How many Mustachians running Side Projects with Full-Time jobs ?

[Better Late Than Never]

I make around $2000/month selling on Amazon, spending roughly 20 hours on it. That is enough to cover 100% of my monthly living expenses. So far, I haven't taken a dime of profit out of the business because my day job more than covers my living expenses, so the "problem" is that cash is piling up faster than I can reinvest it due to time constraints. This will all change; my last day working in the auto industry will be May 29th. I'm going "full time" with my e-business. Working about 80 hours a month, I should easily be able to triple my current profits while enjoying way more time with my family. From there, I will make a decision on how much more time/effort I'll put into scaling up.

Is this an import reseller type gig?  Or where are you getting your products?  And are you shipping them all out by hand or letting Amazon do the shipping?

I let Amazon do the fulfillment. Products come from various sources. Some arbitrage, some wholesale, some private label. With 300 million unique visitors to Amazon every month, profit is only limited by your time and willingness to reinvest.

Can you explain this a little more? How do you find products to sell, and how is Amazon able to do the shipping for you? Is there a resource where I can learn more about this? Thanks!

I recently listened to a great podcast about private labeling and selling on Amazon. http://www.sidehustlenation.com/private-label-amazon-fba/

This guy just suffered a house fire last week. Seems to be bouncing back well though. His private-label course is launching in a few days.

In my opinion, its the easiest business to start right now because of the support and customer base Amazon gives you from the get go. They handle all the shipping, customer service, and returns (I see about a 1% return rate on the products I sell). There are even people that earn a pretty good living buying/selling stuff from yard sales through Amazon. I don't do yard sales, but it's just a matter of starting to do the research on what sells well online and once you "get it" it becomes very easy. Taking advantage of arbitrage is probably the easiest way to get started, but also the most time consuming and least sustainable over the long run. Private labeling is where the big money is, but it's the riskiest of all the sourcing methods as well. Wholesale makes up about 60% of my business right now, arbitrage 30%, and private label the other 10% (just getting into it). I've started to ramp up a little since my last post since we're getting closer to my last official day at work. I've been averaging $100 profit per day for the last week as a result of having a little higher sense of urgency to process and send my products into the fulfillment centers. That will all get reinvested until I need to take an actual paycheck. By the end of my 1st year selling online full time, my goal is to have developed 5-10 products through my private label brand that each sell 5-10 units per day and return $10-20 profit per unit.

Thank you. I found a lot of youtube videos and websites tonight, but most seem to want to sell you a course to teach you the process. Getting a little overwhelmed by it, but will keep digging, and I haven't found much info about how you get the product to Amazon. Do you need to have a lot of packaging/labeling/shipping supplies on hand? I need to find a way to start small because I can't afford a big cash outlay up front and I don't have a lot of room for packing supplies.

You'll notice that people are very guarded about the information they'll share. The in thing to do seems to be to sell people an expensive course they don't need...It's really about piecing together the info you get from various sources and tying it all together.

I was coming to this conclusion pretty quickly :)

I buy my boxes from Lowes, they're less than $1.50 per box. My tape dispenser was around $10, and I buy the rolls of packing tape from various sources for usually around $15 for a 4 pack. For packing insulation, I use recylced news papers that I get for free from several places in the area. UPS gives you Amazon's shipping discounts, so shipping is ridiculously cheap. For example, I'm sending a 16"x18"x18" box out today on my lunch break with enough stuff in it to make $300 profit. It weighs 19.8 lbs and my shipping cost was $6.71.

http://www.lowes.com/Search=moving+boxes?storeId=10151&langId=-1&catalogId=10051&N=0&newSearch=true&Ntt=moving+boxes#!

http://www.lowes.com/pd_258575-98-3503_4294684411__

I probably have enough tape and boxes around the house to get started. Good to know about the shipping discount. There's a UPS right down the street and an Amazon Fulfillment Center about 1/2 hour from here, but with the UPS shipping discount, it sounds like it would cost more in gas to bring it directly to Amazon!

Amazon will label your items for $0.20 a piece or you can label them yourself. I started with the Avery pull and stick address labels just printing from my ink jet at home, but have since switched to a dymo label maker for added efficiency.

Anything that needs to be polybagged, they charge $0.50 each or you can buy your own polybags in bulk for about $0.10 a piece.

This might be an easy way to start without having to buy more supplies up front if I think I can still make enough profit.

When I send in my wholesale items, a lot of times I'll have them bag/label the item so all I have to do is slap a shipping label on it without ever having to even open the box. Anything I do arbitrage, I'll bag/label myself.

My initial investment was less than $200, including the first items I sent in. Once I sold a few items out of that shipment, I was sold on the idea that people really buy the stuff you send in. After that, I invested a little more of my own money into it, but still have less than $1000 out of pocket into my business. It's still early in the month, but I'm still on pace to profit over $3000 this month from what is a very part time business.

Thank you for all your advice and encouragement. Off to do some more research!

Just a heads up, you don't get to pick which fulfillment center your shipments go to. Amazon tells you where you have to send them. I could literally walk from my house to the nearest fc and there's another one less than 30 minutes drive from here, but half the time I end up having to send my shipments all the way out to the west coast. They seem to come in intervals. Here lately, just about everything I send goes to either Baltimore or South Carolina. Not bad since I'm in Virginia. Starting out, you may want to turn inventory placement on. It's an extra $0.30 per item, but that'll keep you from having to split your shipments up to go to multiple places. Once you start doing larger shipments you can easily turn it back off as you should have enough to justify the shipping costs to the different fc's at that point.

Thank you.

[squatman]

Pretty much anyone capable of winning by gambling online are going into Daily Fantasy Sports right now.  I don't think the DFS bubble will last long though, because it seems easier to figure out than poker, plus people can sell/share rosters, which could flood the games with solid lineups quickly.  We'll see though.   

Have you put much time into this? I've considered hopping (former almost pro poker player) in, but I can't imagine winning is as easy as plugging your salary cap into a site like baseballmonster and raking in the cash, is it? I know my way around excel but I may not have hundreds of hours to attempt reinventing the wheel and potentially not be any better than what's out there. Are there a lot of fish like there used to be with poker (obviously this changes by the day)? In a case like that I may just try and see how it goes.

[RequiemforEnnui]

Signed up for the forum recently, just starting my journey. In addition to my full time job, I'm working on the following:

-- Renting credit lines ($1.4k so far this year)

Care to elaborate on this?  I've heard about it briefly but wasn't sure if it was viable and safe.

Short version is that I work with a company that does credit repair / credit boosting. They're based in CO and bonded / insured, registered with the state, etc. Essentially, they pay me to add people to my credit cards as authorized users for a few weeks so that those folks inherit the credit history (limit, usage, payment history, account age) associated with the card. They pay via direct deposit and issue a 1099 at the end of the year (you're technically an independent contractor with them).

Payments range from $50-150 depending on the issuer and credit line, cards need to be open for a minimum of 2 years to be of use. They do offer signup bonuses, and are currently offering bonuses for adding credit lines from specific banks this month.  If you're interested, PM me and I'll send you details (I will receive a small referral bonus if you decide to sign up with them).

[Apostrophe]

I rent my 2004 Honda Civic on www.RelayRides.com, and thought you might appreciate the details.

$4,250 - 2004 Civic Hybrid 5-speed
$4,800 - Rental income over the last 14 months
$575 - tires, headlight bulbs, synthetic oil changes every 10k miles

That makes it an income-producing free car at this point, including the tires I put on last week. Best car payment ever. :)

The car has 179,000 miles on it now, and is currently rented out for the week, with a 2-week rental already reserved after that. It's been steady, solid income for me with very few drawbacks.

One of my renters a few months ago was rear-ended by a police car. My renter called right away to let me know what happened, I picked the car up from him one day during lunch for some repair estimates, and I cashed a check from RelayRides within 3 days to cover the cost of repair. Which I didn't do - too cosmetic and minor to really worry about.

[LalsConstant]

This thread makes me wish I had any economically viable talents or indeed any talents at all.  XD

[mozar]

This thread makes me wish I had any economically viable talents or indeed any talents at all.  XD

I know right? Right now all I can do is try to get a work related certificate, which will hopefully give me a boost in salary.

[RequiemforEnnui]

This thread makes me wish I had any economically viable talents or indeed any talents at all.  XD

I know right? Right now all I can do is try to get a work related certificate, which will hopefully give me a boost in salary.

Best decision I ever made was running away to join the Marine Corps, ended up getting a security clearance. Made more with that, without a degree of any kind, than any certification or degree I could have gotten.

[EAL]

Those of you that do ebay selling: How do you make this work for you successfully? I always seem to have trouble getting things to sale on ebay. Also, I enjoy making things and have considered an etsy shop. Does anyone have experience with that? Advice or pointers for either?

[Kris]

This thread makes me wish I had any economically viable talents or indeed any talents at all.  XD

I know right? Right now all I can do is try to get a work related certificate, which will hopefully give me a boost in salary.

Sometimes it's just a matter of realizing that you actually do have some talents.  Three years ago I would have told you that my only talent was as an academic in my specialized field.  Well, I stumbled into online self-publishing through a Reddit thread, and it turns out that hey, being able to write well and effectively is a huge talent, as is being self-motivated. 

[Public Hermit]

My main side gig is my supermarket deli job on evenings & weekends. It was my job throughout college but I just held on to it after graduation and getting a full time job. The time and a half on Sunday is hard to pass up. I pull in between $600-$800 a month from this

I also do online surveys. I try to make $20-$40 a month doing this

MTurk: like $10 a month. $40 if I am ambitious

Bank account bonuses. I make a few bucks here or there. Made $50 with a CapitalOne 360, I will be doing Discover next

Credit Card Rewards: Not really a side hustle, but I will bring in $15-$20 a month in rewards and redeem twice a year.

Focus Groups: It is tough getting these. I make maybe a $100-$200 a year.

I am also looking into mystery shopping. If I can pull in $100 a month doing this, I will be happy. Red Bull is in the midst of a lawsuit based on their slogan. I will be getting $10 from that settlement sometime this year, which will go into savings, lol. I also want to look into becoming a soccer referee. I know I have to take a class and a friend of mine is in the biz, so he could pull strings to get me some games.

I am also looking into Leapforce and other freelance activities related to my field of accounting.

[FrugalFan]

I have full time employment as an accountant.

My side gig is managing other people's money.  I raised money from 8 individuals, from which I started a limited partnership that invests in Canadian equities and stock options.  I also manage RRSP and TFSA accounts (similar to 401k and Roth IRA's) for 2 individuals.  My fees are 20% of profits in excess of inflation.  I can fit this around my work schedule because I can do everything other than trading outside of work hours.  I don't trade often, and when I do I can easily take a few minutes at work to execute the trades, or in the 30 minutes the market is open before my work day begins.

2014 was my first full year of operations, during which I earned $17,000 and grew my assets under management to just over $1 million.  My marginal tax rate is 41%, so to optimize my taxes, I started a corporation that gets paid the management fees.  My corporation has 2 classes of common shares, I own all of the class A shares and my wife owns all of the class B shares, the reason being I can arbitrarily choose to send the profits as dividends to either myself or my wife in whatever proportion I choose.  My wife plans on staying at home to raise our children.  Against only marginal investment income, I can pay her tens of thousands of dollars per year tax free in dividends due to goofy Canadian taxation on dividends as shown by the Globe & Mail.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/strategy-lab/dividend-investing/you-do-the-math-almost-50000-in-earned-dividends-0-in-tax/article4599950/

The net result is instead of paying 41% in personal taxes on my investment management earnings, I now pay 17% in corporate taxes and 0% in personal taxes on investment management earnings.

Since frugality is a theme on this site, I should mention that I do all of the research, trading, accounting, reporting and tax filing for the LP by myself.

Interesting! Could this tax strategy work for any personal business income in Canada?

[FrugalFan]

Posting to follow.

I have no side gigs because my employer forbids it, but I own a rental unit that yields about 2k a year in cash after interest and downpayments on mortage. Will take up beer brewing to save on the alcohol spend this summer!

Really? How can your employer forbid you to do something in your free time?

[FrugalFan]

I make around $2000/month selling on Amazon, spending roughly 20 hours on it. That is enough to cover 100% of my monthly living expenses. So far, I haven't taken a dime of profit out of the business because my day job more than covers my living expenses, so the "problem" is that cash is piling up faster than I can reinvest it due to time constraints. This will all change; my last day working in the auto industry will be May 29th. I'm going "full time" with my e-business. Working about 80 hours a month, I should easily be able to triple my current profits while enjoying way more time with my family. From there, I will make a decision on how much more time/effort I'll put into scaling up.

Is this an import reseller type gig?  Or where are you getting your products?  And are you shipping them all out by hand or letting Amazon do the shipping?

I let Amazon do the fulfillment. Products come from various sources. Some arbitrage, some wholesale, some private label. With 300 million unique visitors to Amazon every month, profit is only limited by your time and willingness to reinvest.

Can you explain this a little more? How do you find products to sell, and how is Amazon able to do the shipping for you? Is there a resource where I can learn more about this? Thanks!

I recently listened to a great podcast about private labeling and selling on Amazon. http://www.sidehustlenation.com/private-label-amazon-fba/

This guy just suffered a house fire last week. Seems to be bouncing back well though. His private-label course is launching in a few days.

In my opinion, its the easiest business to start right now because of the support and customer base Amazon gives you from the get go. They handle all the shipping, customer service, and returns (I see about a 1% return rate on the products I sell). There are even people that earn a pretty good living buying/selling stuff from yard sales through Amazon. I don't do yard sales, but it's just a matter of starting to do the research on what sells well online and once you "get it" it becomes very easy. Taking advantage of arbitrage is probably the easiest way to get started, but also the most time consuming and least sustainable over the long run. Private labeling is where the big money is, but it's the riskiest of all the sourcing methods as well. Wholesale makes up about 60% of my business right now, arbitrage 30%, and private label the other 10% (just getting into it). I've started to ramp up a little since my last post since we're getting closer to my last official day at work. I've been averaging $100 profit per day for the last week as a result of having a little higher sense of urgency to process and send my products into the fulfillment centers. That will all get reinvested until I need to take an actual paycheck. By the end of my 1st year selling online full time, my goal is to have developed 5-10 products through my private label brand that each sell 5-10 units per day and return $10-20 profit per unit.

Thank you. I found a lot of youtube videos and websites tonight, but most seem to want to sell you a course to teach you the process. Getting a little overwhelmed by it, but will keep digging, and I haven't found much info about how you get the product to Amazon. Do you need to have a lot of packaging/labeling/shipping supplies on hand? I need to find a way to start small because I can't afford a big cash outlay up front and I don't have a lot of room for packing supplies.

You'll notice that people are very guarded about the information they'll share. The in thing to do seems to be to sell people an expensive course they don't need...It's really about piecing together the info you get from various sources and tying it all together.

I was coming to this conclusion pretty quickly :)

I buy my boxes from Lowes, they're less than $1.50 per box. My tape dispenser was around $10, and I buy the rolls of packing tape from various sources for usually around $15 for a 4 pack. For packing insulation, I use recylced news papers that I get for free from several places in the area. UPS gives you Amazon's shipping discounts, so shipping is ridiculously cheap. For example, I'm sending a 16"x18"x18" box out today on my lunch break with enough stuff in it to make $300 profit. It weighs 19.8 lbs and my shipping cost was $6.71.

http://www.lowes.com/Search=moving+boxes?storeId=10151&langId=-1&catalogId=10051&N=0&newSearch=true&Ntt=moving+boxes#!

http://www.lowes.com/pd_258575-98-3503_4294684411__

I probably have enough tape and boxes around the house to get started. Good to know about the shipping discount. There's a UPS right down the street and an Amazon Fulfillment Center about 1/2 hour from here, but with the UPS shipping discount, it sounds like it would cost more in gas to bring it directly to Amazon!

Amazon will label your items for $0.20 a piece or you can label them yourself. I started with the Avery pull and stick address labels just printing from my ink jet at home, but have since switched to a dymo label maker for added efficiency.

Anything that needs to be polybagged, they charge $0.50 each or you can buy your own polybags in bulk for about $0.10 a piece.

This might be an easy way to start without having to buy more supplies up front if I think I can still make enough profit.

When I send in my wholesale items, a lot of times I'll have them bag/label the item so all I have to do is slap a shipping label on it without ever having to even open the box. Anything I do arbitrage, I'll bag/label myself.

My initial investment was less than $200, including the first items I sent in. Once I sold a few items out of that shipment, I was sold on the idea that people really buy the stuff you send in. After that, I invested a little more of my own money into it, but still have less than $1000 out of pocket into my business. It's still early in the month, but I'm still on pace to profit over $3000 this month from what is a very part time business.

Thank you for all your advice and encouragement. Off to do some more research!

Just a heads up, you don't get to pick which fulfillment center your shipments go to. Amazon tells you where you have to send them. I could literally walk from my house to the nearest fc and there's another one less than 30 minutes drive from here, but half the time I end up having to send my shipments all the way out to the west coast. They seem to come in intervals. Here lately, just about everything I send goes to either Baltimore or South Carolina. Not bad since I'm in Virginia. Starting out, you may want to turn inventory placement on. It's an extra $0.30 per item, but that'll keep you from having to split your shipments up to go to multiple places. Once you start doing larger shipments you can easily turn it back off as you should have enough to justify the shipping costs to the different fc's at that point.

Thanks for all the info! This is something I have been looking into as well, but like the other poster, was a bit turned off by all the expensive courses. Can I ask what kinds of items you sell in those three categories? I'm not sure I understand the personal label option.

[use2betrix]

I have been thinking very hard lately about starting a welding side business. I was a pipe welder for a few years prior to getting into management. To be honest I love welding and it would make a great hobby and potential income. The problem is I travel for work doing construction projects all over, and they are often in small towns, 20k-30k people. I would like to get into welding art as well. My biggest hesitation is the initial investment, for what I would want, about $4000.

Ideally, I'd love to "partially" retire, and just have a small welding business doing odd jobs and such. Right now just working on logistics and ideas to make money once I get started.

[StockBeard]

I'm curious if any of you guys with side gigs have kids living at home. 

I think I'd kill my H if he went out and got a 2nd job.

Seriously. I have no idea how you guys seem to manage to get so much done.

My wife is a full-time stay-at-home mom, she's on board with the idea that my side gig is our way to accelerate early retirement. but it started as my hobby, and when it wasn't generating any income (which lasted for some time because I didn't think of making money out of it initially), she hated it. The time I spend on my side project is additional time she has to spend with the 2 kids and without me to help, so it really is something where both husband and wife need to commit.

And to those who ask "how do people find these ideas for side gigs?" --> Pretty much any hobby you have, that you're currently paying money to do, is something where you could be at the other end of the stick. Somehow, you could be the one receiving money to perform your hobby. If you play tennis, you could probably teach it. If you like photography, you can probably do affiliate marketing for camera gear, etc... Nothing but what MMM teaches on his blog :)
By converting your hobby into a money-making thing, you also don't necessarily have to spend more time on it, you just end up converting your hobby time into your "business" time, and it often happens to be the same amount of fun.

[Lis]

Bumping to follow.

I make and sell homemade chocolate to friends/coworkers. Nothing consistent, but it's fun! I made $110 during Easter/Passover. Occasionally I'll get a big order, like a $70 birthday order last month or a $50 wedding shower order coming up. It's fun and I'm always left with leftovers :) Not 100% legal in my state, but oh well. It has made me seriously consider quitting the corporate life one day and opening up a chocolate shop for realsies one day.

[myhotrs]

Everyone should read the 4 Hour Workweek, not because anyone's workweek needs to be 4 hours (Tim Ferriss the author works his ass off) but the book is full of practical advice and resources for side-gigs. He's all about maximizing the efficiency of whatever you are doing, the title is just marketing. Great book and everyone in my family has benefited somehow from it (now that I think about it, I'm missing BOTH my copies!)

[PeachFuzzInVA]

Everyone should read the 4 Hour Workweek, not because anyone's workweek needs to be 4 hours (Tim Ferriss the author works his ass off) but the book is full of practical advice and resources for side-gigs. He's all about maximizing the efficiency of whatever you are doing, the title is just marketing. Great book and everyone in my family has benefited somehow from it (now that I think about it, I'm missing BOTH my copies!)

I read this book while out of town for a training class for work. The chapter about not putting off taking action is what really made me decide to set a concrete date to leave my day job to focus on my amazon business. Easily one of the best books I've ever read.

[PeachFuzzInVA]

I make around $2000/month selling on Amazon, spending roughly 20 hours on it. That is enough to cover 100% of my monthly living expenses. So far, I haven't taken a dime of profit out of the business because my day job more than covers my living expenses, so the "problem" is that cash is piling up faster than I can reinvest it due to time constraints. This will all change; my last day working in the auto industry will be May 29th. I'm going "full time" with my e-business. Working about 80 hours a month, I should easily be able to triple my current profits while enjoying way more time with my family. From there, I will make a decision on how much more time/effort I'll put into scaling up.

Is this an import reseller type gig?  Or where are you getting your products?  And are you shipping them all out by hand or letting Amazon do the shipping?

I let Amazon do the fulfillment. Products come from various sources. Some arbitrage, some wholesale, some private label. With 300 million unique visitors to Amazon every month, profit is only limited by your time and willingness to reinvest.

Can you explain this a little more? How do you find products to sell, and how is Amazon able to do the shipping for you? Is there a resource where I can learn more about this? Thanks!

I recently listened to a great podcast about private labeling and selling on Amazon. http://www.sidehustlenation.com/private-label-amazon-fba/

This guy just suffered a house fire last week. Seems to be bouncing back well though. His private-label course is launching in a few days.

In my opinion, its the easiest business to start right now because of the support and customer base Amazon gives you from the get go. They handle all the shipping, customer service, and returns (I see about a 1% return rate on the products I sell). There are even people that earn a pretty good living buying/selling stuff from yard sales through Amazon. I don't do yard sales, but it's just a matter of starting to do the research on what sells well online and once you "get it" it becomes very easy. Taking advantage of arbitrage is probably the easiest way to get started, but also the most time consuming and least sustainable over the long run. Private labeling is where the big money is, but it's the riskiest of all the sourcing methods as well. Wholesale makes up about 60% of my business right now, arbitrage 30%, and private label the other 10% (just getting into it). I've started to ramp up a little since my last post since we're getting closer to my last official day at work. I've been averaging $100 profit per day for the last week as a result of having a little higher sense of urgency to process and send my products into the fulfillment centers. That will all get reinvested until I need to take an actual paycheck. By the end of my 1st year selling online full time, my goal is to have developed 5-10 products through my private label brand that each sell 5-10 units per day and return $10-20 profit per unit.

Thank you. I found a lot of youtube videos and websites tonight, but most seem to want to sell you a course to teach you the process. Getting a little overwhelmed by it, but will keep digging, and I haven't found much info about how you get the product to Amazon. Do you need to have a lot of packaging/labeling/shipping supplies on hand? I need to find a way to start small because I can't afford a big cash outlay up front and I don't have a lot of room for packing supplies.

You'll notice that people are very guarded about the information they'll share. The in thing to do seems to be to sell people an expensive course they don't need...It's really about piecing together the info you get from various sources and tying it all together.

I was coming to this conclusion pretty quickly :)

I buy my boxes from Lowes, they're less than $1.50 per box. My tape dispenser was around $10, and I buy the rolls of packing tape from various sources for usually around $15 for a 4 pack. For packing insulation, I use recylced news papers that I get for free from several places in the area. UPS gives you Amazon's shipping discounts, so shipping is ridiculously cheap. For example, I'm sending a 16"x18"x18" box out today on my lunch break with enough stuff in it to make $300 profit. It weighs 19.8 lbs and my shipping cost was $6.71.

http://www.lowes.com/Search=moving+boxes?storeId=10151&langId=-1&catalogId=10051&N=0&newSearch=true&Ntt=moving+boxes#!

http://www.lowes.com/pd_258575-98-3503_4294684411__

I probably have enough tape and boxes around the house to get started. Good to know about the shipping discount. There's a UPS right down the street and an Amazon Fulfillment Center about 1/2 hour from here, but with the UPS shipping discount, it sounds like it would cost more in gas to bring it directly to Amazon!

Amazon will label your items for $0.20 a piece or you can label them yourself. I started with the Avery pull and stick address labels just printing from my ink jet at home, but have since switched to a dymo label maker for added efficiency.

Anything that needs to be polybagged, they charge $0.50 each or you can buy your own polybags in bulk for about $0.10 a piece.

This might be an easy way to start without having to buy more supplies up front if I think I can still make enough profit.

When I send in my wholesale items, a lot of times I'll have them bag/label the item so all I have to do is slap a shipping label on it without ever having to even open the box. Anything I do arbitrage, I'll bag/label myself.

My initial investment was less than $200, including the first items I sent in. Once I sold a few items out of that shipment, I was sold on the idea that people really buy the stuff you send in. After that, I invested a little more of my own money into it, but still have less than $1000 out of pocket into my business. It's still early in the month, but I'm still on pace to profit over $3000 this month from what is a very part time business.

Thank you for all your advice and encouragement. Off to do some more research!

Just a heads up, you don't get to pick which fulfillment center your shipments go to. Amazon tells you where you have to send them. I could literally walk from my house to the nearest fc and there's another one less than 30 minutes drive from here, but half the time I end up having to send my shipments all the way out to the west coast. They seem to come in intervals. Here lately, just about everything I send goes to either Baltimore or South Carolina. Not bad since I'm in Virginia. Starting out, you may want to turn inventory placement on. It's an extra $0.30 per item, but that'll keep you from having to split your shipments up to go to multiple places. Once you start doing larger shipments you can easily turn it back off as you should have enough to justify the shipping costs to the different fc's at that point.

Thanks for all the info! This is something I have been looking into as well, but like the other poster, was a bit turned off by all the expensive courses. Can I ask what kinds of items you sell in those three categories? I'm not sure I understand the personal label option.

Look around your house. What do you buy on a regular basis that you have to replenish when you run out of it? Do you have children? Stroll down the toy aisle. What do they gravitate to? What new disney or super hero/action movies are coming out? What are you buying for the next upcoming holiday?

[Vanchica]

I have full time employment as an accountant.

My side gig is managing other people's money.  I raised money from 8 individuals, from which I started a limited partnership that invests in Canadian equities and stock options.  I also manage RRSP and TFSA accounts (similar to 401k and Roth IRA's) for 2 individuals.  My fees are 20% of profits in excess of inflation.  I can fit this around my work schedule because I can do everything other than trading outside of work hours.  I don't trade often, and when I do I can easily take a few minutes at work to execute the trades, or in the 30 minutes the market is open before my work day begins.

2014 was my first full year of operations, during which I earned $17,000 and grew my assets under management to just over $1 million.  My marginal tax rate is 41%, so to optimize my taxes, I started a corporation that gets paid the management fees.  My corporation has 2 classes of common shares, I own all of the class A shares and my wife owns all of the class B shares, the reason being I can arbitrarily choose to send the profits as dividends to either myself or my wife in whatever proportion I choose.  My wife plans on staying at home to raise our children.  Against only marginal investment income, I can pay her tens of thousands of dollars per year tax free in dividends due to goofy Canadian taxation on dividends as shown by the Globe & Mail.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/strategy-lab/dividend-investing/you-do-the-math-almost-50000-in-earned-dividends-0-in-tax/article4599950/

The net result is instead of paying 41% in personal taxes on my investment management earnings, I now pay 17% in corporate taxes and 0% in personal taxes on investment management earnings.

Since frugality is a theme on this site, I should mention that I do all of the research, trading, accounting, reporting and tax filing for the LP by myself.

Check with a lawyer- you may be operating an investment fund/acting as an IFM and a PM (portfolio manager) which is would trigger certain legal and regualtory requirements including registration with a provincial commission

[cerebus]

Well, I'm now doing two side gigs, one of which I'm hoping to leverage into a full time gig. Aside from working for the hardware company, I'm doing a training period that will then become a trial period, after which it becomes a full time job, with a US company based in the Bay Area.

My hope is that I can just work full time remote for them, because that is a pretty sweet little job if you can get it - earning dollars in this country, even at a relatively moderate US rate, is very lucrative. The dollar is now R13/$1, and the ZAR keeps sliding inexorably down. I'll stay here for a while longer and just save up like crazy, before moving the family over. One can get a luxury apartment rental in this area for R10k-ish, which is I guess $7-800, so I figure it's not even worth moving over to the States or buying property while we can live like that.

[mrteacher]

Cool to read about other teachers who have 'mastery of time' and are able to get a side hustle (or two, or five) going!

My base salary as a teacher is just under $55,000, but my side hustles include:

Coaching two sports: $4,000 total
Club moderator: $1,000
Teach a one week summer class: $1,250
Weekly gigs (solo acoustic covers): bit under $2,000
Tutoring/other small event coverage at school: $500-$1,000

I suppose the only true side hustle is the music, as the others are all through my school, but they are all jobs beyond what my base salary pays me to do, so I consider them side hustles. 

[Bakari]

I haven't had a full-time job in over 10 years.
I tried, I really did, quite a few times.  I never made it more than 10 months at any regular 9-5 without quitting.
I worked as a bike messenger, a security guard, an armored truck driver, a forklift driver in a cardboard recycling factory, a HVAC tech, a carnie, a non-profit fundraiser, a warehouse worker for a Japanese seafood importer, and a metal factory worker, (plus even more part time and side gig jobs along the way), but it didn't matter what I did... it wasn't the work itself, it was the having to do any one thing for half my waking hours every single week, week after week, that I just couldn't stand.


Now I have nothing but "side" gigs, and the variety and freedom has allowed me to stick with the same few things for as much as nine years!

I do hauling and deliveries with my 1983 Ford F-250 powered by recycled vegetable oil
I do various "handyman" type repairs at people's homes (this alone provides endless variety)
I work one shift each week at the "BikeStation", which provides free, secure, indoor parking for commuters, as well as bike repairs
I am in the US Coast Guard Reserve and am part of the local Search and Rescue boat crew one weekend each month
I work off and on for a non-profit that goes to local schools to fix bikes for kids at no cost
I occasionally upload videos which... would not be allowed on broadcast television
Last year I worked as the medic for a Jewish youth summer camp
I just got a call from someone who wants to hire me to help set up and run a booth at a local fair that shows the science behind climate change!


I enjoy both the variety, the freedom, and the actual day-to-day work of all my jobs, enough so that I'll probably keep doing at least some of it even into "retirement" (though definitely no where near as many total hours!)

[big_slacker]

I do 1099 consulting, usually $125-$150/hr. Maybe once or twice a year I'll do a 4-5 day gig like this. Makes for a nice little boost to savings. I could almost certainly do more of this and it's tempting but at some point close to where I am enough is a enough. :)

[AZDude]

Lots of interesting information in this thread. I would love to publish a book on Amazon, but always figured no one would ever read it. I figure if I have a couple of them written, and then make one free and then sell the other cheaply(like $1.99), that I would probably clean up. Never put the thought into practice, but maybe it is finally time.

At the moment I do some sports blogging on the side, where I make $8-$50 a month, depending on how much I write and how interesting it is.

[Nudelkopf]

Posting to follow.

I have no side gigs because my employer forbids it, but I own a rental unit that yields about 2k a year in cash after interest and downpayments on mortage. Will take up beer brewing to save on the alcohol spend this summer!

Really? How can your employer forbid you to do something in your free time?

I'm a teacher, and the principal has to okay any work that we do other than work at the school.
But I tutor maths about 4 hours per week (during the school term). Probably earn $3600 this year (90 hours).

In Australia, you don't get paid to coach sports teams, and summer schools don't exist.

[druth]

I work a "9-5" but I also coach two high school teams.  My work is flexible about it and I work 7-2 MW(working from home), 7-4 TuTh, and 7-3F.

This used to be 2k+3.5k.  I just took a pay cut to move to a different school that is much closer to my house, so now it's 2k+2.5k, but saving everything that goes with changing a 50mi round trip to an 8mi round trip twice a week.

Honestly I would do it for free, the pay is just a nice bonus. :)

[Cookie78]

I haven't had a full-time job in over 10 years.
I tried, I really did, quite a few times.  I never made it more than 10 months at any regular 9-5 without quitting.
I worked as a bike messenger, a security guard, an armored truck driver, a forklift driver in a cardboard recycling factory, a HVAC tech, a carnie, a non-profit fundraiser, a warehouse worker for a Japanese seafood importer, and a metal factory worker, (plus even more part time and side gig jobs along the way), but it didn't matter what I did... it wasn't the work itself, it was the having to do any one thing for half my waking hours every single week, week after week, that I just couldn't stand.


Now I have nothing but "side" gigs, and the variety and freedom has allowed me to stick with the same few things for as much as nine years!

I do hauling and deliveries with my 1983 Ford F-250 powered by recycled vegetable oil
I do various "handyman" type repairs at people's homes (this alone provides endless variety)
I work one shift each week at the "BikeStation", which provides free, secure, indoor parking for commuters, as well as bike repairs
I am in the US Coast Guard Reserve and am part of the local Search and Rescue boat crew one weekend each month
I work off and on for a non-profit that goes to local schools to fix bikes for kids at no cost
I occasionally upload videos which... would not be allowed on broadcast television
Last year I worked as the medic for a Jewish youth summer camp
I just got a call from someone who wants to hire me to help set up and run a booth at a local fair that shows the science behind climate change!


I enjoy both the variety, the freedom, and the actual day-to-day work of all my jobs, enough so that I'll probably keep doing at least some of it even into "retirement" (though definitely no where near as many total hours!)

That's awesome! It's exactly what I should have done. I absolutely love variety like that and am loathing the 9-5 structure. Hopefully something like this is what I will do on a part time casual basis once I sell my houses and quit my job and release myself step by step from this safe secure situation I've trapped myself in. :D Meeting with the realtor next week.

[bb11]

I work in marketing, just got promoted last week and received a paybump from $58k to $75k.

I also serve at a restaurant on nights and weekends. Not the most enjoyable but typically I make $25-30 an hour. I've been doing it the last couple years 2-3 nights a week.

[tallen]

I make around $2000/month selling on Amazon, spending roughly 20 hours on it. That is enough to cover 100% of my monthly living expenses. So far, I haven't taken a dime of profit out of the business because my day job more than covers my living expenses, so the "problem" is that cash is piling up faster than I can reinvest it due to time constraints. This will all change; my last day working in the auto industry will be May 29th. I'm going "full time" with my e-business. Working about 80 hours a month, I should easily be able to triple my current profits while enjoying way more time with my family. From there, I will make a decision on how much more time/effort I'll put into scaling up.

Is this an import reseller type gig?  Or where are you getting your products?  And are you shipping them all out by hand or letting Amazon do the shipping?

I let Amazon do the fulfillment. Products come from various sources. Some arbitrage, some wholesale, some private label. With 300 million unique visitors to Amazon every month, profit is only limited by your time and willingness to reinvest.

Can you explain this a little more? How do you find products to sell, and how is Amazon able to do the shipping for you? Is there a resource where I can learn more about this? Thanks!

I recently listened to a great podcast about private labeling and selling on Amazon. http://www.sidehustlenation.com/private-label-amazon-fba/

This guy just suffered a house fire last week. Seems to be bouncing back well though. His private-label course is launching in a few days.

In my opinion, its the easiest business to start right now because of the support and customer base Amazon gives you from the get go. They handle all the shipping, customer service, and returns (I see about a 1% return rate on the products I sell). There are even people that earn a pretty good living buying/selling stuff from yard sales through Amazon. I don't do yard sales, but it's just a matter of starting to do the research on what sells well online and once you "get it" it becomes very easy. Taking advantage of arbitrage is probably the easiest way to get started, but also the most time consuming and least sustainable over the long run. Private labeling is where the big money is, but it's the riskiest of all the sourcing methods as well. Wholesale makes up about 60% of my business right now, arbitrage 30%, and private label the other 10% (just getting into it). I've started to ramp up a little since my last post since we're getting closer to my last official day at work. I've been averaging $100 profit per day for the last week as a result of having a little higher sense of urgency to process and send my products into the fulfillment centers. That will all get reinvested until I need to take an actual paycheck. By the end of my 1st year selling online full time, my goal is to have developed 5-10 products through my private label brand that each sell 5-10 units per day and return $10-20 profit per unit.

Thank you. I found a lot of youtube videos and websites tonight, but most seem to want to sell you a course to teach you the process. Getting a little overwhelmed by it, but will keep digging, and I haven't found much info about how you get the product to Amazon. Do you need to have a lot of packaging/labeling/shipping supplies on hand? I need to find a way to start small because I can't afford a big cash outlay up front and I don't have a lot of room for packing supplies.

You'll notice that people are very guarded about the information they'll share. The in thing to do seems to be to sell people an expensive course they don't need...It's really about piecing together the info you get from various sources and tying it all together.

I was coming to this conclusion pretty quickly :)

I buy my boxes from Lowes, they're less than $1.50 per box. My tape dispenser was around $10, and I buy the rolls of packing tape from various sources for usually around $15 for a 4 pack. For packing insulation, I use recylced news papers that I get for free from several places in the area. UPS gives you Amazon's shipping discounts, so shipping is ridiculously cheap. For example, I'm sending a 16"x18"x18" box out today on my lunch break with enough stuff in it to make $300 profit. It weighs 19.8 lbs and my shipping cost was $6.71.

http://www.lowes.com/Search=moving+boxes?storeId=10151&langId=-1&catalogId=10051&N=0&newSearch=true&Ntt=moving+boxes#!

http://www.lowes.com/pd_258575-98-3503_4294684411__

I probably have enough tape and boxes around the house to get started. Good to know about the shipping discount. There's a UPS right down the street and an Amazon Fulfillment Center about 1/2 hour from here, but with the UPS shipping discount, it sounds like it would cost more in gas to bring it directly to Amazon!

Amazon will label your items for $0.20 a piece or you can label them yourself. I started with the Avery pull and stick address labels just printing from my ink jet at home, but have since switched to a dymo label maker for added efficiency.

Anything that needs to be polybagged, they charge $0.50 each or you can buy your own polybags in bulk for about $0.10 a piece.

This might be an easy way to start without having to buy more supplies up front if I think I can still make enough profit.

When I send in my wholesale items, a lot of times I'll have them bag/label the item so all I have to do is slap a shipping label on it without ever having to even open the box. Anything I do arbitrage, I'll bag/label myself.

My initial investment was less than $200, including the first items I sent in. Once I sold a few items out of that shipment, I was sold on the idea that people really buy the stuff you send in. After that, I invested a little more of my own money into it, but still have less than $1000 out of pocket into my business. It's still early in the month, but I'm still on pace to profit over $3000 this month from what is a very part time business.

Thank you for all your advice and encouragement. Off to do some more research!

Just a heads up, you don't get to pick which fulfillment center your shipments go to. Amazon tells you where you have to send them. I could literally walk from my house to the nearest fc and there's another one less than 30 minutes drive from here, but half the time I end up having to send my shipments all the way out to the west coast. They seem to come in intervals. Here lately, just about everything I send goes to either Baltimore or South Carolina. Not bad since I'm in Virginia. Starting out, you may want to turn inventory placement on. It's an extra $0.30 per item, but that'll keep you from having to split your shipments up to go to multiple places. Once you start doing larger shipments you can easily turn it back off as you should have enough to justify the shipping costs to the different fc's at that point.

Thanks for all the info! This is something I have been looking into as well, but like the other poster, was a bit turned off by all the expensive courses. Can I ask what kinds of items you sell in those three categories? I'm not sure I understand the personal label option.

Look around your house. What do you buy on a regular basis that you have to replenish when you run out of it? Do you have children? Stroll down the toy aisle. What do they gravitate to? What new disney or super hero/action movies are coming out? What are you buying for the next upcoming holiday?

Halfway down the rabbit hole of researching this right now and wanted to pop in to say thanks. Your posts got me motivated to look into it and see if I can find something profitable to sell, so thank you!

[zephyr911]

I'm a full-time operations specialist for the Army.
I'm an officer in the Air National Guard - take home about $15K for a weekend each month (drill) + 15 days (annual training). Bonus: as a federal civilian, I get paid military leave for those 15 days.
I have two other closely related gigs:
Part A: In early 2014 I co-founded a 3-member LLC that plans to accumulate about $5M in rental property (currently around $200K and reinvesting all profits). I don't take any compensation for my contributions to property management, but I may eventually (post-FIRE, etc). Part B: the LLC paid for my real estate license so when we buy, I'm our agent and I collect an average of 2% after my broker split. This also meant that I earned ~$4K from our Mustachian downsize move last year. I get by far my best hourly rate on that, since being both buyer and agent takes almost no additional time. I don't do much in real estate outside my own buying but I do have a pipeline of "maybe someday" deals with friends, and would love to do it full-time as a FIRE job.
I occasionally flip random items for a profit but I've never gone pro with it... right now I have a free (curbside) acoustic guitar and a nice espresso machine that I think I'll make money on. We'll see.

[Jesper]

I am doing a full college degree besides my full time job. 17-21 Mondays and Wednesdays + reading + assignments + group work. Definitely take its toll. Should pay off afterwards though .

[ruthiegirl]

I am a SAHM with 4 kids.  My husband puts in 50 hour work weeks and travel a lot.  While I would love to work out of the house, it just wouldn't be possible in my situation without paying for LOTS of childcare. 

So instead of paying for childcare, I offer care in my home to others.  I have 3 part time kids right now and bring in about $900 a month.  It is fun and something I would be doing anyway.  The kids are sweet and we spend a lot of time playing and painting and going to the park.

It is not easy, but I do like the extra income. 

[Fishindude]

Pretty simple stuff.  If you're not happy with your income at one job, get a second job.   
More people should do this, particularly young folks getting started in life who tend to have more energy.

I work about a 50-55 hour per week job, plus own some income producing commercial real estate, do all the maintenance and upkeep on a farm that generates income, and sit on the board of directors of a firm for some additional income.  Seems like most younger folks want to work their 40 hours and go home.  I was never satisfied with that, and was also raised in a family that believed in working long hours, Saturdays, etc.   "Make hay while the sun shines".

[rocketpj]

I really wish I'd made time to work while I was in college.  I found the schoolwork relatively easy, and finished without significant debt because I worked my butt off as a treeplanter in the summer (I took out a $4K LOC to finish my Masters in the summer rather than go to work and spend an entire extra semester or two in school).

If I'd had the sense or desire to work, even 10-15 hours/week somewhere, I'd have had enough saved up to buy a small house when I finished.  That would have been a very lucky thing to do in 2000 in Vancouver.

[BigHaus89]

I'm going to start up an electrical engineering company next year. Right now, I'm putting in the time investment of studying for the PE exam so I can start a PLLC.

My side hustle right now is online surveys. I am a volunteer tutor once a week, but I think I'm gonna open up some hours for $20/hr and see if I get any interest.

[10dollarsatatime]

Another Amazon FBA-er here.  I find it enjoyable for the most part.  I'm still just recycling all the profits into building my inventory.  I started with about $100 last fall and, without putting nearly as much effort as I should into it, am up to about $1000 in sales/week (as long as I keep sourcing and sending stuff in).

I'm also considering buying a small bulk candy vending route...

[cerebus]

Pretty simple stuff.  If you're not happy with your income at one job, get a second job.   
More people should do this, particularly young folks getting started in life who tend to have more energy.

I work about a 50-55 hour per week job, plus own some income producing commercial real estate, do all the maintenance and upkeep on a farm that generates income, and sit on the board of directors of a firm for some additional income.  Seems like most younger folks want to work their 40 hours and go home.  I was never satisfied with that, and was also raised in a family that believed in working long hours, Saturdays, etc.   "Make hay while the sun shines".

I don't mind working hard, like I really honestly don't (I'm doing 3 jobs after all), but I need my time off as well. I can't work that many hours a week. I need time to unwind and be with my family and read and play games and be in nature and cook and do what I enjoy. If I loved working that much I wouldn't want to FIRE.

[Hopeful]

Another Amazon FBA-er here.  I find it enjoyable for the most part.  I'm still just recycling all the profits into building my inventory.  I started with about $100 last fall and, without putting nearly as much effort as I should into it, am up to about $1000 in sales/week (as long as I keep sourcing and sending stuff in).

I'm also considering buying a small bulk candy vending route...

Do you have to pay the monthly seller fee with Amazon or can you get started with a free account?

[HipGnosis]

Full-time job and just starting working on side gigs.  Made $58 the first month.  Looking to eventually make at least $300/month in side income.

What are you doing for the side gigs?

[Ox05]

My main job is as a government attorney. I earn about half as much money as I could make in private practice, but I've got great work-life balance.

To make up the difference, I've got a few, all of which I find interesting and enjoyable. I occasionally dog sit or walk neighbors' dogs, which pays about $10 a time. I'm also in a band that gigs around town, and can make about $100 a month (I'm sure we could make more if we could build up our fan base a bit more).

Finally, I sell my music on a royalty free site, which brings has been averaging about $30/mo. Hopefully that will grow. You can check out some of my work http://www.pond5.com/stock-music/49211932/energetic-black-key-blues-riff-rock-openerlogostingercue.html?ref=RoughCoast.

I'm definitely trying to scale up my musical side gigs, because once I get them built up, they should continue to reap rewards beyond the x hours worked equals x dollars.

[Bakari]

Pretty simple stuff.  If you're not happy with your income at one job, get a second job.   
More people should do this, particularly young folks getting started in life who tend to have more energy.

I work about a 50-55 hour per week job, plus own some income producing commercial real estate, do all the maintenance and upkeep on a farm that generates income, and sit on the board of directors of a firm for some additional income.  Seems like most younger folks want to work their 40 hours and go home.  I was never satisfied with that, and was also raised in a family that believed in working long hours, Saturdays, etc.   "Make hay while the sun shines".

What is the appeal of a website devoted to early retirement if you have such an deeply internalized Puritan work ethic?


If we have enough (both as individuals and as a society), why is it an intrinsic "good" to always maximize production?


If you live in a giant hay field, but you only have one horse, go out and enjoy the sunshine!

[Vanchica]

Pretty simple stuff.  If you're not happy with your income at one job, get a second job.   
More people should do this, particularly young folks getting started in life who tend to have more energy.

I work about a 50-55 hour per week job, plus own some income producing commercial real estate, do all the maintenance and upkeep on a farm that generates income, and sit on the board of directors of a firm for some additional income.  Seems like most younger folks want to work their 40 hours and go home.  I was never satisfied with that, and was also raised in a family that believed in working long hours, Saturdays, etc.   "Make hay while the sun shines".

Maybe the poster doesn't want a minimalist life styl on retirement? Or maybe their joy is achievement? I can't stop working, I just want to work at something that doesn't have to be driven by profit (art)


What is the appeal of a website devoted to early retirement if you have such an deeply internalized Puritan work ethic?


If we have enough (both as individuals and as a society), why is it an intrinsic "good" to always maximize production?


If you live in a giant hay field, but you only have one horse, go out and enjoy the sunshine!

[Fishindude]

What is the appeal of a website devoted to early retirement if you have such an deeply internalized Puritan work ethic?
Work is not the enemy.  For some it's a lifestyle and a privilege.  I will continue to work hard in retirement, just at different things, many of which won't pay much or at all.

If we have enough (both as individuals and as a society), why is it an intrinsic "good" to always maximize production?
Just the way I was raised .... Idle hands are the devils workshop.

If you live in a giant hay field, but you only have one horse, go out and enjoy the sunshine!
Some of us see work when we look at that hay field and feel internally obligated to cut, rake, bale and put up the hay.

Not that I don't enjoy playing, I do.
My primary hobbies have always been fishing and hunting.  Some friends say I go at it like it's a job?
To each their own.  I've never been one to sit on a beach reading books.

[Rightflyer]

This thread is very motivating. What a great bunch of folks here! Inspiring.

[10dollarsatatime]

Another Amazon FBA-er here.  I find it enjoyable for the most part.  I'm still just recycling all the profits into building my inventory.  I started with about $100 last fall and, without putting nearly as much effort as I should into it, am up to about $1000 in sales/week (as long as I keep sourcing and sending stuff in).

I'm also considering buying a small bulk candy vending route...

Do you have to pay the monthly seller fee with Amazon or can you get started with a free account?

I started with a free account and didn't move to a pro account until I started consistently selling more than 40 items per month.  At that point it makes sense financially to do it.

[Bakari]

What is the appeal of a website devoted to early retirement if you have such an deeply internalized Puritan work ethic?
Work is not the enemy.  For some it's a lifestyle and a privilege.  I will continue to work hard in retirement, just at different things, many of which won't pay much or at all.

If we have enough (both as individuals and as a society), why is it an intrinsic "good" to always maximize production?
Just the way I was raised .... Idle hands are the devils workshop.

If you live in a giant hay field, but you only have one horse, go out and enjoy the sunshine!
Some of us see work when we look at that hay field and feel internally obligated to cut, rake, bale and put up the hay.

Not that I don't enjoy playing, I do.
My primary hobbies have always been fishing and hunting.  Some friends say I go at it like it's a job?
To each their own.  I've never been one to sit on a beach reading books.

Fair enough, but I'm having trouble understanding how you define "work", or what makes it different...


The first thread was specifically about making more income, but now you are including things that "won't pay much or at all". 
Of course, if your reason for a 2nd job is lack of satisfaction with the first job, that's not gonna help much!  :-)


Why is sitting in a boat catching fish "work" (-like play), yet sitting on a beach reading a book "idle hands"?


I mean, if the goal is to be useful and not waste time playing computer games (or posting to internet forums!!!), that doesn't mean one has to work 10 hour days 6 days a week.


Some people devoted all their free time to fighting the exploitive capitalist system of the 1900-1940s, where people either worked 80 hours a week or else not at all, giving us things we take for granted today, like overtime pay, weekends, holidays, sick days...
To each their own, but I'd feel a duty to honor those people's sacrifices.  If anyone wants to put in their 40 and go home to their family (or put in their 30, or 20, or 10), I fully support them.

When compensation catches up to and then keeps pace with technological innovation driven profit increases, and everyone can survive on 4 hours a week of work, maybe then we can all spend a lot more time on volunteering and art and all the other things that make the world a better place

[Hopeful]

Another Amazon FBA-er here.  I find it enjoyable for the most part.  I'm still just recycling all the profits into building my inventory.  I started with about $100 last fall and, without putting nearly as much effort as I should into it, am up to about $1000 in sales/week (as long as I keep sourcing and sending stuff in).

I'm also considering buying a small bulk candy vending route...

Do you have to pay the monthly seller fee with Amazon or can you get started with a free account?

I started with a free account and didn't move to a pro account until I started consistently selling more than 40 items per month.  At that point it makes sense financially to do it.

Thanks so much for the info.  I am looking for a way to very slowly ease into trying this with minimal up front investment until I can prove it can work.  My schedule also allows me very little time to work on this on a regular basis at the moment.  I saw that you could pay Amazon .20 to label and .50 to polybag and then .30 for inventory placement so I can ship to one location.  I would like to try this route as it seems the easiest to get my feet wet.  Does this sound reasonable looking back to when you were first getting started?

I guess my next steps will be to find something to source so that I can see the process in action and feel comfortable with how it all works.

Anyone ever think about outsourcing the product investigation to those who have been down the road of wholesale or private label investigation?

[stlbrah]

I work on a very specific type of camera used in the medical field and software that goes with it. Brings in about $300/month typically for about 5-6 hours of work. It sometimes involves setting up a small network or fixing a computer here and there too. I just take the money and dump it into my taxable brokerage account.

When I originally started it I was shooting for a lot more hours, I made a website, printed out business cards, etc... But those business cards ended up in a drawer and I took the website down. I didn't like having that much of my time taken up knowing that it would never grow big enough in such a small niche to hire employees and be passive. There are ways that I could grow it, but its not really the route I want to take. Missing a workout with my powerlifting team because a customer called is not the type of business I want to run.

I ended up signing one of those forms, w4 I think? for my biggest customer and the work funnels through them now. Its a solid job for 6-8 hours a month and for about 50 an hour.

I would like to do something online, maybe some type of ecommerce company.  tshirt company or something. Maybe look for somewhere that can print them and drop ship them. Not sure yet, just starting to learn.