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.

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

Item	Cost	Date Purchased	Sold	Profit
Ireland Puzzle	$3.45	6/27/22
NFL Puzzle	$2.37	6/27/22
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
Serving Dish and Bowl	$9.29	7/20/22
*Star Wars Puzzle	$2.37	7/25/22
*2 Hot Wheels	$2.10	8/3/22
Star Wars Puzzle	$1.18	8/31/22
Animal Puzzle	$1.18	8/31/22
Animal Puzzle	$1.18	8/31/22
*2 Coca Cola Puzzles	$6.91	9/13/22
*Christmas Coffee Cup	$1.18	9/13/22
*Stapler and Stapler remover	$.54	9/26/22
*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	$3.25	9/26/22
*Japanese Stein 2	$4.33	9/26/22
*One, two, three infinity	$1.07	10/19/22
*Satellite Puzzle	$2.37	11/28/22
*Snowglobe	$3.45	11/30/22
*Tealight	$2.37	11/30/22
*Gun Holder	$8.11	12/29/22
*Board Game	$3.78	1/4/23
*Music Equipment	$43.30	1/4/23
Overinvested	$5.18
Total inventory amount	$117.77

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.

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

Item	Cost	Date Purchased	Sold	Profit
Ireland Puzzle	$3.45	6/27/22
NFL Puzzle	$2.37	6/27/22
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
Serving Dish and Bowl	$9.29	7/20/22
*Star Wars Puzzle	$2.37	7/25/22
*2 Hot Wheels	$2.10	8/3/22
Star Wars Puzzle	$1.18	8/31/22
Animal Puzzle	$1.18	8/31/22
Animal Puzzle	$1.18	8/31/22
*2 Coca Cola Puzzles	$6.91	9/13/22
*Christmas Coffee Cup	$1.18	9/13/22
*Stapler and Stapler remover	$.54	9/26/22
*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	$3.25	9/26/22
*Japanese Stein 2	$4.33	9/26/22
*One, two, three infinity	$1.07	10/19/22
*Satellite Puzzle	$2.37	11/28/22
*Coffee Grinder	$5.94	11/30/22	12/21/22	$45.36
*Snowglobe	$3.45	11/30/22
*Tealight	$2.37	11/30/22
Underinvested	$50.01
Total inventory amount	$62.58

I went to the same spot where I’ve purchased the majority of my inventory so far, Goodwill, and picked up four more items to bring the total items I have for sale to 26. I overinvested again because I found four items which were all at least two times the amount of profit for the amount I paid for them. Even better was I knew that it would happen at a certain point that I would find an item which I could sale for close to ten times the amount I paid. The item was the coffee grinder. It is brand new and had never been opened. This type of coffee grinder sales for around $90, and I am pricing it below this so I can move it very quickly. When the grinder sales the $5.94 investment will turn into over $50 hopefully. This will allow the inventory to move over the $100 hurdle and this should help me move into a higher average amount for my inventory which gives me a wider availablity of items to buy. With the Christmas buying time underway I hope to sell this coffee grinder, as quickly as possible. The other items have good profit potential too. My change jar flip is going well at this point.

Sale #6- Globe Puzzle

Later in the day after I had gone and bought the four additional items to sell to keep myself reinvested I had my sixth sale. I sold the Globe Puzzle for $5.40 and ended up making $4.03 of profit off of it once all the fee and shipping were paid to send the item out. This item was one of the lowest amounts I have paid for an item and shows a very small amount can be profited on at a very large multiple. I made 6.7 times the amount I bought the puzzle for.

If I had an even smaller amount than I started with, say around $10, I could have been very strict with my buying criteria and not spent more than $.60 per item when buying. It would have taken me longer to fully invest $10 at $.60 per item, but I could have made it so any item I sold would have earned me in excess of 3 times or more on it when it sold. I didn’t see the value in doing this because I already had the amount of change in a jar, and it had been sitting there for a while.

However, the $10 amount could someone’s starting amount and $10 can be made by anyone if they are looking for a way to build something up over time and let it grow. You could help a neighbor clean up their house for $10, ask a family member or friend for $10, pick up aluminum cans till you have $10 worth, get a $10 loan from someone, or any way you can think of to easily have $10. With $10 you could buy 16 items and it would in theory take you a couple of months to make a sale on average. Once you made a couple of sales, reinvest the profit each time, and if you took the time to ensure you would make at least 3 times the amount you could ramp it up quickly to a sale a month, because you could have an inventory of 30 items. With 30 items you could make $3-$5 a month in profit off of your $10 investment if you never grew it past the 30 items mark. Small amounts can keep growing with patience and thought about what you are doing.

Current Inventory

Item	Cost	Date Purchased	Sold	Profit
Ireland Puzzle	$3.45	6/27/22
NFL Puzzle	$2.37	6/27/22
Globe Puzzle	$.60	6/29/22	11/30/22	$4.03
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
Serving Dish and Bowl	$9.29	7/20/22
*Star Wars Puzzle	$2.37	7/25/22
*2 Hot Wheels	$2.10	8/3/22
Star Wars Puzzle	$1.18	8/31/22
Animal Puzzle	$1.18	8/31/22
Animal Puzzle	$1.18	8/31/22
*2 Coca Cola Puzzles	$6.91	9/13/22
*Christmas Coffee Cup	$1.18	9/13/22
*Stapler and Stapler remover	$.54	9/26/22
*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	$3.25	9/26/22
*Japanese Stein 2	$4.33	9/26/22
*One, two, three infinity	$1.07	10/19/22
*Satellite Puzzle	$2.37	11/28/22
*Coffee Grinder	$5.94	11/30/22
*Snowglobe	$3.45	11/30/22
*Tealight	$2.37	11/30/22
Overinvested	$.24
Total inventory amount	$67.47

I made another sale to bring me up to five sales overall. I sold the Antique Building Puzzle for $18.49 plus shipping. Once all the fees and shipping were paid, I made $11.29 profit on this item. This was another good winner for me in my changejarflip experiment to see what I can turn the small amount of money I started out with. This is one of the highest profit potential items I had in my current inventory and puts me back into a spot to buy more items. The profit I’ve made has now paid for all the items I have purchased and there is an amount of $9.27 that needs to be reinvested and leaves me with 23 items in my inventory. I’ll update with the new items once I’ve purchased them and will have an inventory which is at least $63.20 once invested. At this point I’ve profited at $26.82 on my initial investment of $36.38. This is a return of 73% in just around 5 months. This is working to increase my small amount very quickly to a larger amount.

Another Annual Return Calculation

The annual return on this item again shows how you can take a small amount and turn it into a large amount. It took 126 days for this item to sell and is a turnover rate of 2.89. This means if the sell rate would hold, I would sell 2.89 of these items in a year. The rate of return on the item is very high. This is calculated with the profit amount divided by the cost of the item, $11.29/4.64. This leads to a return of 243%. To calculate the annual return you do the rate of return times the turnover rate. To calculate the amount of annual return, on this it is calculated with 2.89 times 243%, which translates to 702%. This is how good things happen. I’ll keep on buying and keep on growing this change jar amount.

Current Inventory

Item	Cost	Date Purchased	Sold	Profit
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
Serving Dish and Bowl	$9.29	7/20/22
*Antique building Puzzle-	$4.64	7/25/22	11/26/22	$11.29
*Star Wars Puzzle	$2.37	7/25/22
*2 Hot Wheels	$2.10	8/3/22
Star Wars Puzzle	$1.18	8/31/22
Animal Puzzle	$1.18	8/31/22
Animal Puzzle	$1.18	8/31/22
*2 Coca Cola Puzzles	$6.91	9/13/22
*Christmas Coffee Cup	$1.18	9/13/22
*Stapler and Stapler remover	$.54	9/26/22
*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	$3.25	9/26/22
*Japanese Stein 2	$4.33	9/26/22
*One, two, three infinity	$1.07	10/19/22
Underinvested	$9.27
Total inventory amount	$53.93

I had my fourth sale since I started buying items with money from my change jar on 6/27. I sold the Silver Plated Vase for $12 plus shipping. It cost me $4.33 to buy this item and after all the shipping and fees were paid I was able to make $6.62 profit on this item. This was one of the items I hoped would sell because it would allow me to pay for a bulk of the items I decided to add to the inventory from the estate sale I went to. With the cost and profit added together, $10.95, I was able to take the overinvested amount of $17.92 down to $6.66.

This sale did what my expectation is again when I purchased an item to sell, it made 100% of the amount which was put into the item. The last sale I lost a small amount of money on and learned something new. This was a good lesson to learn and having learned that I updated the amount of the shipping on this item like I did on other items to ensure I was properly covered to not lose on this portion when I sell.

To walk through the return percentage again of an item so there is an understanding how a small amount can change into a large amount. It took the item 114 days to sell, and there are 365 days in a year. This would lead to 3.2 sales in a year if the sale occurred on the same time frame for a year. If I were to buy the same item for $4.33 each time and make $6.62 each time and sell 3.2 in 365 days my total return would be $21.18 in profit. This would be an annual return of 489%. Again the possible returns like this show how it is possible to turn a small amount of money into a larger amount with patience and the ability to think about what you are buying.

Thinking through what you are buying while comparing it to other items out there which have sold or are selling allows you to get a reasonable idea where you would need to price the item. This lets you know if you can make a profit on the item or not. You wouldn’t want to buy something you can’t make a reasonable profit on.

At this point with having added the items from the estate sale I’m at 23 items for sale and overinvested. I’ll not be adding another item until I make another sale. I want to get the overinvested amount a little lower so I am not skewing my return from what I started with. Having added the estate items I’ve got myself in a good spot to possibly sell an item a month.

Current Inventory

Item	Cost	Date Purchased	Sold	Profit
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
Silver Plated Vase	$4.64	7/20/22	11/11/22	$6.62
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
Star Wars Puzzle	$1.18	8/31/22
Animal Puzzle	$1.18	8/31/22
Animal Puzzle	$1.18	8/31/22
*2 Coca Cola Puzzles	$6.91	9/13/22
*Christmas Coffee Cup	$1.18	9/13/22
Stapler and Stapler remover	$.54	9/26/22
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	$3.25	9/26/22
Japanese Stein 2	$4.33	9/26/22
*One, two, three infinity	$1.07	10/19/22
Overinvested	$6.66
Total inventory amount	$58.57