went to a Goodwill again and made two more purchases. These fall into the same category I had purchased in before of puzzles. I found two more puzzles I thought would make a good flip based on comparing prices. These were more expensive than the other three puzzles I had purchased before. This could be a mistake early on at this attempt of flipping the change jar money, because I do not have experience in flipping any puzzles before. However, when you are flipping you have to experiment in buying different types of items to see if you can understand the margins you can get on them. If you don’t experiment by buying other types of items you will not find the right type of thing you like or want to flip. If theses prove to be a mistake I will end up grouping them together after time passes to get the intitial value out of them. If it is not a mistake I will continue to buy puzzles and focus on building up the inventory of these. Another good part about puzzles is they do not take up much room to store while you wait for them to sale. They are in a rack with space which was not being used. The first puzzle cost $3.45 and is a NFL puzzle. The second was a puzzle of Ireland and cost $2.37. The Ireland puzzle is still in its original wrapping and can be sold as new. This is a bonus to find something in new condition at Goodwill. I hope to be able to make over $5 profit on this item with it being in new condition. Being able to sell something as new is the reason I purchased this. At this point I’m at five puzzles overall and they seem to be easy to find.

Current Inventory and Cash Equivalents

Item	Cost	Date Purchased
Disney Puzzle	$1.18	6/6/22
Autumn Puzzle	$1.18	6/13/22
Bridge Puzzle	$1.18	6/13/22
Ireland Puzzle	$3.45	6/27/22
NFL Puzzle	$2.37	6/27/22
Cash	$27.02	To buy more initial inventory

On June 13, 2022 I went to a Goodwill again with the same thing in mind as my previous plan. I was going to buy some more items around $2 to be able to get as many items as possible with the initial amount of $36.38 I had.

What was bought this time

This time I purchased two more puzzles to add on the the inventory . One is manufactured by White Puzzles and is of Autumn. The other is by White also and is a bridge. These items are all used and in good quality when I buy them. If I buy items in poor quality I will not be able to resell them. People in the secondary market are looking for good quality products just like those people who are buying new items. Most people buying in the secondary market are looking for a better use of their money, but to still get value out of what they have. The puzzles cost me $1.18 each with tax. This was the same amount I paid for the first one.

Why did I buy more puzzles

I do not remember flipping puzzles before in my history but there are few reasons why I bought more of them. First, the price point to be able to build up to a decent inventory amount at $1.18 per item was appealing to me at this point in the initial purchases phase. Second, puzzles are realitivly light. In my experience of having flipped a lot of items you can make a mistake when you buy something that looks good on a sales level, but if it is very heavy you will possibly end up losing money shipping it. Third, if something like puzzles do not move after a while I can package them together to move them all at once and get my money in the inventory to turnover.

Current Inventory and Cash Equivalent Balance

Item	Cost	Date Purchased
Disney Puzzle	$1.18	6/6/2022
Autumn Puzzle	$1.18	6/13/2022
Bridge Puzzle	$1.18	6/13/2022
Cash	$32.84