A Few Extra Bucks

AMAZON MECHANICAL TURK (MTURK)

2012-06-28T12:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.ebay.com/itm/160837593114?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649 CHECK OUT MY LISTING!

    A new way people are making money by working from home is Amazon's MTURK program. You can choose to either be a worker, or a requester. By being a worker, you can choose to accept "hits", which are different, assorted tasks, that usually range from just 0.01 all the way up to a few dollars. Obviously, the difficulty is usually higher on the top-paying ones, but you can get a lot of hits done when you pick the low price ones.
    By being a requester, you can also get cheap, sometimes quality work done. You can request anything from simple data entry tasks, all the way to writing articles, or transcriptions. Also popular hits on there are simple surveys.

It's definitely something to sign up for and check out. Good luck!

SCRAP METAL AND RECYCLING

2012-06-28T11:41:00.001-07:00

http://www.ebay.com/itm/160837593114?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649 CHECK OUT MY LISTING!

Scrap metaling is starting to become a great way to make money. I do have personal experience with it and did it for a while to make odds and ends. It's definitely possible to make 250 dollars a day (depending on the prices they're paying in your local area).

THE DIFFERENT METALS

.junk cars (usually $180 to $250 a ton)
.steel(usually 9 cents to 13 cents a pound)
.stainless steel(usually 15 to 35 cents a pound)
.copper(usually $1.50 a pound upwards to $3.75 a pound)
.brass(usually $1.80 to $2.00 a pound)
.insulated wire, #1, 2, ect. (usually $1.30 to $1.60 a pound)
.common cords and wires, power cords, ect.(usually 10 to 12 cents a pound)
.lead (some places won't take it though)
.aluminum (usually 35 to 60 cents a pound)

DRIVE AROUND, LOOK AROUND

This was the personal method that I used when I scrapped metal. My wife and I would load up in our truck, and drive around town looking on curbs, trash cans, dumpsters, etc. You'd be surprised what you could find if you just keep your eyes open and find yourself in a lot of different places throughout the day. With this method, I was able to clear 50 dollars or more a day, just by picking up people's trash. You never know what you're going to find, or what people are throwing out that day.

KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR

    Copper is a scrap metaler's gold, and steel is great too if you can find a lot of it, and are able to fit lots of it in your vehicle. Don't even bother turning in your steel unless you have at least 300 to 400 pounds though, otherwise you'll have done all the work of hauling it and turning it in for a couple bucks. Insulated wire is also good, which can be found at a lot of construction sites. At construction sites, you'll see a lot of the times, big, mobile dumpsters. Simply ask permission from the foreman (they don't care most of the time), and go into it and start digging. I've found 50+ pounds of just insulated wire in dumpsters before.
    When you do accrue a lot of insulated wire, it's not a bad idea to strip them down to clean copper. You'll lessen the weight of it, however per pound, you're adding an extra dollar or two per pound. Only strip the wires if you have enough though, don't bother if you've only got 4 pieces of 8 inch wire.

    People always talk about cans bringing in money. I guess that's true if you live in one of the states that the cans list on the side for 5 cent refunds, however, everywhere else, it's a pain and waste of time unless you know of a place where you can get mass amounts of them.
    Don't think you have a lot of aluminum if you've only got a trash bag or two full. Always remember, it's 31 cans per pound, and it's usually only worth 60 cents at the max. With that, those cans take up A LOT of room in your car or wherever you are storing them, and they just aren't cost effective.
    And always remember if you don't want to annoy the guy working the scrap yard, FOOD CANS ARE NOT ALUMINUM! THEY ARE STEEL!

BUY AND RESELL CARS

    The big money is in cars. I personally knew people that would bring in 5 or 6 junk cars everyday, making hundreds in profit. A good technique to doing this is keeping 150 dollars in cash in your pocket, and going door to door, looking for junk cars sitting in drive-ways. Offer to buy it. You'd be surprised how persuasive cold hard cash is, even if they're not getting a good deal on the car. You can easily take that car back to the scrap yard and make 180 to 250 dollars for every car.
    You can always advertise as well in your local Thrifty Nickel/American Classifieds or Craigslist. That's always a good way of getting the word out that you buy cars.
    The one downside however, is that it is EXTREMELY competitive. People are always going to try and beat your price, and upon opening my local American Classifieds paper, there are at least 10 or 15 different companies and individuals offering to buy your junk cars.
    And that's it. If you have any other questions, definitely feel free to ask me.

The Classic eBay strategy

2012-06-27T23:46:00.006-07:00

Get paid for surveys!

I don't think there are many people around that don't know what eBay is these days. But for those who are out of the loop, it's the original auction website started in California. It gives people a chance to go on their website, and have a good, safe consumer-consumer interaction. Almost everything can be bought or sold, and sometimes for pennies on the dollar if you can find the right listing. But with 94 million people online, it's a good chance that if you want something, you'll find it.

eBay can also be a useful tool for those trying to make quick (and sometimes big) money, right there at their keyboard. Sign-up is free, and once you register, you can start listing items that you have to sell.

I'm going to give you a couple strategies that have worked for me over time when selling on eBay.

SHIPPING & PROFIT

I started making money on shipping. They obviously do have caps on how much you can charge for shipping, but it's not hard at all to make about an 0.80 cent profit for every listing.

When the buyer pays for the item, you get the money for the sales price of the item, but you also get the shipping cost that you listed in one bulk payment in your PayPal.

For example, I charge a flat $3.00 shipping cost through USPS for your standard DVD. It costs me $2.16 to ship the item. That's 0.84 cents in profit, just off of the shipping costs. Yeah, obviously, that isn't a lot of money, but when you've got 10, 20, or 50 listings going on, it really adds up. For the sale of 10 listings, that's 8.40 cents in profit, not including what you made on the item itself.

However, do keep in mind, those numbers are just rough estimates based on what I pay where I am. It may cost you more, it might not.

BUY IN BULK, SELL IN SINGLES

When I first started selling things on eBay, I started with DVDs. Partly because they were cheap to buy and always in demand, but most importantly, my own home collection is what started me off and it didn't cost me anything since I already had them.
But the great things about DVDs is that you can often go on your local Craigslist and find people throwing out a box of random DVDs, people selling a lot of 20 for a dollar a piece. I know on several occasions, I'd look on Craigslist for local garage sales, and I'd go and find cheap DVDs for 50 cents a piece and come home with 25 movies. A small investment of 12.50, to be able to go online and sell them all separately for $0.99. The profit really starts to add up if you can manage to sell enough of them.

You can also go on eBay and look for people selling cheap lots of them. Spend 15 dollars for 20 DVDs, for example, you spent $0.75 cents a pop, and sell them dirt cheap, but still above what you paid for them. I find that I'm able to undercut people that are selling my same item by selling for $0.99, when everyone else wants to charge $4.99. Always remember, people browse up and down before they decide to click your listing and buy or bid on your item.

UNDERCUT EVERYBODY, WIN BIG

One thing that I always make a point of doing when I'm selling on eBay is coming in and charging much less for my item. I'll give you an example.

I had a brand new copy of a season of the Tudors show. I got it for free, so everything I made was profit. I was searching what people were charging for it. I noticed people were charging 9.99 for it used, and I had it new in plastic. People were charging anywhere from 14.99 to 20.99 for it. I came in and sold it for 8.99, and sold it almost immediately.

Always try to buy low, that way you can sell low. Prices are everything, and a low price tag is always going to attract customers. It's a competition out there, and you're competing for views on your listing. You want Joe Sixpack to look at your listing, not Seller B, or Seller C, you want them to look at Seller ME!

LAST BUT NOT LEAST... DO YOUR HOMEWORK! RESEARCH!

And the one thing that will save your butt every time, or sink you. I've seen a lot of people lose out, or completely crash out because they didn't do their research. They didn't bother looking up average prices, popularity, ect.. They never understood why people weren't buying, and they'd relist and relist, and relist, but no cigar. It's because while everyone is charging 4.99 for a product, they never even realized and self-appraised it at 10 bucks. Why would someone pay 10 dollars for something when they can click the link right underneath yours' for 5?

Always make sure you know what's going on. Capitalize on popular trends and niches, always make sure your prices are right, and always make sure you're informed. Nobody likes buying from someone who doesn't know what they're talking about. You can't advertise your product if you don't know a thing about it.

Always remember, be informed, educate yourself, and do your homework!