580: 2 Quick and Easy to Start Side Hustles to Make Extra Money

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1:16Ready? Let's do it. There's been times I've made like maybe$800 in a day, or even there was one weekend we made$2 ,000 an all weekend. That's Chris Torres from Long Island. He and his wife are furniture flippers through a company called ShareTown. And how it works is you get assigned these local furniture returns and mattress returns. You take them back, you clean them up, and then you list them for resale on Facebook Marketplace or wherever else that you like. And the cool thing about it, as Chris is about to explain, is you don't have to pay for that inventory until it sells. We discovered ShareTown through Side Hustle Nation.

1:50And what's awesome about ShareTown is it's simple. As soon as they send you a pickup on the app to go pick up this item, whether it's furniture or workout equipment or mainly mattresses right now we're working with. We love the mattresses. You just got to contact the person in a timely fashion to give you the name and the address, kind of like if it'll pop up if you were familiar with DoorDash or Uber. It'll come up on the app, tell you the person's location. You set up a day and time that works best for them. You make a schedule and you do all your pickups and you post. You post on social media.

2:18You can post these products. You bring the products either to your house if you have the space in your garage or a storage unit. Yeah. I was going to ask if you are able to maintain it out of the garage or you've got a separate storage facility at this point. Yeah, exactly. We started in our garage and then now we do a storage facility. What are you using for the pickups? You have a truck or you have a kind of a trailer set up? I have a regular size Yukon Denali. It's not like an XL. It's a nice size vehicle. You kind of fold down the seats and put the stuff in the back. Yeah, fold down the seats.

2:46The mattresses get wrapped up. They're in a bag. They get folded. There's a great Facebook page with ShareTown. Everybody communicates with each other. They give each other tips, hints, things to make the job a little bit easier. Everybody's so positive and supportive. What was your initial reaction or skepticism when your wife presents you with this idea or this opportunity? You're like, wait a minute, how does this work? My first thing is, well, when do we get paid? How does this work? And I'm asking her all these questions. And so then we received an email and we got on a phone call with the account manager.

3:17And they explained to us how it worked. And I felt a little bit better. I was like, oh, at first I was like, oh, do I have to pay in a pocket for these products? So ShareTown is neat because these items come up on the app, if not every day, every other day or so. And a lot of these items are great. They're not destroyed items. They're still good quality. Like it's a shame to see something, like I said, like some of this furniture here in my house. Yeah. It's just people returned it because they didn't like it, especially the mattresses. Hey, it's 100 night sleep dry. Right. Right. And some people don't like it.

3:45Maybe it's the wrong color. Buyer's remorse. And sometimes it's brand new in the box, which is great. People like that when we resell it on Facebook, Marketplace, Craigslist, OfferUp, things like that. So it works. It's really created lots of flexibility for us. And the money's great, too. For example, you sell a mattress for$500 or$600, and the mattress retails for$2 ,000. People online see, they're like, what's the catch? Why is this mattress so cheap? So I tell them in a nutshell, this is a trial error. It's up to you. They do get sanitized. They do get cleaned. A lot of people don't like the idea of mattresses being used.

4:16I totally understand that. But people don't care to lay on a mattress when they go away on a vacation that somebody's using every other day or in a hotel. So if it's a trial error, at least you realize the mattress gets inspected. You make sure it's not damaged. You make sure there's no stains on it. If anything's crazy, ShareTown shows you how to go through it. And they communicate with you and you communicate with them. And it's not a big deal. You move on to the next item. They'll even pay you for picking it up. Say if you find something. Once in a blue moon, like very rarely. And since we've been doing it since July, there's only been three occasions where we had to discard the product.

4:51You do it on the app. The app tells you what to do. It gives you these little dropdowns. It tells you if it's in excellent condition, if it's fair, if it's good, or does it need to be destroyed. So what you do is you send them a picture of if it's damaged. And they have you spray paint on it like a number or you put an X or something. Or you might have to cut it up because they don't want people also taking advantage. So you never know. Somebody could be lying. So it's a way of proving that, hey, this is really a damaged product. I got to get rid of it. I can't sell it. Is there a typical weekly sales volume in terms of the pickups and the orders that you're receiving?

5:25On a good week, you could easily make about$1 ,500 a week,$1 ,000 a week, in that frame. How many items is that? Three to four or five. Yeah, because that's not bad. So I try to sell something at least one or two a day. That's my goal. It sounds like it's similar to these other gig economy, the door dashes of the world, through it's an app interface. It just doesn't have the name recognition. It doesn't have the huge venture backing that a lot of these gig apps had to go out and recruit this army of independent contractors on the ground level. Yeah, exactly what it is. What's cool about the app is it'll tell you the retail price.

6:00It'll tell you what ShareTown wants from you. And then it tells you the minimum what you should sell it for, what they recommend. the minimum if there's a two thousand dollar mattress share town may only want like 350 for it or 250 or even sometimes less sometimes it's like 175 and you jump on marketplace people want a deal so that's why people are like wait a minute you're selling a two thousand dollar mattress for 600 bucks or 500 bucks so share town will get like what they're asking for like i said 250 or 175 and i keep the rest so sometimes i may make three or four hundred dollars a day i may make five a hundred dollars a day.

6:33So it all depends. And that's just on one item. Mattresses are great because I never realized how many people, I didn't know I was going to be in the mattress business. I didn't realize so many people need mattresses on a regular. Become the mattress dealer in the local neighborhood. I love it. We love it. We meet them at the storage unit. The storage unit's only 10 minutes up the road. It's great for people who live in metropolitan areas, urban areas, cities. I know there's people in certain rural areas where they may not get as much flow like this, but you could do it part-time. It's also great to do part-time if you live in those areas.

7:02Yeah, for sure. And then as far as the reconciliation, to go back to your account rep and say, well, this is what we picked up during the week, this is what we sold. Are they then asking for their share town's portion of that inventory? How often do you have to pay for what you sold? Oh, it's so easy. All you do is every Sunday night or every Monday night, what I do is my bank, I use Capital One, but I'm sure everybody has this on their bank, no matter what bank you have. You have boxes, you have savings. I'm a big believer in the jar method. I don't know if you've heard of that. The jar method, like three or four jars, you add some finances to it and money to it.

7:37You get paid, you split it. So with ShareTown, I do the same thing. I have a box just for them every week. Every time a customer pays us, we give ShareTown that profit. I transfer the money over. If it's cash, I go to the bank, I deposit it. I go right on the phone on my app. I swipe the money over exactly what I owe them for that item. And by the end of the week, all their money's there. So I give them their money for the week, every Sunday night or Monday evening. I love it. Are there any best practices that you found in terms of like the Facebook marketplace listing or the marketing side of things just to get the inventory flowing?

8:08Refreshing your ads, refreshing your posts, just staying on top of it every day. So every week it gives you the option. Like, do you, have you sold this yet? Do you want to renew this list? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, that too. We do both. Like if it'll offer me that and I haven't sold something, I'll resell it. You know what else is great? You realize you're getting that same item on a regular basis, you realize, well, I don't really have to edit that post that much. So what I do to make my life easier, and it doesn't make myself frustrating, and I don't have to always change my words, I copy and paste a really good little description of an item that I get on a regular basis.

8:42I'll put it in my notes on my phone. And then every time it's time to reset an item, or refresh an item, or repost an item, I'll just copy and paste it back into the post to make my life easier. I would do it once or even twice a week to totally delete and repost. Any other tips for future ShareTown reps? Ask questions in the group. When you get added to the Facebook group, you'll love it. Keep yourself motivated. Not every day is going to be a perfect day, but when you realize the potential you have doing this and how much volume you can move, and the more you move, the more product ShareTown is going to give you, it's so worth it.

9:17It's worth it. You'll be surprised at how fast things change around, whether it's part-time or full-time, once you stay dedicated to it. What are the common complaints in the Facebook group? Oh, I got this thing. It's broken. I'm going to sell it, like I was telling you before. Or it's damaged. How do I do this? How do I do that? Am I able to fit a certain amount of product in my car? Or just like you can see. Or what do you guys use for cleaning supplies or certain bags. It's like a$25 bag or$10 bag that you could buy for any mattress. And it zips up. You buy it on Amazon. We found that in the Facebook group and it was great.

9:51It works perfectly because that's how you cover the mattress. It's like a tarp. It's like a zip up tarp, a blue tarp. Yeah. Protected in transit. Yeah. Because you're transporting it. So you don't want to damage it. So you don't want to get stained or dirty. You don't want to drag a mattress through someone's yard or if you're in a city, dragging it through the concrete. So there's more pros and cons without a doubt. hands down, definitely more pros and cons. We're able to now have more time and more freedom and catch up on our debt and pay my bills ahead of time. I feel great. My bills have paid up for the next two months.

10:21I'm going on a cruise next month. I'll be back on track when I get back. I'm just so grateful for the whole thing. It's just been an awesome thing. I'm so glad my wife found you guys, the Side Hustle Nation, and we found ShareTown through you. I tell you what, Nick, it's been awesome. Well, Chris, appreciate you sharing. Appreciate you stopping by. If you're ready to learn more, sidehustlenation.com slash share town is my direct referral link. I'll also link up our full write-up and review in the description below. Thank you so much for watching and make sure to subscribe for more money-making ideas.

10:52Our second plug and play side hustle is coming right up right after this. A new season calls for new meals and our sponsor HelloFresh has a fresh fall lineup of delicious dinners to fit your lifestyle. Is there a more dreaded question than what's for dinner? Well, here's the easy button solution. Skip the meal planning and skip the extra trips to the grocery store and instead get farm fresh ingredients and easy recipes right to your door with the help of HelloFresh. Every week, America's number one meal kit has got 40 different recipes to choose from, including family friendly, fit and wholesome and vegetarian options.

11:28My advice, be on the lookout for the ones labeled Hall of Fame. Those are always crowd pleasers in our house. Brent and I have been customers for years. We always look forward to discovering new and interesting recipes we otherwise never would have thought to try. So go to HelloFresh.com slash 50 Side Hustle and use code 50 Side Hustle for 50 % off plus 15 % off the next two months. Once again, that's HelloFresh.com slash 50 Side Hustle and use promo code 50 Side Hustle for 50 % off plus 15 % off the next two months of America's number one meal kit. I'm sure you've heard the saying that you should learn something new every day.

12:07In fact, one of my favorite t-shirts is the one that says never stop learning from my buddy Thomas Frank. But making intentional time to learn something new is often easier said than done. That's why I want to introduce you to a really fun podcast I just discovered called Everything Everywhere Daily. Everything Everywhere Daily is one of the world's most popular daily education podcasts. The episodes are quick hits, usually just around 10 minutes, and they cover topics in history, science, geography, math, technology, as well as biographies from some of the world's most interesting people. According to one reviewer, the host Gary has the rare talent of making you genuinely interested in a topic you would have never thought would appeal to you.

12:48For example, let me give you a sample of the Everything Everywhere Daily episodes that are on my playlist. First up, I've got, why are there no flying cars? I mean, seriously, it's been almost 40 years since Back to the Future. Where we're going, we don't need roads, right? Well, Gary's going to tell you why. I've also got the rarest feats in sports, the surprising origin of Monopoly, the board game in this case, and the real life Indiana Jones villain. And that's just a taste. Gary's got over a thousand episodes to choose from. So pick and choose the ones that sound most interesting to you or binge the entire archives.

13:21They're all under 15 minutes. Learn something new every single day with everything everywhere daily. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jen Trinidad of Budget Divas, and I made about$2 ,000 a month on average mystery shopping. If you're interested in mystery shopping, the first place I would go to mspa-americas.org. They are like the government agency of mystery shopping, if you will. So MSPA stands for the Mystery Shopping Providers Association. And when you go onto that site, you'll have access to a list of mystery shopping providers that have gone through this process to become a legitimate mystery shopping company.

14:11Okay. So it's primarily done through these kinds of directories versus calling up Target or Walmart and offering to go check on their employees? Yeah, so for someone who's new, at the bottom of your screen on the right-hand side where it says congratulations, it says Elite Member 2022. So those are the companies that have been vetted through the MSPA and are the companies that people would wanna work with. If you're on this list, that means that they're a great company to work for and mystery shoppers recommend them. Okay. So I could go through and create shopper accounts with all of these in addition to creating an account here?

14:55Yes. Okay. So I went through, I did that yesterday. And so this would be kind of a centralized database of gigs that are available. And what was interesting was I didn't see a way to filter by location. So if I went to opportunity board, this is under, they have a free level and a paid level. was like 35 bucks a year to join MSPA. And so I have this opportunity board. You see things for movie theaters, like, oh shoot, go get paid to see a movie, stay in a hotel. I mean, you mentioned going out to dinner, having a nice dinner and you have to write about it, tell how it was. But I don't know, do you have any tips for filtering these at all?

15:32I do. Let's go back to the main page and go to service provider search. Okay. And on the left-hand side, service provider search. Gotcha. And go to MSPA Americas. And you can filter by state. Yep. If you just want to go to. All right. Let's check out and see what's going on near me in Washington. Oh, and only three of them comes up. All right. That's okay. There are a lot more shops. Another great one is iSecretShop.com. iSecretShop.com is like the mall of America. and it has all of the shops that are available. So you don't have to sign up with A company, B company, C company. You can just sign up with iSecretShop and it'll give you an entire list of mystery shop companies.

16:26Okay, cool. What's a typical gig? Do you have some examples of some of the work that you've done? One of my favorite ones is going to a restaurant and going out on date nights with my husband, getting reimbursed for our food for$150. And then on top of it, getting paid$20 for a job well done. So how it works is they will say, here are the guidelines. And we want you to evaluate the customer service and the landscape of the restaurant from the time that you walked in to the time that you left the restaurant. and for a great report, a great narrative of painting the picture of what happened from beginning to end, we'll reimburse your food up to the certain amount and we'll also pay you a flat fee.

17:16Okay. That's cool. I mean, you're getting paid to do something that you might want to do anyways, get a free dinner out of it. And you just write this report after the fact, or are you kind of like taking notes during the thing? Like, oh, my waiter didn't refill my water fast enough or something? Yeah. So within the guidelines, they will tell you specifically what to look out for. So one of the things is when you're ordering something from the menu, asking them a question and seeing how knowledgeable they are about that entree. So if you want a recommendation for fish, what type of fish do they have?

17:48If you have a nut allergy, looking for something that doesn't have nuts in it, making sure that they're checking on you every so often. Most of the time, it's within three to five minutes of your food being served. And especially for fine dining restaurants, making sure that you're not rushed through the process, that they're not trying to turn the table over to serve the next customer, but they're giving you that time to enjoy a great time at the restaurant. Okay. So some restaurant gigs, like the ones that I've done through Field Agent, I've been trying to find this product on the shelf at the grocery store, take some pictures of it, maybe even buy it, bring it home, we'll reimburse you, give it to those like some coconut juice or something for the kids.

18:32And do they like it? What do they think? You send in this full report after the fact. You're like, well, that was kind of interesting. And it may be paid five bucks plus reimbursement. But it sounds like there are gigs that can pay quite a bit more than that. Yes, for sure. You just have to go through the process of knowing where to look. Once you're established as a mystery shopper that's professional and you're not just doing it for fun, but you're actually taking it seriously, there will be other mystery shop companies that will reach out to you, especially if you're registered through the MSPA.

19:08So they'll say, because you're registered with the MSPA, we found your name. Are you interested in registering with our company? Okay. So MSPA is a good place to start. Isecretshop.com is another good place to start. And then I guess you can look at that elite list on the MSPA website too, and try and create accounts with those separate companies to try and collect as many gigs incoming. Do you get email notifications if there's something nearby you or how does that part work? Depending on how you've set up your account, you can have email notifications, text notifications. Sometimes they'll even call you if there's an urgent shop that they need you to do right away.

19:48The great thing about those urgent shops is say the job is paying$20 on the job board, and maybe it's a little bit out of your way for you, but they need it to be done that day. You can make them an offer and you can say, well, I'll do it for$50. I'll do it for$75. The most that they can say is no. But if you're a reliable shopper and they know that it will get done today, they're more likely to meet you at least halfway, if not get what you are asking for. I mean, a couple thousand dollars a month is fantastic, but I don't necessarily see it being something that's going to replace your day job.

20:27And so it's like, okay, how can I align these gigs to my existing errands or how I go about my days and my weeks? It's like, okay, if there's a gig over here and I can do that while I'm already out and about and get paid for this trip, at least enough to pay for gas and then some. Any scams, red flags? I don't know. Have you been sent out on a wild goose chase and just like, this was not what it was advertised to be? One of the most popular scams is getting a check in the mail. And the letter will say, go to the bank and deposit this check, deposit it to XYZ account, and then the rest you can keep.

21:10So the check is obviously going to bounce because it it as a scam. No mystery shop company will pay you up front. They will always have you do the shop first and then you'll get paid via whatever method they have, whether it's PayPal, direct deposit, or paper check. So that's number one. Another scam is saying to go buy gift cards from the store and with that gift cards, mail it to a stranger. Mystery shop companies will never do that as well. A lot of side hustlers suffer from what if-itis. What if it doesn't work? What if I don't have the skills? What if I pick the wrong path? But one thing 100 % of our amazing guests have in common is they took their shot.

21:53They phased down those what ifs and they got their answers through taking action. Our partner Shopify helps turn what ifs into why nots. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world, from household names to the very guests on this show. What if I can't design a website? Shopify's got you with ready-made templates to match your brand style. What if people haven't heard about my brand? Shopify helps you find customers with easy-to-run email and social media campaigns. And what if I get stuck? You can tap in to Shopify's award-winning 24-7 customer support. Let's turn those dreams into and give them the best shot at success with Shopify.

22:30Sign up for your$1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash side hustle. Go to shopify.com slash side hustle. Shopify.com slash side hustle.

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