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How My Wife And I Paid Our Monthly Mortgage Using $50… And Some Hustle


Yes, we used a $50 investment and some hustle to turn it into over $800 this past weekend. Read on to find out what we did.

When you have financial goals but not the income to match, you have to find ways to either increase your money situation or decrease your spending. The best way is to do both. The most favorite way for the wife and I is to resell items for profit.

(This post contains affiliate links – it helps pay the bills around here.)


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I’ve been back home from my six-month gig in Qatar for about three weeks now. Much of that time has been used performing the tasks around the house that needed doing as well as spending time with the family.

I managed to hit up a few thrift stores but prices seem to have increased substantially during the time I was gone (looking at you Goodwill). Items I used to see priced at $8 are around $12-15 now. That is really cutting into the profit margin. Not to mention that USPS shipping has gone up again.

So my purchases were minimal.

Until Friday.

The family and I stopped by an independent thrift store about 15 minutes before they closed. I must thank the wife, as she needed to use the bathroom and knew there was one there.

After some time browsing, she happened to spot two plastic totes. One filled with Scentsy wax bars @ 4/$1. The other with some special Scentsy items and some Rodan + Fields skincare items @ $1 each.

After we had sold most of it
She was busy looking through the items and when I approached told me she knows the Rodan + Fields items are very expensive.

How expensive, I had no idea.

The store was closing and we were the only customers. I could tell the employees wanted us out.

I told her we can ask if they would do a deal for both the bins.

I called over the employees and asked if they would sell the whole lot. They would, and after some thought, she said there were probably 100 Scentsy wax bars and great items in the other bin. She said $20 for the Scentsy wax bars bin and $30 for the specialty bin. $50 would take it all.

I had just one item, a white cloth originally for $5 that was 50% off. I needed it for a photograph background to take eBay photos.

I said if the plastic totes were included and if they would throw in the cloth it was a deal. They immediately agreed.

Well, once we got home and looked up some of these things we knew we hit a great score!

As valuable as gold!
Just one Rodan + Fields item would sell for $100 easy.

That would double our investment right there! And there were still tons left to sell!

When we got home, we counted our haul.

The Scentsy stuff we bought:

  • 170 wax bars
  • Tester collection (130 big ones and 80 small ones)
  • 8 scent packs
  • 46 gift bags
  • 6 Whipped body souffle
  • 11 Counter clean
  • 2 Kitchen soap
  • 2 Hand soap
  • 1 Fresh spray
  • 7 Dryer discs
  • 4 Hand cream
  • 1 Fine fragrance roller
  • 9 Room sprays
  • 2 Scrubby buddies
  • 3 Bath smoothers
  • 1 Scout dragon buddy cup

The Rodan + Fields stuff we bought:

  • 2 Clarifying toner
  • Oil control lotion
  • Skin brightening kit
  • Overnight restorative cream
  • Lightening accelerator pack
  • Pore minimizer
  • Daily body moisturizer
  • Hand treatment regimen

I have to hand it to my wife. She really got on the selling. She made a few Scentsy wax bar sets and listed them on the local Facebook selling pages. They were a smokin’ deal if the people were into Scentsy. Normal price for a wax bar is $5 each, we sold lots of 7 for just $15.

The local deals were made to have the transaction either somewhere we were going to be already or at the local store about 3/4ths of a mile from our house. Often multiple people at a time. If it was someone my wife knew, they just came to our house. It really didn’t take too much time.

We went for the quick nickel instead of the slow dime on this hustle.

I took pictures of the Rodan + Fields items and kept our toddler daughter occupied. My wife listed a few of them on eBay. Then we switched and I listed the rest.

I also narrowed down a Scentsy scent that is discontinued but has a strong demand – called Business Casual. I listed a set of 5 on eBay for $49.99 and it sold a day later.

Almost all the Rodan + Fields items sold within one day or two of listing them.

Just a small portion of our $50 score!
We still have a few items left, but most have been sold. We have one person that will be buying $100 worth of items next week.

But we have already sold and have cash in hand of $440. From our eBay sales, minus fees (eBay and Paypal) and shipping we earned $452.40.

Total (so far) is $892.40! Subtract our initial $50 investment and we are sitting $842.40 richer over this past weekend.

Our mortgage is $715. We turned this $50 into our mortgage payment (and then some!) with just a little hustlin’.

My wife is the best. πŸ˜‰

Never stop hustlin’! You never know what you can find in the next place you look.



13 comments

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  1. Jennifer Connolly

    That is awesome that you came across those! We have been purging the house the past couple of weeks and have sold quite a lot of our stuff that was just sitting around. Yay for extra money coming in!

    1. MrDD

      Selling stuff that you no longer have a use for and is now in the way is like a two for one. Turning clutter into cash! For me, making the deal and getting the cash is a great feeling. I love the hunt for new stuff to sell, so I always have a room full of clutter for sale. My wife says I am a hoarder sometimes, but just jokingly. πŸ˜€

  2. Tony

    That is the way to do it! It’s such an empowering concept that you can simple go out and make more money in a weekend if you want to. I think so many people can benefit from this simple concept, as you’ve demonstrated, if they just take action on it. $50 kind of shows how low the entry cost can be too for people that are on a tight budget.

    1. MrDD

      Thanks!

      Wasn’t there that guy that started with a paperclip and traded it up a bunch until he got a house out of it? People just need to do their own versions of that, but most never will.

  3. Dave @ RunTheMoney

    You guys rock! And I love this — “Never stop hustlin'”

    Clearly, you guys don’t. Do you guys have these types of finds often?

    1. MrDD

      No, this is an outlier from our normal deals. Usually I ‘double my dollars’ doing this. Say something sells for $40 – buy it for $7ish, add in shipping and fees makes it come out to $20 or so. But you gotta be out there looking for the deals to be able to find things like this. According to the people working at the thrift store they had put it out on a Thursday and had been selling some here and there until we came along on Friday and bought it all up. So people had seen the deal there, but they didn’t have the vision or drive to pursue the opportunity.

  4. Mustard Seed Money

    I love stories like this!!! My wife is also a hustler and goes out to the Thrift Store once a week looking for odds and ins. She’s never made a $50 purchase with profit margins like that πŸ™‚ She normally buys woman’s clothes wears it for a season and then sells it for a small profit.
    Mustard Seed Money recently posted…Week 4 of the Network ChallengeMy Profile

    1. MrDD

      To me, there is nothing much better than buying something – getting your use outta it – then selling it on for a profit! If only everything in life was like that for us hustlers… πŸ™‚

  5. Chris

    That’s impressive to say the least. I might have to check out some thrift stores myself to see if I can get some great finds like that. Congrats on paying your mortgage with this score.

    1. MrDD

      Hey Chris welcome and thanks for the comment.
      If we could only find something like this every week! They are rare, but you can’t find the deals if you aren’t out there searching.

  6. Mr Defined Sight

    I really need to get hustling on ebay. I love seeing stuff like this. Great job on the side income!
    Mr Defined Sight recently posted…Are Shopping Malls a Thing of the Past?My Profile

    1. MrDD

      Thanks! Finds this awesome don’t happen very often but are great when they do!

  7. MrDD

    Thanks, Philip. It doesn’t happen often, but if the score is found we pounce on it.

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