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April 23, 2023 – Another Sale


I sold the Flower Vase for $46 in just over a week. I made a mistake on the amount of shipping I needed for it, but still ended up making as much money as the item I bought. The amount of profit on the flower vase was $16.07 in 9 days. This is another phenomenal flip for me because I’m able to go reinvest the money very quickly again.

I went out a couple of days after I sold the flower vase to try and find an item with the amount I had to get another double on what I have to reinvest. I found two potential good flips, one was a handheld steam cleaner and another was an older tape deck receiver.

Flower Vase
Flower Vase

I looked at the market for both of them and the tape deck was a very big potential flip for me. It costs $27.70, and I saw a couple that had sold for over $250. I took the tape deck home and tested it out. Unfortunately, it did not work properly.

In this scenario I can take it to get fixed, or return the item. I choose the second option because I don’t have any idea what it would cost me to get it fixed. I could have also figured out how to fix it. There is always a way to maximize the potential resell, if you want put in the time

However, I’m not looking to learn to fix it at this flip price point, or pay someone to fix, because I don’t think it’s worth the effort and money yet. It certainly could get to the point where it’s worth it for me to fix an item.

For example, if I could buy a guitar for $500 that sold for $1500, and needed $300 of repairs I would certainly do that. This may well happen as I continue to move along in my flipping journey.

After returning the item I need to reinvest $35.20 to be fully invested. I’m creeping up on a year of my changejarflip experiment and am excited to see where I’ll be in that amount of time.

I’ve been doing some thinking and research for where I’m going to try and focus moving forward with the thoughts of how I want to do this. My goals are to not grow the number of items I have in my inventory beyond what I currently have, and maximize the potential profit I’m making on the limited number of items I’ll have in my inventory. The is so much potential in this as I continue to move forward.

Current Inventory

ItemCostDate PurchasedSoldProfit
Ireland Puzzle$3.456/27/22
NFL Puzzle$2.376/27/22
Animal puzzle #1$1.186/29/22
Animal puzzle #2$1.186/29/22
3 Hole Punch$1.186/29/22
Serving Dish and Bowl$9.297/20/22
*Star Wars Puzzle$2.377/25/22
Star Wars Puzzle$1.188/31/22
Animal Puzzle$1.188/31/22
Animal Puzzle$1.188/31/22
*2 Coca Cola Puzzles$6.919/13/22
*Christmas Coffee Cup$1.189/13/22
*Stapler and Stapler remover$.549/26/22
*Floral Plate$2.719/26/22
*Old Spice Cologne bottle$3.259/26/22
*Wood block set- kid’s toy$2.179/26/22
*Japanese Stein 1$3.259/26/22
*Japanese Stein 2$4.339/26/22
*Satellite Puzzle$2.3711/28/22
*Tealight$2.3711/30/22
*Board Game$3.781/4/23
*Painter’s puzzle$3.781/30/23
*Roblox characters$5.941/30/23
*New Hard Drive$5.942/9/23
*Logitech Ergonomic Mouse 1$10.272/9/23
*Antique? vase$8.112/21/23
*Teapot$5.943/3/23
*Yamaha Receiver$14.713/13/23
*Antique Plates$7.563/19/23
*Marriage book/game$8.113/24/23
*Rollerblades$16.774/1/23
*Granite Cutting Blades (6)$48.654/4/23
*TI BA II Plus calculator$5.944/5/23
*Flower vase$13.524/5/234/14/23$16.07
*Airequipt slide projector$11.464/10/23
*Crystal bowl$5.944/10/23
*Perfume bottle$8.114/10/23
*Traumlicht candle holder$3.784/10/23
*BOSE Alarm Clock with remote$32.994/11/23
*Tape Deck-Returned$04/17/234/19/23$0
Underinvested$35.20
Total inventory amount$293.37
*Indicates purchased from Profit

April 13, 2023- Inventory Update


I have taken the time to get myself almost fully invested again with inventory. I bought eight separate items, with one of them having six of the same item.

The first item bought was a granite cutting blade and I found six of them, brand new. I paid a total of $48.65 for the six of them, or $8.11 each. These type of blades retail for over $50 new online. When all six of these sell it could turn into $200 profit from them alone. I continue to find great deals at Goodwill, and this one will hopefully not dissappoint as they are sold.

The next item I got was a TI BA II plus calculator for $5.94. I bought this because I have used this type of calculator since college and they are really great for what they do. As well, it looked like I could make around 50% on my money on this flip and there were a decent amount of them sold recently.

On the same visit there was a floral, gold looking vase I picked up. It is an interesting looking vase and I found a match for it on the manufacturer’s website for $70 retail. I bought it for $13.52, or 20% of retail, which has worked out for me based on percentages many times. I have found if I can buy for under 25% of retail the majority of the time I will be able sell an item an make money. I can normally list it for 50% of retail and get a sale out of it. This is not always the case, but with something in very good condition as long as the market is not flooded it is a fairly safe flip.

Flower Vase

The fourth item I bought was a slide projector for $11.46. I have never flipped a projector before, but looking online some of this brand, Airequipt, sale for over $60, if they work properly. This is another good potential flip for me and could bring in over $35 in profit, when it sales.

The fifth and sixth items I bought were on a hunch they could be worth enough to make them flips. I normally like to be able to confirm my flips are going to be reasonable when I buy them, because it reduces the amount of risk I am taking. Every once in a while though I will buy without researching to see if I can select something purely off of a hunch. At this point in flipping as many items as I have since I started I wanted to see if I could pick a couple which would make money. I won’t do this often, but a large part of what I am doing at this point is making sure I am enjoying flipping items. I did research on them once I had time and the first one was a perfume bottle I paid $8.11 for, and the second is a crystal bowl with inlaid red designs I paid $5.94 for. I have both of them listed to be able to double my money on them. I don’t know the manufacturer for them and I will see what happens. Based on my research I have a better chance of making more on the bowl than the perfume bottle.

The seventh item was a candle holder by the same manufacturer I have bought in changejarflip.com and knew the range of amounts they sell for. I paid $3.78 and have it price to double my money. It is a Traumlicht candle holder.

The last item is a BOSE alarm clock which sales for over $125 online used. I had to buy a remote to go with it and am waiting for it so I can sell the parts of it all together. I spent $32.99 for the BOSE and remote. I’ve never bought the additional parts for something like this before, but had no way to tell if it worked without one. If it does not function properly I can still sell it and make a little bit of profit either way. If it does work I can turn my $33 into over $100.

I am underinvested by $5.61 currently and am not going to go look for more items till something else sales. I like to be able to have at least $20 to reinvest each time at this point in case I find a higher cost item to flip. As well, the number of items in my inventory is about as large as I want it to be. I have 38 items for sale right now and don’t want to get anymore. I just don’t want to end up having things I am selling take up a bunch of space.

Current Inventory

ItemCostDate PurchasedSoldProfit
Ireland Puzzle$3.456/27/22
NFL Puzzle$2.376/27/22
Animal puzzle #1$1.186/29/22
Animal puzzle #2$1.186/29/22
3 Hole Punch$1.186/29/22
Serving Dish and Bowl$9.297/20/22
*Star Wars Puzzle$2.377/25/22
Star Wars Puzzle$1.188/31/22
Animal Puzzle$1.188/31/22
Animal Puzzle$1.188/31/22
*2 Coca Cola Puzzles$6.919/13/22
*Christmas Coffee Cup$1.189/13/22
*Stapler and Stapler remover$.549/26/22
*Floral Plate$2.719/26/22
*Old Spice Cologne bottle$3.259/26/22
*Wood block set- kid’s toy$2.179/26/22
*Japanese Stein 1$3.259/26/22
*Japanese Stein 2$4.339/26/22
*Satellite Puzzle$2.3711/28/22
*Tealight$2.3711/30/22
*Board Game$3.781/4/23
*Painter’s puzzle$3.781/30/23
*Roblox characters$5.941/30/23
*New Hard Drive$5.942/9/23
*Logitech Ergonomic Mouse 1$10.272/9/23
*Antique? vase$8.112/21/23
*Teapot$5.943/3/23
*Yamaha Receiver$14.713/13/23
*Antique Plates$7.563/19/23
*Marriage book/game$8.113/24/23
*Rollerblades$16.774/1/23
*Granite Cutting Blades (6)$48.654/4/23
*TI BA II Plus calculator$5.944/5/23
*Flower vase$13.524/5/23
*Airequipt slide projector$11.464/10/23
*Crystal bowl$5.944/10/23
*Perfume bottle$8.114/10/23
*Traumlicht candle holder$3.784/10/23
*BOSE Alarm Clock with remote$32.994/11/23
Underinvested$5.61
Total inventory amount$277.30
*Indicates purchased from Profit

April 3, 2023- More Sales and Inventory


Since my last update I have bought three more items and sold four items. I have bought two decorative plates which appear to be antiques, after I did research on them. I bought them for a total of $7.56 and others have sold for around $80 each online. I currently have them listed at $145 for both, which could end up turning into my largest flip in changejarflip to this point. I continue to be amazed by the high dollar value of some of the items I am finding in my local Goodwill. I will say Goodwill has been a real eye opener for me on low cost items I did not expect with such high value, at times. It has given me the gambit of items to buy to be able to build up the inventory amount.

Antique Plates bought 3/19/23

The second item I purchased was a marriage advice game and book combo. I paid $8.11 for this item and it looks like I can make 60% on the amount I have put into it. This one is a little below where I would like to be selling inventory items, but I have not been dedicating much time to finding items and thought this was a good one to keep things going with the money I need to reinvest.

The third item I purchased was a set of roller blades. I paid $16.77 with the expectation to be able to double my money on them. This is another good flip, and I found them in less then five minutes in Goodwill. My whole thing right now is to be able to find items in a short amount of time to keep the overall amount of effort involved in this low and show just how much can be earned with minimal effort.

When I view this from an hourly rate on what I have been buying lately, and the expected returns I am getting well over $20 an hour which will should continue to grow my initial investment well for a long time. I break the hourly in the following way. It takes me at most 10 minutes to find an item, and I am looking to make at least $10 on them in average now. It will then take me less than five minutes to get it online and less than five minutes to package it up and drop it off. All said and done I should be 20 minutes or less on each item I end up flipping. At $10 profit an item I should easily make $20 an hour or more.

Sales for this period

I sold the Iowa puzzle, Butter tray, DVD, and the 2 Hot Wheels all this past week between 3/31 to 4/2/23.

The Butter tray I bought for $10.27 and ended up making $13.24 of profit from it. This was another very quick buy and flip situation with me having bought it on March 8th and selling it on March 31st. This type of flip is what I am trying to focus on moving forward for a while.

The Iowa puzzle was a very small loser for me. I paid $1.18 for it and lost $.05 when all the shipping and fees were done. I am ok with this loss at this point, because the puzzles helped me get this experiment going they are no longer the driver I need to continue to grow my overall inventory value. As well, a $.05 loss on the $1.18 makes me know I have my shipping costs estimated fairly well moving forward. I have reduced the price down on many of my initial items to try and get them to move so I don’t have to deal with making smaller amounts of profit as much, and can move into the higher priced items.

The DVD was another expected fast flip for me, or I would have not bought it, and it did not disappoint in the speed. I bought it on March 1st for $2.15 and sold it on March 31st and made $2.09 profit. An almost doubling of my amount I put into it is always the result I am looking for on the lower amount flips at the minimum.

The 2 Hot Wheels were bought on August 3rd of last year for $2.10 and sold on April 2nd making me $1.70 of profit. At the time I bought these in a grocery store to show you can find items to flip in almost any type of store, and this proves my point in a simple way. I made 81% on my money in eight months. An annual return would work out to over 100% in 12 months.

I know have made over $240 in profit since I started at the end of last June. I will be at a year in the next couple of months and want to have the $136.58 I need to reinvest back into items so I can see how much can be done in one year. I am still very happy with how this has went.

Current Inventory

ItemCostDate PurchasedSoldProfit
Ireland Puzzle$3.456/27/22
NFL Puzzle$2.376/27/22
Animal puzzle #1$1.186/29/22
Animal puzzle #2$1.186/29/22
Iowa Puzzle$1.186/29/223/31/23-$.05
3 Hole Punch$1.186/29/22
Serving Dish and Bowl$9.297/20/22
*Star Wars Puzzle$2.377/25/22
*2 Hot Wheels$2.108/3/224/2/23$1.70
Star Wars Puzzle$1.188/31/22
Animal Puzzle$1.188/31/22
Animal Puzzle$1.188/31/22
*2 Coca Cola Puzzles$6.919/13/22
*Christmas Coffee Cup$1.189/13/22
*Stapler and Stapler remover$.549/26/22
*Floral Plate$2.719/26/22
*Old Spice Cologne bottle$3.259/26/22
*Wood block set- kid’s toy$2.179/26/22
*Japanese Stein 1$3.259/26/22
*Japanese Stein 2$4.339/26/22
*Satellite Puzzle$2.3711/28/22
*Tealight$2.3711/30/22
*Board Game$3.781/4/23
*Painter’s puzzle$3.781/30/23
*Roblox characters$5.941/30/23
*New Hard Drive$5.942/9/23
*Logitech Ergonomic Mouse 1$10.272/9/23
*Antique? vase$8.112/21/23
*DVD$2.153/1/233/31/23$2.09
*Teapot$5.943/3/23
*Butter tray$10.273/8/233/31/23$13.24
*Yamaha Receiver$14.713/13/23
*Antique Plates$7.563/19/23
*Marriage book/game$8.113/24/23
*Rollerblades$16.774/1/23
Underinvested $136.58
Total inventory amount$260.89
*Indicates purchased from Profit

The Intelligent Investor by Graham & Dodd- Book to Read


Reading is one of the most important things you can do to increase your knowledge about the world and how to think about investing in anything available. My favorite book all time about investing is the Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. This book explains how to think about buying stocks to obtain a margin of safety as the core idea. If you read this book, you will understand concepts which have worked for a very long period of time in terms of determining the value of an asset.

Benjamin Graham

Benjamin Graham was the definitive “founder” of value investing over seventy years ago at this point, and there are numerous articles about how he was the teacher of Warren Buffett, who is considered the greatest investor of his time by many, including me. Graham taught a class at Columbia in investing and was able to write the Intelligent Investor along with David L. Dodd. He was a person who had an extreme interest in learning his whole life which allowed him to create a framework for analyzing stocks in a way which was more formulaic and allowed for a real evaluation of the companies he was looking at.

About the Book

This book is twenty chapters which all offer a great thought process about different ideas depending on what type of investor you are mainly defensive or enterprising. The most important chapters in the book cover Margin of Safety in chapter 20, and Chapter 8, Mr. Market and Fluctuations. If you understand these two chapters well, you will be far ahead of most people who are doing investing in stocks on their own. Warren Buffett has talked about these being the two most important chapters to understand from the book.

As well, there is a very interesting appendix in the book which covers a talk by Warren Buffett where he goes into detail about how some of the students of Benjamin Graham went on to be very successful in the world of investing and gives their results for each year, they operated investment funds with annual returns over time.

I have read this book three times over the past couple of decades and return to it again over time to make sure my thinking is still being solid, and I am applying the fundamentals with the margin of safety at the forefront of my mind. I am sure I will read this book more times over the years. It just contains so much good information which still applies even all of these years later. Even more important is the how Graham leads the reader to think about concepts against examples of companies in the book in whatever version you are reading in a way which make you examine a stock in an effective way.

The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham and David Dood
The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

Why The Intelligent Investor is Applicable to Flipping

When making a decision to buy anything you expect to sell later for more money you need to think if the price you are paying for the item is a good value compared to what you can sell it for at a later time. This is the core principle I take when doing a flip. I always think of my margin of safety when I make a purchase which is taught in this book in Chapter 20 and can be applied to any type of investment. There is a saying in the book that if you talk to someone about buying an item for $.40 on the dollar, they immediately get it or normally it will be hard for them to accept that concept.

An example of this is when I bought a coffee grinder for $5.94 and ended up making a profit of $45.36 on it. My margin of safety on this item was extremely high when I purchased it. I arrived it this by knowing the brand was a highly desirable one and could see other items selling for an extremely large margin. I knew when it sold the possibility I would lose money was highly unlikely. The thing I didn’t know was when it would sell, which is the same thing you wouldn’t know when you buy an undervalued stock. The other thing I do which is in the same thought process Graham shows in the book is diversifying my buys across multiple items that allows my possibility of overall success in a year or longer at a very high rate.

Never stop learning and keep on reading!

March 18, 2023 – Sales and New Items


I sold the coffee maker I purchased recently for $89.99 on March 12th. After all the shipping and fees I ended up making almost $40 on this flip. With this flip it puts me having made over $200 since I started flipping my change jar coins at the end of June of last year.

I’m pretty amazed I was able to make this amount of profit this quickly. I thought I might be able to make double my initial amount in a year and have turned the amount I had into over $100 in inventory with me buying the items I did initially to get all invested. The first sales I had really helped to grow the amount and the first big profit off of the coffee grinder has made this easier to make more moving forward and some good luck along the way is definitely working together.

I have not been able to get all the profit reinvested back into items at this point. I purchased a metal cupcake tray, a butter tray, and another receiver. Just like the coffee grinder, I got a bid the first day the cupcake tray went live online. I ended up selling it on March 17th for $21.24 and made $5.60 of profit from it. I paid $10.27 for it and made over 50% in just eight days. The speed at which items are selling has been something I haven’t expected. I thought I would be selling around one item a month but I am getting close to one item a week. In the month of March I’ve sold five items already.

Cupcake Tray

I ended up also selling two other items since my last update. I sold the book one, two, three infinity and the snowglobe. I ended up only making $.02 on the book, because I had the amount of fees off as a percentage I was required to pay on a book. My previous experience of flipping books has taught me books are a way you can go, but the market is much tougher for these now than when I was selling them. I won’t likely sell any more books, because the margins are going to be too low and I need to invest too much now.

I sold the snowglobe for $28.00 plus shipping. Once everything was all calculated I ended up making $18.17 of profit on this. The snowglobe ends up being a very good flip with me having bought it for $3.45. I made 5.26 times my initial money in profit in just over four months. Rough math for annual return would be 5.26 times 3 for 15 times the amount invested which would be over $50. This shows again how starting with a small amount can turn into something much bigger.

I need to reinvest $136.22 to have all the profit I’ve made in inventory to flip. This would put me at $260.89 of inventory. My current profit is at $224.51 and I am going to try to see if I can do some very quick flips through craigslist to push the total amount to $500 as fast as possible. I don’t know how this will go, but I’m interested to see what will happen. The first receiver I sold on craigslist showed me there is a lot of possibilites in quick flips on it.

Current Inventory

ItemCostDate PurchasedSoldProfit
Ireland Puzzle$3.456/27/22
NFL Puzzle$2.376/27/22
Animal puzzle #1$1.186/29/22
Animal puzzle #2$1.186/29/22
Iowa Puzzle$1.186/29/22
3 Hole Punch$1.186/29/22
Serving Dish and Bowl$9.297/20/22
*Star Wars Puzzle$2.377/25/22
*2 Hot Wheels$2.108/3/22
Star Wars Puzzle$1.188/31/22
Animal Puzzle$1.188/31/22
Animal Puzzle$1.188/31/22
*2 Coca Cola Puzzles$6.919/13/22
*Christmas Coffee Cup$1.189/13/22
*Stapler and Stapler remover$.549/26/22
*Floral Plate$2.719/26/22
*Old Spice Cologne bottle$3.259/26/22
*Wood block set- kid’s toy$2.179/26/22
*Japanese Stein 1$3.259/26/22
*Japanese Stein 2$4.339/26/22
*One, two, three infinity$1.0710/19/223/7/23$.02
*Satellite Puzzle$2.3711/28/22
*Snowglobe$3.4511/30/223/17/23$18.17
*Tealight$2.3711/30/22
*Board Game$3.781/4/23
*Painter’s puzzle$3.781/30/23
*Roblox characters$5.941/30/23
*New Hard Drive$5.942/9/23
*Logitech Ergonomic Mouse 1$10.272/9/23
*Antique? vase$8.112/21/23
*DVD$2.153/1/23
*Coffee Maker$7.353/3/233/12/23$39.85
*Teapot$5.943/3/23
*Butter tray$10.273/8/23
*Cupcake tray$10.273/9/233/17/23$5.60
*Yamaha Receiver$14.713/13/23
Underinvested $136.33
Total inventory amount$260.89
*Indicates purchased from Profit

March 3, 2023 – New Inventory and a Quick Sale


I have bought four items since my last post, buy have not fully reinvested the amount I have available. I purchased two higher cost items, a receiver and a coffee maker. I also purchased a DVD, which I did not expect to buy because the resell probability looked high on it in a short time frame. The last item I purchased was a teapot.

The coffee maker looked like another big potential winner for me and was priced at $13.59 but was 50% off on the day I found it. It was $7.36 with tax after the discount. I saw two of the same models which have sold for $100 and $150. I listed it for $89.99 to try and get a quick sell. By the end of the day on which I bought it there was already a bid on it for $89.99. As long as it gets paid for and if there are no more bids I will make over $40 in profit, off of this coffee maker flip. I continue to have good luck in finding items which I’m making big returns on very quickly.

The two items are all set for me to double my money on based on the prices I bought them at. I am starting to look at ways of seeking some of these items through different methods. The DVD costs $2.15 and the teapot costs me $5.94.

Sony Receiver

I am going to try and move the receiver I bought on through Craigslist. I’ve not sold much stuff through it, but it is worth a try to see how it goes. I paid $27.70 for it and would prefer not to have to ship it because of the weight. The good thing about flipping is there are always many different places to sell the things you find.

Sony Receiver

I ended up selling the receiver on 3/6/23 through Craigslist for $40. This was a quick flip in under a week from buying it. I made $12.30 in a week off of this, and made 44% on it in a week. With a turnover rate of 52 times in a year this would be another situation where I could not reinvest the new amount enough to continue this over and over. I might be able to to reinvest around the $27 mark 52 times in a year though and make 40% each time. This could still be a phenomenal annual return anyway. Running the math on this I could do 40% times 52 times $27 to start with would be $576 of profit. Again, the power of small amounts turning into something that could matter to someone.

At this point I’ve made $160.88 of profit since I started my changejarflip on June 29th. I did not think I would be able to get to this much profit this quickly, but that is why I wanted to try this to turn it into something substantial. I need to reinvest $85.81 to be fully invested again. If the coffee maker sells, I will need to invest over $125, and will have 32 items in my inventory. I am going to have to move into higher priced items to keep the profit amount fully invested. I’ll update again when I have another sale.

Current Inventory

ItemCostDate PurchasedSoldProfit
Ireland Puzzle$3.456/27/22
NFL Puzzle$2.376/27/22
Animal puzzle #1$1.186/29/22
Animal puzzle #2$1.186/29/22
Iowa Puzzle$1.186/29/22
3 Hole Punch$1.186/29/22
Serving Dish and Bowl$9.297/20/22
*Star Wars Puzzle$2.377/25/22
*2 Hot Wheels$2.108/3/22
Star Wars Puzzle$1.188/31/22
Animal Puzzle$1.188/31/22
Animal Puzzle$1.188/31/22
*2 Coca Cola Puzzles$6.919/13/22
*Christmas Coffee Cup$1.189/13/22
*Stapler and Stapler remover$.549/26/22
*Floral Plate$2.719/26/22
*Old Spice Cologne bottle$3.259/26/22
*Wood block set- kid’s toy$2.179/26/22
*Japanese Stein 1$3.259/26/22
*Japanese Stein 2$4.339/26/22
*One, two, three infinity$1.0710/19/22
*Satellite Puzzle$2.3711/28/22
*Snowglobe$3.4511/30/22
*Tealight$2.3711/30/22
*Board Game$3.781/4/23
*Painter’s puzzle$3.781/30/23
*Roblox characters$5.941/30/23
*New Hard Drive$5.942/9/23
*Logitech Ergonomic Mouse 1$10.272/9/23
*Antique? vase$8.112/21/23
*DVD$2.153/1/23
*Coffee Maker$7.353/3/23
*Teapot$5.943/3/23
*Sony Receiver$27.702/28/233/6/23$12.30
Underinvested $85.81
Total inventory amount$197.26
*Indicates purchased from Profit