Recent Posts

February 9, 2023 – More Inventory


I found four items at Goodwill where I have found most of the items in my inventory. I ended up buying more than I had to reinvest because the items I found were likely to sell very fast and at a very good return on the amount of money I spent.

The first item is another big potential winner. It is an external hard drive and I paid $5.94 for it, and it is new, still in the sealed box. New hard drives like this one are selling for over $100 online currently. When this one item sells it will be my biggest profit maker since I started flipping my change jar money. This single item could make me more than double the amount I started with when it sells. Again this shows the power of flipping small amounts into something larger

Logitech Mouse

The next items purchased were all computer mice. These are all potential doubling of my money on them. They also have the potential to sell very quickly, which is the best case when buying an item, in my estimation. Two cost $8.11 each and one cost $10.27.

These four items cost me a total of $32.43 and currently the potential profit amount is over $110. This is right in the zone of where I want to be to keep the profit amount growing in my journey to build up the amount, I started with in my change jar. I am overinvested by $15.39 currently and will wait till enough items sell to get me back to underinvested again to buy more inventory.

When I am able to buy very profitable items with a high potential to sell quickly, I will likely not limit myself in the future if it puts me slightly overinvested. Being slightly overinvested as an amount will increase over time as the inventory amount gets larger and larger. For example, if my inventory was $10,000, I would not hesitate to put an additional $1,000 into an item I am going to flip if it would be a good profit amount. The reason is because at 10% of my total inventory to be overinvested this would still be a reasonable amount to have to fund moving forward. Also, by the time I have hit $10,000 in inventory I will have taken some money out to pay myself back for having turned my $36.38 into such a large amount.

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
*Music Equipment$43.301/4/23
*Painter’s puzzle$3.781/30/23
*Roblox characters$5.941/30/23
*New Hard Drive$5.942/9/23
*Logictech Wireless Mouse 1$8.112/9/23
*Logitech Ergonomic Mouse 1$10.272/9/23
*Microsoft Ergonomic Mouse 2$8.112/9/23
Overinvested $15.39
Total inventory amount$150.63
*Indicates purchased from Profit

Jan 30, 2023- More inventory


I purchased two more items at the same Goodwill I have purchased many of the items in the inventory. The first item I bought was another puzzle of a painter for $3.78 and it is priced to double my money currently. The second item is Roblox characters that I paid $5.94 for and will hopefully double my money on. I still need to invest $17.04 to be fully invested. At this time my potential profit on the inventory is over $150, if all the items sell. If this would occur, I would have $285 from my initial amount.

Roblox characters

I will have to buy some more items but am posting because the two items I bought are online already and there is a possibility one of them could sell before I get the remainder of the money invested. As I go along this situation will occur from time to time as I try to find good items to flip. With my inventory staying around 30 items I am trying to make sure I find the right items which allow me to double my money on a consistent basis at the minimum. If I continue to do this every time when I sell something I should be able to move into a little bit higher priced item on the next go around. This should set me up to scale the total inventory amount very quickly, like I am seeing so far since I started flipping the money in my change jar.

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
Music Album puzzle$1.186/29/221/27/22$8.38
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
*Music Equipment$43.301/4/23
*Painter’s puzzle$3.781/30/23
*Roblox characters$5.941/30/23
Underinvested $17.04
Total inventory amount$135.24
*Indicates purchased from Profit

January 27, 2023- Two More Sales


I sold two items, the Music Album Puzzle and the Gun Holder on the same day. The music album puzzle was a Pink Floyd puzzle, and the gun holder was a leather holder to help a hunter to hold a rifle while they walked around. Both of these items end up being good winners for me again.

The puzzle ended up selling for $9 and made me $8.38 of profit after I purchased shipping for it. I had increased the amount I was charging for puzzles on shipping after I lost money previously, because I was not charging enough to cover the shipping. This allowed me make a little bit more profit, because I more than covered the amount of shipping and packaging on the puzzle.

Music Album Puzzle

I ended up making 7.1 times the amount of money I paid for this puzzle. This shows how much opportunity there is to make very high returns on very small amounts which can build into a more substantial amount of money if you keep the long term in mind.

The gun holder ended selling for $20.49 and I made $14.27 profit after shipping was paid on the item. This is the same situation where the shipping was less than I had to charge for the item. I ended up selling this item for less than other sellers by about $1, and it moved like I hoped it would very quickly. I sold it in less than one month of buying it. The annual return on an item when you sell it in less than one month gets very high, like I’ve written about in many other posts. Look back at an older post where I’ve sold an item to understand the annual return on what I am doing.

I need to reinvest $26.76 to be fully invested again and will update once I have purchased the additional items needed. I am having a good run at selling items that have had a larger amount of profit compared to the amount I’ve put into them. I am not sure where the rest of the year will take me, but the growth of my initial amount to over $135 is a nice win so far, and is over 3.7 times what I started with.

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
Music Album puzzle$1.186/29/221/27/22$8.38
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
*Gun Holder$8.1112/29/221/27/23$14.27
*Board Game$3.781/4/23
*Music Equipment$43.301/4/23
Underinvested $26.76
Total inventory amount$135.24
*Indicates purchased from Profit

Long Term Thinking When Flipping


The long term is important to think about in flipping, just like it is in life overall. If you keep the long term in mind, it will help you to view each small item you buy at the beginning of an investing adventure like what I’m doing with the money from my change just to build into something which could be sizable one day. An interesting thought experiment is to think about the average life span of someone in the world at this time in the United States which currently sets at over 77 years. If someone took the $36.38, I’ve started with at age 10 and started flipping it they could have a very large sum of money if they continued to reinvest.

It would be reasonable to assume they could make at least 50 percent annually their initial investment for ten years with little difficulty. After ten years they would have $2097 and would be 20 years old. They could put this into a Roth IRA and invest it in an index fund and when they were 60, if it returned 10% annual return, they would have over $94,000 from a start of $36.38. That is the power of the long term put to use.

Growth of $36.38 at 50% over ten years.
Growth of $36.38 at 50% over ten years

Modify the scenario and build up to your $2097 and then decide to aim for a 50 percent return on the $2097 reach year and then invest the $1048 in profit into a Roth IRA again year over year and at the end of 40 years you would have over $600,000 and would have put in $41,920. Little things can build into something worthwhile if the long term is remembered. This about of money would be almost two times what the average person has saved at 60, and all it would have taken them was under $50, time, and patience over their life.

If the initial amount were grown for 14 years at 50 percent a year you would have over $10000 at the end of year 14. Getting 50 percent return on the $10000 every year of $5000, and then investing the $5000 in a Roth IRA for 36 years would give you almost $2 Million dollars. This is a sum of money which would let most people have a comfortable retirement and a good safety net in life. Remember the long term since a small amount can build financial engines which will pay off down the road. These examples don’t take into account the tax expense of earning the income from flipping. You could set a higher bar to earn $5000 after taxes and accomplish this goal.

I challenge anyone reading this to sit down with a calculator and do some simple compounding math to see what is possible if you focus on the long term with a situation like this. You would end up providing yourself with a nice return over a long period and also provide many items to people at a great value too. To me this a win for everyone involved in all the transactions you would be part of over many, many years. If you could focus on just making a solid buy each time you bought something then reinvest the profit and amount you had in the item from before you really can lead yourself into a much better financial situation. If you did this for ten years you would be amazed how much money you had at the end. If you did this for twenty years you would be more amazed, and if you could do this for the majority of your lifetime you could put yourself into a position which would have you in a place where you very well could be financially secure. Respect the long term and it will respect you.

January 4, 2023- New Inventory Purchases


I bought three more items to get the additional money invested from my last sale I had, which was the largest profit I have made on an item. I thought about what I wanted to do with the large amount at, and had a couple of different thoughts.

First, was to go out and buy multiple items all at the same price point to grow the number of items I had to increase the probability I will get sales more often. This seems like a reasonable way to go about this with what I am doing in building up from a small amount over time. However, with me being close to 30 items in my inventory already I have an expectation to sell at least one item a month at this point.

The second thought I had was to take all the profit and put it into one item and try to grow the overall amount of the value in the inventory much faster. The large amount of profit I made allows me the opportunity to try and grow the overall level much faster, if I can have a higher value item which I can flip. The reason behind this is that I can find items with a lower overall profit amount, but they will still be a larger profit amount in comparison to what I have been able to find up to this point. However, this also puts me in a position where I would need this item to sale to unlock a large portion of my inventory, or I will be waiting for another time when one of my lower priced items to sell which also has a large profit with it to be able scale larger.

After I thought about both of these options, I decided on a blend of them. The great thing in what I am doing is there is no set way to go about doing this and what I decide is really a good exercise in remembering in the long term most of the items I buy now will turn into larger and larger amounts as time goes on if I am patient.

I ended up buying three new items to get myself fully invested again. The first item I bought was a leather gun holder. It cost me $8.11 with tax and I picked it up before the year changed and have it priced to double my money. Looking at the other similar items to it online I was able to tell that these sell regularly and I have a reasonable chance to sell it fairly quickly. I will see how this turns out.

The second item was a board game in its sealed wrapping. I bought it for $3.78 and have it priced below all other offers. If it sales I can get close to doubling my money again. I don’t have any expected time frame on how long it could take to sell. Adding it into the inventory just keeps me with the expectation of one sale a month overall.

Music Equipment bought 1/4/23

The last item I bought puts me overinvested again, because I bought a piece of music equipment for $43.30. This is a far outsized purchase based on what I’ve done at this point compared to everything else I have in the inventory. I purchased this from a pawn shop after haggling the price down to a level I thought would give me a reasonable level to make money on it. I set myself with a potential profit at $15 on this item. As I wrote about before, if I can sell this item at the level it is at I can get the inventory growing fairly quickly. If I don’t sell it within three months, I will get it repriced to move so I can keep the larger amount I have invested in moving into other items. I don’t want to tie this amount up for too long without getting some turnover out of it. Turnover is where a lot of the power of flipping comes into play when added into the profit percentages. I might lose money on this item, but this is a good way to try and scale up.

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
Music Album puzzle$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
*Gun Holder$8.1112/29/22
*Board Game$3.781/4/23
*Music Equipment$43.301/4/23
Overinvested $5.18
Total inventory amount$117.77
*Indicates purchased from Profit

December 21, 2022- Sale #7 Biggest to Date


Today I sold the most profitable item to date, the Coffee Grinder. This is a huge profit maker for me in this adventure to flip a small amount of money into something larger. This sale puts me above $112 in just under six months of taking my initial amount of $36.38 and allowing me to triple the amount I had to start.

Over $100 Now

The Coffee Grinder Numbers Breakdown

I was able to buy the coffee grinder for $5.94 on November 30. The grinder was brand new in its original box along with all the wrapping and the instructions. This item was extremely underpriced when I saw it and I hoped it was a used version. When I saw it was brand new I immediately put it in the basket to buy. With something new like this I knew if I priced it competitively it would move in a very short period of time. It sold in just three weeks since I put it online. Compared to the other same coffee grinders which I found online for sale in the same condition I priced it $10 under the others. I offered a good value to someone looking for this type of item. With all of those conditions in place, if there was a decent demand for the item, I knew I would not be waiting very long to sell it. Once all the fees and costs to ship were accounted for, I was able to make a profit of $45.36. Boom, that is a huge winner. I made more on that one item than I had in my entire change jar at the beginning. I made 7.63 times the amount I bought the coffee grinder for. If this was an annual return it would be eye-popping on its own. The annual return on this item is 365/22= 16.59 turnover in a year times 7.63 leads to an annual return of 126.58. That is 126 times the $5.94, not 126%. This means if I could do this every 22 days each time, I would have $751.89 at the end. I won’t find such good deals like this often, but when I do it will propel my overall amount to invest up very quickly.

Expectation of Inventory Profit Potential Moving Forward

With over $112 in potential inventory with the sale of the coffee grinder I would expect to be able to make at least $33 a year moving forward if I did not reinvest any of the money from future profit in more items or higher priced items. I would just maintain an inventory at this level and take my $33 or so on a yearly basis out to spend or invest into something else as I see fit. This comes down to in six months I have set myself up to be able to make almost the amount of money I had in the change jar a year in profit. This would require very little effort on my part, because I would likely sell around one item a month to make this amount of money. I would need to ship one item and get one new item a month. I could accomplish this in probably less than 15 to 30 minutes a month. $33 a year is not a point I would stop at though, because I have the same thought as when I started that $36.38 was not going to do much for me. For someone else this could be a level they would want to stop at. The hourly rate of this is also very small when you look at 3 to 6 hours a year to do this. I’ll keep reinvesting the balances I have and update when I’ve got the new inventory bought. I am going to do something thinking about what I buy next since I am over $100 and have 25 items and over $50 to reinvest.

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
Music Album puzzle$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
*Coffee Grinder$5.9411/30/2212/21/22$45.36
*Snowglobe$3.4511/30/22
*Tealight$2.3711/30/22
Underinvested $50.01
Total inventory amount$62.58
*Indicates purchased from Profit