Cash in on your shopping habit!
From being a mystery shopper to selling yard-sale finds online, these women are raking in the dough doing what they love
“I earn $4,000 a month reselling jewelry on eBay!”
“Several years ago after a move, I couldn’t find work in my field of graphic art. The best I was offered was $10 an hour, and my childcare was $8 an hour. I took it, but I kept looking for a better job. Then my sister saw women on Oprah talking about how they were making a living using eBay to sell items online, and she thought of me because I love to shop estate and garage sales. I looked into it and decided to give it a shot.
“I started out slowly, selling children’s clothes that I no longer needed or found at garage sales and thought I could make money on. Then I tried my hand at selling collectibles I picked up at garage and estate sales. It was so fun that I decided to open my own eBay store. I made about $13,000 in that first year, so when I asked my husband if I could quit my job, he said ‘Absolutely!’
“My work is weekly—sometimes daily!—retail therapy for me. I get the thrill of the hunt. Now I go to garage and estate sales mostly on weekends, and during the week I shop department and antique stores for items. I buy jewelry and resell it in my eBay store, ‘College Therapy Fund.’ The name is a joke because my husband and I said if I made any money, our kids could spend it on either college or therapy—whichever they needed most after being raised by us!
“I love my job. The history behind jewelry is fascinating, and I go online to research every piece of jewelry I pick up. I typically work 20 to 30 hours a week, but I get to make my own schedule and I have so much fun shopping for items that it hardly seems like work. Last year I had sales of about $120,000, and my profit was $48,000.”
“I make $5,000 a month secret shopping!”
“I started secret shopping 22 years ago when my daughter was a baby.
I had read an article about a woman who was earning $100,000 a year doing it and I thought it sounded fun.
“I did small jobs at first, going to grocery stores and coffee shops, and I earned $200 or $300 a month.
Then several years ago I was invited as a guest to a conference of the Independent Mystery Shoppers Coalition (IMSC) and I learned about video secret shopping, where you wear a hidden camera and record a mystery shopping visit. There are a lot of rules and regulations, but anyone can learn how to do it. And video shops pay anywhere from
$100 to $200 per shop. The IMSC website has a list of reputable companies to shop for (IMSCInfo.com/ Register-For-Companies).
“Today I typically make between $60,000 and $70,000 a year as a mystery shopper working for about 20 companies. I look at what’s required, pick the shops I like, complete them according to instructions and upload the video if it’s a video shop or fill out forms online if not. I work 5 to 6 hours a day and try to schedule 3 to 4 video shops and 8 to 10 non-video shops.
“I’ve visited banks, hotels, car lots—I even got flown to Hawaii to look at a condo once. The best part is that I get to pick and choose what I want to do. And I didn’t need any special training to get started.
“My husband is a dentist and is busy working, so I use the money to take trips with my daughter. We may use the money to go to India and visit the Taj Mahal before she begins medical school!”
“I make full-time money shopping for others!”
“When I learned about online personal shopping, I was hooked. I signed up at ShopYourWay.com and right away I started helping people find products and deals at the Sears family of stores. I make customized shopping recommendations and help my clients find the items they’re looking for—everything from appliances to apparel—and I earn a commission of up to 5 percent on what they buy.
“It was easy for me to find clients because people visit my blog, CouponMamacita.com, where I post recommendations and links to products. But anyone can be a Shop Your Way personal shopper. All you need to do is sign up online and create catalogs—electronic lists of items you’re recommending. You share those catalogs on your social media pages and by emailing them to family and friends. Then anytime someone makes a purchase that you recommended through a catalog, you earn a commission from the sale.
“It’s great because I can work from anywhere at any time I want. All I need is the internet, and I earn the equivalent of a full-time salary in 5 or 6 hours a day—just from my personal shopping work. I use the money to help with bills, I save some and I use some to pay for travel. If my family wants to go on vacation, I can relieve my husband of having to pay for that.”