I’ve made almost two hundred dollars since the end of April, and have bought 3 more shares of British American Tobacco with some of the profit. With these two shares my total cost is $271.27 and average price per share is $30.14. This now puts me at a total where the dividends I will receive each year moving forward are more than I started with two years ago. I’m going to wait to do the full months update for all the buy and sales in the inventory at the end of the month, but I feel like I’ve reached a mini milestone in my changejarflip experiment at this point.
As well, Verizon paid a dividend and I now have more shares from the reinvestment of what I received. I got .017 more shares on the first lot I had, and .016 on the other three shares I had each.
The dividend amount I will receive a year moving forward sits at:
Verizon- $10.91
Altria- $3.92
British American Tobacco- $26.75
Total- $41.58
$41.58 in dividends moving forward
I expect this amount to be over $45 if all I do is reinvest the dividends by this time next year. The average yield on the amount I have invested is 8.44%. Reinvesting at this amount with no increases in the dividend amounts by any of the companies will get me to $45.
My next goal is to get to $100 a year in dividends. I don’t plan on selling any of the stocks at this time I currently own.
Stocks
*1.052 Share – Verizon
$34.43
9/29/23, Div Dates
$7.33
*1.016 Share Verizon
$39.57
1/18/24, Div Dates
$.81
*1.016 Share Verizon
$41.53
2/23/24, Div Dates
$-1.15
*1.016 Share Verizon
$40.69
2/28/24, Div Dates
$-.31
*1 Share Altria
$41.92
4/8/24
$4.41
*9 Shares British American Tobacco
$271.27 $30.14 P/S
4/23/24-5/21/24
$11.96
Total stock amount
$492.46
*Indicates purchased from Profit
April 30, 2024- Twenty percent growth in one month
I grew my overall amount by more than 20% since my last update in about one month. This can all be attributed to one great flip really. The Canon camera I bought sold for a huge $750 plus shipping making it by and far the largest flip overall in profit for me at $279.24. I sold it on April 19th and was getting a ton of traffic on it from the day I listed it. The success of the cameras I have bought and sold has been amazing. I am still learning more about them while I am flipping to make myself better able to pick up these items.
I also sold the Madden games and lost $.33. I knew the margin would be thin, but wanted to test out some video games. I’ll try some more in this area, because I should be able to move them fairly consistently. I don’t like having inventory that doesn’t sell.
I sold three of the knives and made $.24 on them. I know my buy point for these much better now next time I see some knives, which is around $5-$6 each because they get good views, but the amount of profit would be couple of dollars at that level. I know there are other things I can buy at this price point and double my money more easily. As well, I don’t know much about them and one I sold the customer told me I listed the wrong knife. They weren’t upset so I could have sold a knife which was worth a lot more, or sold them something they still liked. Either way I would need to niche down in this area to be proficient and I already know a good amount about some niches to make money in consistently. Unless I see a really good deal I won’t buy knives again.
I sold the Bass Drum Pedal and made $16.70 on it. This is again a good flip and turned $8.11 into $24.81. Small amounts can turn into something good.
I sold the Fireproof DVD set for $8.50 and made $.83 after shipping. This goes back to my old days of flipping books. This can be a consistent winner if I were to inventory up in this area only. I’ve been buying some books with really good multiples lately, but it is likely not the best use of my resources overall. However, an easy flip is an easy flip.
Last I sold one of the t-shirts I bought at the garage sale for $8.99 plus shipping and made $6.85 of profit. This turned $1 into $7.85. Garage sales are definitely a place of so much value if someone wanted to take a small amount and build it as fast as possible. I know there are people who specialize in clothing only at the $1 price point with large inventories who absolutelty crush it in the flipping arena.
Thought Experiment of Flipping One Dollar T-Shirts
Let me delve into this a little bit. Let’s say I took $500 and planned on paying $1 at garage sales till I had used all of my money on inventory. What do I think would happen.
I would have to get lucky to ever get all my initial $500 invested before I made sales. You might be able to buy 100 shirts in your first weekend, unless you put in a bunch of hours your first weekend, and there were enough garage sales close to you.
Once I had 500 t-shirts I would have around $3500 in potential value after fees and shipping to customers.
Next, I would want to list the 500 as fast a possible. 15 a day till they are all online.
Then, I would get on a consistent posting cadence on ebay and try and list at least 5 a day. I’ll get more views this way.
Sale through rate would hopefully be 10% of my inventory a month. At 500 I would sale around 50 a month. This would be $350 a month rough profit off of $500. I might need a small storage unit where they are. I’ll take out $80 a month for this. That is a winner. Around $3200 a year with no risk after two months, because I got my money back. It would be a good hourly rate too after the initial ramp up because I would need to get 50 to replace those I sell.
I may have just talked myself into doing this.
If I were to restart changejarflip I would take my initial money and just go to garage sales over and over at first. Most people just want to be rid of what they have and you could pick up stuff for a $1 or less or even free and build it up quickly. I could do the t-shirt flip build up and cash in a nice amount a month.
Buys
I bought three items on April 29th, a book, a Craftsman Weedeater, and an old Singer Sewing Machine from Goodwill.
I also put some of my profits into shares of dividend paying stocks. I bought one share of Altria, and six shares of British American Tobacco. I think British American Tobacco is extremely undervalued at this time and the dividend amount equates to over a 10% yield.
I am trying to build up an amount of recurring passive income as this goes along to show how I can sell things and turn them into a change jar which refills without me having to make that happen. My first goal is to get this to $36.38 a year, which I could right now, if I bought a little more British American Tobacco, but I want to see if I can find some more cameras first to sell and want the money I have in case they are expensive, like the Canon was. I am underinvested $540.40 currently.
Closing price as of today for the three stock I own : Note Verizon pays a dividend on May 1st, which I will reinvest in more Verizon shares.
Since my last update in March I have been making lots of buys, sales and profit.
I returned the Whisky Puzzle, because it was not complete.
I was sitting on $957.55 at the end of my last update. Later the same day after I updated I sold the last William Morris Queen Duvet I had for $87.25 and made $24.25 in profit. This put me at $981.80 overall.
On March 18th I sold the Sims video games and made $8.23 of profit. This put me at $990.03 overall.
On March 19th I sold the Steve Jobs book and made $2.58 of profit and put me at $992.61.
On March 22nd I sold the Nintendo Wii U I had picked up from the pawn shop for $130 plus shipping and made $48.73, which was my second largest profit amount to date, to bring me to a total of $1041.34. I was very excited to have grown this to what it has become in just over 21 months. Boom!
On March 25th, I sold a K2 Kickboard I had picked up for $8.11 at Goodwill for $41 plus shipping and made a profit of $25.85. This put me at $1067.19.
K2 Kickboard
On March 26th, I sold one of the knives I bought and lost $4.13, putting me at $1063.06.
On March 28th, I sold the book “Shoe Dog” by Phil Knight, which I paid $2.15 for, and made $2.14 putting me at $1065.20.
On March 28th, I also sold a Nikon camera I bought at a pawn shop for $244.65 for $370 plus shipping and made my largest profit ever of $90.64. This surprised me there was that much potential value just sitting there. I had bought the camera on March 20th and it took me a while to learn how to validate everything was working correctly on it. I picked up some new knowledge which can be used moving forward. This should benefit me over the long term as I learn more this area. Time to do more research and learn more. I was now at $1155.84 overall.
If I could consistently get these items I could make a $1000 a year very easily. As a side note I’ve been getting cash back on everything I’ve bought. If I wanted to add in the 1% I’m getting it would make all of this just a little bit more profitable. I am not going to add this back in to what I’m doing because I didn’t plan on any of that in what I was doing.
As well, on March 28th I sold a Matco product I paid $80 for and made $26.17 of profit. This put me at $1182.01 overall.
On March 29th, I sold another camera I bought for $94.99 and made $85.60. This second sale of a camera is making me feel like I’m in the right spot. This put me at $1267.61 overall.
I had sold the Craftsman Nailer I bought from the pawn shop which got returned on April 1st, because the customer said it didn’t work. I am not sure they were telling the truth, because I had tested it. I will record a video of me using it and relist it, but I lost $8.59 for the return shipping, so I dropped down to $1259.02.
On April 3rd, I sold two of the Hobart cutting tips and made $6.19 of profit. This ended up putting me at $1265.21. I’m not sure where I got off but to reconcile to my tracking spreadsheet I was off by $.13 so I was at $1259.39.
I am up $19.28 on my Verizon as of today which puts my grand total up to $1,278.67.
Additional adds to my inventory since last time are: a Pole Saw, a book, another camera which costs $403, and five t-shirts from a garage sale. I currently underinvested $15.57. I added the t-shirts because I am trying to keep my listing cadence going at a good pace.
I have absolutely had an awesome few weeks at this with the advent of picking up items at pawn shops and taking some risks. I’m just enjoying this so much right now. I’ll probably pick up another share of a stock once I get around another $40 to invest. I’m likely going to buy something different than Verizon this time, because it is getting closer to my potential sale point of $60 a share and the dividend yield I am getting is going down.
Inventory
I am going to start possibly consolidating some buys as I move forward, because I feel like this part of the updates is getting tedious.
I have sold six items since my update at the end of February. I bought a lot of items, twenty, since then and have went for a large ramp up, because I am trying to get to $1000 overall as fast as possible. To try and accomplish I’m going to learn some stuff about new types of items in the process.
Sales
I sold a set of one of the Granite Cutting Blades and made $11.72 in profit. I sold one of the Hobart Propane Cutting tips and made $1.67. I sold two sets of Ralph Lauren sheets and made $21.11 in profit. I sold a DVD I bought and made $1.16 profit. I sold the Painter’s puzzle and made $7.24 in profit. I made a total of $42.90 in profit on these items and had a cost of $121.48 in them.
I sold a couple of older items in the Granite Cutting Blade and the Painter’s Puzzle, which makes me happy to move some items that are over a year old sell. To get these older items sold is good to keep more turnover of older items I hope will happen soon. I have started doing promoted listings to try and get the older items to move faster.
Purchases
I went to two different pawn shops and Goodwill to pick up the twenty items I got. They included some DVDs, Video games, comic books, knives, Nintendo Wii U console, and two pairs of shoes.
Kershaw Knife
I am trying to list an item a day for as long as I’ve got new inventory to get the sites I’m selling on giving me more impressions on my items.
I don’t know much about knives and will likely lose money on some of them, but want to pay for some education on what is out there. I am thinking about dedicating a certain number of hours a week to get a lot of consistency with this. I am really enjoying flipping recently.
Inventory
Item
Cost
Date Purchased
Sold
Profit
NFL Puzzle
$3.45
6/27/22
Serving Dish and Bowl
$9.29
7/20/22
*2 Coca Cola Puzzles
$6.91
9/13/22
*Floral Plate
$2.71
9/26/22
*Old Spice Cologne bottle
$3.25
9/26/22
*Wood block set- kid’s toy
$2.17
9/26/22
*Japanese Stein 1
$4.33
9/26/22
*Satellite Puzzle
$2.37
11/28/22
*Board Game
$3.78
1/4/23
*Painter’s puzzle
$3.78
1/30/23
3/13/24
$7.24
*Antique? vase
$8.11
2/21/23
*Antique Plates
$7.56
3/19/23
*Rollerblades
$16.77
4/1/23
*Granite Cutting Blades (1)
$8.11
4/4/23
3/1/24
$11.72
*Granite Cutting Blades (4)
$32.43
4/4/23
*Crystal bowl
$5.94
4/10/23
*Perfume bottle
$8.11
4/10/23
*Casserole dish
$8.11
5/17/23
*Nike Air Jordan V.5 Canvas
$27.11
5/22/23
* Air Jordan Flight Remix Wolf Grey
$42.50
5/24/23
*Coffee Cup- Floral
$2.70
6/20/23
*Twin Duvet Set
$25.98
6/21/23
*Skateboard
$8.11
7/26/23
*Queen Sheet Set Brown and White Plaid
$64.94
8/23/23
*Accounting Book
$6.27
9/6/23
*Brooks Brothers Sheet Set
$12.99
9/8/23
*1.035 Share – Verizon
$33.75
9/29/23, Div Dates
$7.18
*William Morris Queen Duvet
$54.11
12/13/23
*Peter Reed Reina Blue King Duvet
$42.22
1/3/24
*Peter Reed Reina Blue King Duvet
$42.22
1/10/24
*1 Share Verizon
$38.92
1/18/24
$.57
*Ralph Lauren White Twin Sheet Set
$31.39
1/24/24
3/6/24
$9.56
*Ralph Lauren King Blue Floral Sheet Set
$75.76
1/31/24
3/7/24
$11.56
*Hobart Cutting Tip
$1.35
2/2/24
3/2/24
$1.67
*Hobart Cutting Tips
$9.48
2/2/24
*Ralph Lauren Queen Green Teal Sheet Set
$64.94
2/5/24
*1 Share Verizon
$40.88
2/23/24
$-1.39
*Steve Jobs by Walter Issacson
$3.24
*Whisky Puzzle
$3.78
*PDP Bass Drum Pedal
$8.11
*Cabbage Patch Kid
$3.78
*1 Share Verizon
$40.04
2/28/24
-$.55
*James Michener Centennial DVD
$1.08
3/1/24
3/12/24
$1.16
*Madden 15,16,17,18 Xbox
$4.29
3/1/24
*The Sims 3
$2.16
3/1/24
*Matthew Lesko DVD
$1.08
3/1/24
*RNs DVD
$1.08
3/1/24
*Fireproof DVD set
$1.08
3/1/24
*Adidas Nastate Size 13
$16.77
3/2/24
*Comics (23)
$21.43
3/5/24
*Pocket Knives
$60.62
3/6/24
*Nintendo Wii U Console
$68.18
3/6/24
*Utawareumono DVD
$1.08
3/6/24
*Nike Aunt Pearl Size 7.5 with box
$20.57
3/6/24
*Craftsman Brad Nailer
$43.30
3/6/24
Underinvested
$12.57
Total inventory amount
$957.55
*Indicates purchased from Profit
February 29, 2024- Three Sells, Verizon Shares, etc
A lot has happened since my last update. I sold three items, bought two shares of Verizon, and both five new items.
The first item I sold was the William Morris King Sheet Set for $85.00 and I ended up making $23.69 in profit off of it. This is a very good flip for me. I somehow lost this item on my table when I was doing updates on this blog. I keep a separate spreadsheet to track what I am doing and have added it back in here to be accurate. William Morris items kept on making the flip game work.
The second item I sold was a Motley Crue DVD I bought on February 25th and sold it on February 26th and made $.99 of profit. The crazy fast flips always make me just laugh because I’m amazed when they happen in that amount of time. I paid $2.15 for it at Goodwill when I picked up two other items at the same time. I picked up a Steve Jobs book and a Whisky puzzle.
The third item I sold was one of the Ralph Lauren sheet sets I bought on February 5th. This is a very quick flip and I have had success in getting value out of these brand of sheets over the years. I ended up making $15.84 in profit after I paid $75.76 for the king sheet set. I made less than I wanted to but a quick flip keeps me in a good spot.
King Sheet Set Ralph Lauren Green Teal
Verizon Shares
After selling the above items I had the money to go ahead, and bought two more shares of Verizon which puts me at $10.73 a year in dividend income. I’m going to make almost 30% of what I started with, $36.38, a year now by doing absolutely nothing. Twenty years from now this will be more than $10.73 a year because I’ll keep on reinvesting the dividends, and letting the amount grow.
Verizon was trading at $39.99 when I wrote this.
Items Bought
I also bought a PDP Bass Drum Pedal and a Cabbage Patch Kid doll on February 26th in addition to the items noted above. I am breaking part of what I thought about limiting the number of items I wanted to have in my inventory by buying these low priced items. After these purchases I still need to purchase $87.14 more to be fully invested. I have built up to $916.61 in potential value.
I made one sale on February 4th of the other William Morris King Duvet I picked up back in November, and made $18.62 profit off of it since my last update. The William Morris items I bought have been very good sellers, and I wished I would have got more of them in retrospect. However, you never know what will sell well when you buy a new brand perfectly. I look at the number sold and the amount available for sale on Ebay, and get a general idea, but am never able to tell perfectly what the best flip will be. I like it this way and there are ways out there to find out more information on the probability, but this is fun for me, and I don’t want to invest in those types of tools when I am trying to keep a small inventory amount.
I picked up four different items to get myself to the spot where I am now. I bought three sets of Ralph Lauren Sheets, because I know I have a high probability of making a good profit on them and I have rarely ever lost money selling them in the past. I would like to have found them on clearance to reduce my overall risk, but I am not putting in much time to find the best deals possible. When I go looking for something I take about ten minutes to find something or I am on my way.
Two Ralph Lauren Sheet Sets
I also found some Hobart welding cutting tips at a local pawn shop. I have sold some items from pawn shops over the years, and am trying to determine if this is a good way to get different types of items to flip. I think it could be a way for me to find higher priced items as I go. It will also require me to learn more about different items too.
Hobart #2 Propane Cutting tip
When I have around another $40 I need to reinvest I am going to buy another share of Verizon, since that is what it is trading at currently. I want to get myself to the point I am making $10 a year in passive income from this flip game off of dividends. There is no specific reason why this should be the number to get to now, other than I want to get to that point. I’ll need four shares of Verizon at its current annual dividend amount of $2.66 per share to do this. I hope to get to this point before I hit the two year mark, and should be able to do this.
