I Make $15,000/month - 3 Hours of Work Per Day

[Celestia]

I'm new to the forum but I thought I'd share what I've been doing for the past decade. This is more of a side hustle because it's not really scalable past what I'm doing, but I've been able to become quite wealthy doing this. Now I've gotten into investment properties and I don't need to do this anymore so I thought I'd share what I did to make this kind of money. So what did I do to make $15,000/month working 3 hours per day? I flipped MacBooks. I sold 3-5 MacBooks per day making an average of $150 profit per MacBook. It was quite easy. First I had to find a source to acquire cheap MacBooks. Where did I find that source? Well I can't tell you, but if you're willing to do the leg work you can find sources for everything. What I liked about MacBooks was that they're basically all the same and easy to work on. Apple has a standardized hardware test that you can run on them to make sure they're not going to crap out on somebody the day after you sell them.

Once I secured my sources (I had many), I could buy as many MacBooks as I wanted. Selling as many as 150 MacBooks per month is pretty easy once you get a system set up. So why is this not scalable? Because I only sold on Craigslist. See, the best selling MacBooks are under $500, and for that price they're going to be old (7+ years). If you sell these things online, you're going to have way too many headaches. At only $150 profit each, you'll be in trouble if you get more than a small percentage of people that have problems. Remember, I didn't get into this to work 12 hour days. I don't want to mess with problems. If the thing dies a few weeks later, I don't want to hear about it. It's a used MacBook that's 10 years old. What did you expect? I made sure to sell every MacBook in public and I always made sure to tell people that I didn't warranty them. Despite this, I did hand out a couple of business cards to everyone I sold to. It simply said "XXXXXX - The Mac Guy" with my phone #. This helped bring in referrals and helped me get up to the 3-5 sales per day.

Yes, there were problems. Yes, there were pissed off people. But all in all it was a fun side hustle. I'm still doing it, but have ramped down quite a bit. I don't list on Craigslist anymore and am surviving off my referrals and new business from new cards I hand out to the people that buy stuff from me.

My favorite part of this was when people would bring me their old MacBooks. They'd either just go ahead and give them to me or ask if I'd take $50 off or whatever. I took these in and if they didn't pass the hardware test I'd list them on eBay for parts with the results of the hardware test. I usually didn't fix them (too time-consuming).

I'm glad I don't have to do this for a living nowadays because FaceBook Marketplace has taken a lot of people away from Craigslist. I can't stand FaceBook Marketplace. So many dumbasses on there and people that don't respond or jerk you around. With Craigslist it was easy because everyone CALLED you and you could tell within 5 seconds if it was a dipshit or not. Now with FaceBook you have to spend 20 minutes going back and forth with said dipshit while 20 other dipshits send you the same mind-numbing message: "is it still available?" to which you respond "Yes, when would you like to look at it?" and 90% of the time you get no response. Who the F*ck thought this was better than just calling someone and setting up a time to meet?

Anyway, rant over. If you can find a good source of a product that is in demand and buy/sell it repeatedly, you've got yourself a good system. Simply grow that system and keep attacking your niche and you'll be making bank in no time. I'm doing the same thing with my investment properties. I have one niche and one type of tenant that I target (I'm careful not to discriminate, but you start to see trends of what types of people go after what types of houses when you get into this business and you learn what to avoid and what to jump on). If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment below and I'll try to answer them.

 

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[Grinder20]

I'm new to the forum but I thought I'd share what I've been doing for the past decade. This is more of a side hustle because it's not really scalable past what I'm doing, but I've been able to become quite wealthy doing this. Now I've gotten into investment properties and I don't need to do this anymore so I thought I'd share what I did to make this kind of money. So what did I do to make $15,000/month working 3 hours per day? I flipped MacBooks. I sold 3-5 MacBooks per day making an average of $150 profit per MacBook. It was quite easy. First I had to find a source to acquire cheap MacBooks. Where did I find that source? Well I can't tell you, but if you're willing to do the leg work you can find sources for everything. What I liked about MacBooks was that they're basically all the same and easy to work on. Apple has a standardized hardware test that you can run on them to make sure they're not going to crap out on somebody the day after you sell them.

Once I secured my sources (I had many), I could buy as many MacBooks as I wanted. Selling as many as 150 MacBooks per month is pretty easy once you get a system set up. So why is this not scalable? Because I only sold on Craigslist. See, the best selling MacBooks are under $500, and for that price they're going to be old (7+ years). If you sell these things online, you're going to have way too many headaches. At only $150 profit each, you'll be in trouble if you get more than a small percentage of people that have problems. Remember, I didn't get into this to work 12 hour days. I don't want to mess with problems. If the thing dies a few weeks later, I don't want to hear about it. It's a used MacBook that's 10 years old. What did you expect? I made sure to sell every MacBook in public and I always made sure to tell people that I didn't warranty them. Despite this, I did hand out a couple of business cards to everyone I sold to. It simply said "XXXXXX - The Mac Guy" with my phone #. This helped bring in referrals and helped me get up to the 3-5 sales per day.

Yes, there were problems. Yes, there were pissed off people. But all in all it was a fun side hustle. I'm still doing it, but have ramped down quite a bit. I don't list on Craigslist anymore and am surviving off my referrals and new business from new cards I hand out to the people that buy stuff from me.

My favorite part of this was when people would bring me their old MacBooks. They'd either just go ahead and give them to me or ask if I'd take $50 off or whatever. I took these in and if they didn't pass the hardware test I'd list them on eBay for parts with the results of the hardware test. I usually didn't fix them (too time-consuming).

I'm glad I don't have to do this for a living nowadays because FaceBook Marketplace has taken a lot of people away from Craigslist. I can't stand FaceBook Marketplace. So many dumbasses on there and people that don't respond or jerk you around. With Craigslist it was easy because everyone CALLED you and you could tell within 5 seconds if it was a dipshit or not. Now with FaceBook you have to spend 20 minutes going back and forth with said dipshit while 20 other dipshits send you the same mind-numbing message: "is it still available?" to which you respond "Yes, when would you like to look at it?" and 90% of the time you get no response. Who the F*ck thought this was better than just calling someone and setting up a time to meet?

Anyway, rant over. If you can find a good source of a product that is in demand and buy/sell it repeatedly, you've got yourself a good system. Simply grow that system and keep attacking your niche and you'll be making bank in no time. I'm doing the same thing with my investment properties. I have one niche and one type of tenant that I target (I'm careful not to discriminate, but you start to see trends of what types of people go after what types of houses when you get into this business and you learn what to avoid and what to jump on). If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment below and I'll try to answer them.

@Celestia, great idea! Got to love an all cash business! Your comments about FB Marketplace are right on, lol!

 

[Chip01]

Great post. You figured out the market and capitalised on it. Makes it sound so easy!!

Did you source and purchase the MacBooks before you found a buyer? Or did you have a buyer interested before you purchased one from your source?

Well done, great stuff

 

[Dan_Cardone]

My 0.02 cents about FB Marketplace...

It sucks!

My father is retired and flips cars as a side hustle and he is now refusing to list cars on there.

He calculated that for every 16 people who would message him asking if the car was still available, ONE would respond back after he told them yes. He also complained that no one would every talk on the phone and just wanted to chat in messenger (which he hates to do).

Now he ONLY uses craigslist and LetGo because, in his own words, "People there do business like adults."

 

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[Celestia]

Great post. You figured out the market and capitalised on it. Makes it sound so easy!!

Did you source and purchase the MacBooks before you found a buyer? Or did you have a buyer interested before you purchased one from your source?

Well done, great stuff

I paid an average of $425 per MacBook and started with $5,000. At first I only bought 10 of them but they sold in about a week so I went back and purchased more. When I started I didn't have very good sources (I was going through a middleman) so I was averaging $30 to $50 per sale. Your first goal should be to build up capital, so find a reliable source to get them for a little less than they're worth, build up some capital, then start trying to find your own sources. When I started buying direct without a middleman, I had to front $25,000 and I went in with a buddy that put in $13,000 (so $38,000 in total). I made about $100 in profit per computer with that deal. This is how it went.

When I first started my average buying price was $425 and my average selling price was $465 - so $40 profit per unit. I sold an average of 1.35 units per day, so I made a total of $1,620/month. I also started taking in other people's MacBooks and flipped them under a different name/phone # just in case there was a problem. I made about $2,500 per month doing that. It took me about 6 months to save up $25,000.

Then when I went direct and started making $100 per computer, I was making about $4,000/month plus the $2,500 from before. Then I started handing out business cards and was able to gradually bump the average number of units sold up to 2.1 per day. That was about a year in.

By this time I had some reliable sources, but I started to squeeze them a little bit and was able to make an average of $120 per unit. At 2.1 units per day and $120 in profit per unit, I was pulling in a cool $7,560/month profit.

Over the years I've built up many more sources and I can be more picky as to how much I pay. Now I won't touch a MacBook unless it has at least $120 in profit if it's a cheap one, and $250 in profit if it's a more expensive one. The reason for this is imagine if you see a MacBook for $1,100. It's not too unreasonable to expect that you can talk them down to $1,000. If I was only making $150 per unit and I give them $100 off, I invested $1,000 to make $50. Not a great return.

My favorites are the older MacBooks (white unibody or 2009 aluminum). I can pick up the white unibody models for $30 a pop and sell them for $150 all day long. I usually pay $80 to $100 for 2009 aluminium models and sell for $250 to $300. They sell like hotcakes. You should see my house...dozens of MacBooks on commercial/industrial shelving in my dining room (because, who the F*ck uses a dining room anymore, am I right?).

I have more sources than I need, but there are other people in this game too so I have to stay vigilant. One advantage I have after all this time is I can pick up a $100,000 order whereas most people can't. I've thought about getting into the middleman business (selling them in bulk for $30 to $50 less than what they go for on eBay), but nobody wants to work anymore and everyone expects to buy them for a huge discount (even below my cost). It's just more trouble than it's worth. Sorry, but you're not going to be able to buy a $400 MacBook for $100. Not even I can do that. I was willing to do that and hustle flipping them for $30 to $50 a pop, but that takes work, and very few people are interested in working nowadays.

 

[WillHurtDontCare]

I never would have thought of this. Thank you for sharing. This is a cool concept.

Posts like these are a great reminder of how many ways you can make money.

 

[Devampre]

First off, awesome results! I flipped stuff before, but never found consistent products that I went all in on. (I took a general approach and thus my results were all over the place.)

What I really like about your story is that you did it with Macbooks. I see a lot of people online that struggle choosing "the right product" and turn down product ideas like "laptops" because they hear it's "saturated" or something. And then they try selling something very obscure with a low profit margin wondering why it's so hard to get ahead.

So thanks for the inspiration/motivation.

Also...

Would people like help selling product via facebook marketplace and reducing the amount of "tire kickers"?

 

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[jack1342]

What was your main source of Macbooks?

 

[jack1342]

I paid an average of $425 per MacBook and started with $5,000. At first I only bought 10 of them but they sold in about a week so I went back and purchased more. When I started I didn't have very good sources (I was going through a middleman) so I was averaging $30 to $50 per sale. Your first goal should be to build up capital, so find a reliable source to get them for a little less than they're worth, build up some capital, then start trying to find your own sources. When I started buying direct without a middleman, I had to front $25,000 and I went in with a buddy that put in $13,000 (so $38,000 in total). I made about $100 in profit per computer with that deal. This is how it went.

When I first started my average buying price was $425 and my average selling price was $465 - so $40 profit per unit. I sold an average of 1.35 units per day, so I made a total of $1,620/month. I also started taking in other people's MacBooks and flipped them under a different name/phone # just in case there was a problem. I made about $2,500 per month doing that. It took me about 6 months to save up $25,000.

Then when I went direct and started making $100 per computer, I was making about $4,000/month plus the $2,500 from before. Then I started handing out business cards and was able to gradually bump the average number of units sold up to 2.1 per day. That was about a year in.

By this time I had some reliable sources, but I started to squeeze them a little bit and was able to make an average of $120 per unit. At 2.1 units per day and $120 in profit per unit, I was pulling in a cool $7,560/month profit.

Over the years I've built up many more sources and I can be more picky as to how much I pay. Now I won't touch a MacBook unless it has at least $120 in profit if it's a cheap one, and $250 in profit if it's a more expensive one. The reason for this is imagine if you see a MacBook for $1,100. It's not too unreasonable to expect that you can talk them down to $1,000. If I was only making $150 per unit and I give them $100 off, I invested $1,000 to make $50. Not a great return.

My favorites are the older MacBooks (white unibody or 2009 aluminum). I can pick up the white unibody models for $30 a pop and sell them for $150 all day long. I usually pay $80 to $100 for 2009 aluminium models and sell for $250 to $300. They sell like hotcakes. You should see my house...dozens of MacBooks on commercial/industrial shelving in my dining room (because, who the F*ck uses a dining room anymore, am I right?).

I have more sources than I need, but there are other people in this game too so I have to stay vigilant. One advantage I have after all this time is I can pick up a $100,000 order whereas most people can't. I've thought about getting into the middleman business (selling them in bulk for $30 to $50 less than what they go for on eBay), but nobody wants to work anymore and everyone expects to buy them for a huge discount (even below my cost). It's just more trouble than it's worth. Sorry, but you're not going to be able to buy a $400 MacBook for $100. Not even I can do that. I was willing to do that and hustle flipping them for $30 to $50 a pop, but that takes work, and very few people are interested in working nowadays.

How did you find your middleman?

 

[Taz]

With Craigslist it was easy because everyone CALLED you and you could tell within 5 seconds if it was a dipshit or not. Now with FaceBook you have to spend 20 minutes going back and forth with said dipshit while 20 other dipshits send you the same mind-numbing message: "is it still available?" to which you respond "Yes, when would you like to look at it?" and 90% of the time you get no response.

Probably the funniest thing I've seen all day

But good job and keep at it. You really can make money in so many different ways.

 

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[minivanman]

@Primeperiwinkle

That's why I love Facebook Marketplace. It runs everyone else off. I could see if I was strapped for cash and not wanting to go through a lot of crap to make a sale.

Doing this is exactly what I've been talking about. This is what I did with washers and dryers.

 

[Primeperiwinkle]

@Primeperiwinkle

That's why I love Facebook Marketplace. It runs everyone else off. I could see if I was strapped for cash and not wanting to go through a lot of crap to make a sale.

Doing this is exactly what I've been talking about. This is what I did with washers and dryers.

I thought of you when I read it! Lol

 

[Raedrum]

Incredible the amount of money you can make with good upstream work and dedication. I personally know peoples who was working their a** off for 10 years 12h/day to make such a capital and then go to rental properties. Here in Belgium, people who's making this kind of money are working at the European Panel and are full of stress, looking 65' at 45'...

Anyway thank for your posts it's a really reminder of how many way it is to make good money.

 

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[Xavier X]

Reminds me of when I used to sell ipods on ebay.
I also sold many phones and electronics on Craigslist too, and that "is it still available?" question used to drive me nuts.

I would even add in all caps in the listing, "IF YOU ARE READING THIS, YES, IT IS STILL AVAILABLE!"
Ten minutes later, "is it still available?"... then silence.

 

[GoodluckChuck]

Sounds like there's a real need for a Facebook marketplace bot that will autorespond for you and give you alerts only on 2nd responses.

 

[Celestia]

Sounds like there's a real need for a Facebook marketplace bot that will autorespond for you and give you alerts only on 2nd responses.

You wouldn't happen to know of any, would you?

 

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[Tourmaline]

Maybe ChatFuel would work for you?

 

[amp0193]

I did the same thing, but with phones, back in the iphone 4 and 4s days. Made lots of money on the side. Paid a big chunk out of my student loans.

The hustle was buying on craigslist, but selling on Amazon. Yes there were some headaches, but not too many. Was profiting $60-80 a phone. Phones were almost guaranteed to sell within 24-48 hours. So I'd check craigslist a few times a day and go snag the deals.

The whole thing crashed and burned, when I tried to scale and buy in bulk from a "source". Turns out the source didn't actually exist, and a year's worth of hustle money was gone in an instant.

 

[DURABLEOILCOM]

We're you repairing broken MacBooks in order to resell or just buying good condition ones low and reselling high?

 

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[Scot]

What was your main source of Macbooks?

Where did I find that source? Well I can't tell you, but if you're willing to do the leg work you can find sources for everything.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Upgrade to NOTABLE, thank you for sharing your hustle.

I'm glad I don't have to do this for a living nowadays because FaceBook Marketplace has taken a lot of people away from Craigslist. I can't stand FaceBook Marketplace. So many dumbasses on there and people that don't respond or jerk you around. With Craigslist it was easy because everyone CALLED you and you could tell within 5 seconds if it was a dipshit or not.

Have you tried OfferUp? I've had some great success on there cleaning out a garage with a lot of old stuff.

 

[kubikdanon]

+1 for OfferUp. Me and my friends used to sell ipods on eBay/Amazon. OfferUp and Craigslist was good too. We were doing as much as $20,000 in 2 weeks worth of sales. Fake returns and the fact we all were partners never made us any decent money though.
This post made me think I have to go back to this lol.

 

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[minivanman]

+1 for OfferUp. Me and my friends used to sell ipods on eBay/Amazon. OfferUp and Craigslist was good too. We were doing as much as $20,000 in 2 weeks worth of sales. Fake returns and the fact we all were partners never made us any decent money though.
This post made me think I have to go back to this lol.

That is what I love about selling local...... 0 returns. You can sell as is no warranty or you can offer a WARRANTY (not a guarantee because that word confuses people). For some reason the word guarantee makes people think there is a money back guarantee. If, for example, you say 30 day warranty, people rarely confuse it for being a money back type of thing. Either way..... local rules! Local gives you about as much freedom as you are going to get on the internet.... right now anyway.

 

[ecommercewolf]

I did the same thing, but with phones, back in the iphone 4 and 4s days. Made lots of money on the side. Paid a big chunk out of my student loans.

The hustle was buying on craigslist, but selling on Amazon. Yes there were some headaches, but not too many. Was profiting $60-80 a phone. Phones were almost guaranteed to sell within 24-48 hours. So I'd check craigslist a few times a day and go snag the deals.

The whole thing crashed and burned, when I tried to scale and buy in bulk from a "source". Turns out the source didn't actually exist, and a year's worth of hustle money was gone in an instant.

This reminded me of my days working at one of those cell phone kiosks for a 3rd party retailer inside of the mall. Customers are constantly upgrading their iPhones so of course they don't know what they want to do with their old phone.

What me and one other person would do is punch in the model, color and other specs of their iphone into the computer system... of course the credit they would receive on the screen would always be something OUTRAGEOUSLY low like $30 or $40 for a previous generation iPhone. The company has to profit when they resell it obviously.

That's where I come in and tell them that I can buy it off of them for $75-$80 hard cash, I just have to meet them at off store premises (in the food court of the same mall) so technically its not illegal. I'm sure they knew what was going on but it was a win-win situation. The customer got more money cash for a phone that was gonna collect dust anyways, while I was able to profit anywhere from $80-120 per phone.

 

[Ing]

Very fine!

i have a question at the sources: does one get better sources using the network or asking strangers?

 

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[Blu H]

What was your main source of Macbooks?

Now C'mon Man! Like he'll give away the keys to his Biz? If you want to do it... go out there & find out.

 

[Matt Hunt]

We're you repairing broken MacBooks in order to resell or just buying good condition ones low and reselling high?

Wondering the same thing. I have 0 knowledge on repairing computers, lol!

 

[eliquid]

How big is the city you're selling in.

I could see this working for a med to large city, but prob not small rural areas.

 

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[Walterbl]

Congratulations. I guess the demand for it in your city must be quite high for you to reach such impressive numbers

 

[payingkarma]

@Celestia - Great post! Thanks for sharing your method!

I do have a few contacts that are supposedly wholesaling refurbished/used Apple products. I've a couple of questions though

1. How to know if they are a middleman or real source?
2. How to know if it's legit-- this is a biggie
3. Since it's used - how do I verify the right wholesale price and retail that I can potentially sell on CL or Letgo, etc.