Rob and Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about reselling and when you should get a "real" job.
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When Should You Get A "Real" Job
Rob: What's up, Pro Flippers? On today's episode, we are talking about is flipping a real job?
Rob: Alright. On today's episode, we are actually talking about a question I should not a question, a comment that we got on one of our recent reels that Melissa put out there, saying that flipping is not a real job, or they actually said, go get a real job.
Melissa: No, they said get a real job. And so that actually, it sparked some que some, commentary that I thought would be a really interesting conversation on the podcast. So we wanted to kind of talk about it because there's a couple different things about it.
Like there's, the, the thing like get a real job and, really our reaction would be like, why? Like, why would we want a real job when we have a lot of benefits from reselling?
Rob: At our fingertips. Absolutely. So that's why we decided that we wanted to kind of take it over, talk about it on the podcast, because I'll be honest with you, excuse me, I, before 10 years ago, I didn't think flipping was a real job.
I didn't think it was a career choice. I didn't think it was something you could actually say, I'm a flipper. I didn't think that was possible. And I had done it two decades prior to us going full time. 10 years ago. And I'd never really had it as a full-time job. I always had something else supplementing my income.
I was always flipping on the side. But I was still working something or doing something or starting a different type of business 'cause I never thought that this was actually a viable, real job. And then when we had to jump into it 10 years ago, after I kind of lost my benefits at my company, Melissa.
We were having our third child, Melissa wanted to stay home and take care of the kids, versus sending them to daycare.
Well, and I was, I was doing personal training on the side at that time and then I was like, okay, I have to stop. I can't take any more clients right now. We've got three kids, about to have three kids, three or under three, three and under. Three and under. And I was like, this is just insanity. I have to be home with the kids. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna stop my personal training job. And then he was just gonna kind of, you know, double down on he your report job, but then also double down on flipping.
Yeah. Was kind of the plan. So.
But I never had thought until this point, even 10 years ago, I didn't think flipping was a real career, a real co
Melissa: say that three times
Rob: fast, two, two words combined together. I, I didn't think flipping was a real career. Like you couldn't actually do it. Make a good living at it, provide for your family and do it.
Melissa: Even though you made more money flipping than you did doing those reports for the houses, the home. It was home inspections.
Rob: Yeah.
Melissa: You made more money. So why do we think it wasn't a real thing? Oh.
Rob: Well, you go back to thinking about have you ever met anybody who you shook their hand and they're like, I'm a flipper.
No, you haven't. That's not something that actually happens. That's not, not something that, I've ever ran into anybody who's like a full-time flipper or anything like that. So, that's one of those things that, that's probably the stigma that it had that I'd never thought it could be a full-time gig.
Melissa: Yeah. That's interesting though. And I mean, you started to just probably see YouTubers and stuff. I feel like that's when it got big when more people were on YouTube. Or when you heard about it being more of a thing, 'cause it was always just something that you did as extra money.
Rob: Yeah.
Melissa: So on the side, so
Rob: for sure.
Melissa: Yeah. And but anyway, so basically our comment back was like, why the heck would we want a real job? We love the flexibility that we have with flipping. The biggest thing, I think that like when the kids were little, it was something that we could do at any time of day. So like we jumped into this full time and the real reason was your job had said you were gonna cut, they were gonna cut health benefits. Yep. And that was right before, the number three was about to be due. And we're like, okay, you could go get another job. Or do we really, we did the numbers and we did $42,000 that year prior to the part-time,
Rob: part-time, not really trying to make money yet flipping just for the own side.
Melissa: I mean making money. But on the side it was $42,000 with the $33K, I think it was $33K profit, on $42,000. And then. We're like, okay, well if we can do this in part-time hours, I'm not working. I have these three little kids, but I can still help you a little bit too and we can just dive in and do this. And we did it. And the next year we did $130,000 our, and it was just over a hundred thousand profit.
Rob: And that was our first year full-time into this, you know, going 30, 40 hours a week.
But still, we had the freedom to be home with our kids. We could go out and source when we wanted to. We could ship stuff out when we wanted to. And that's kinda what we did. Then from there on, some of you guys know the story, we actually flipped a larger item. Our first large item that typically I would sell in the local market wouldn't sell in the local market.
We actually threw it on eBay, never shipping anything large before. Then we figured it out and that's when we doubled down on really going after the high profit flips. And then that was it. The game was over after that. We just really honed in on high profit flips, which that's what we do now. And it's been a huge, it's been an amazing, amazing business, career for our family, provided us so much to be able to do what we do and the freedom of the lifestyle that we have because of this flipping business.
Melissa: Yeah, and I will say that we, like when the kids were little, they, we, you would go to the flea market every Saturday and sometimes on Sunday, and we would drag them with us, like they went with us. We had that stroller at the flea market we had. We're wearing kids, we've got pictures of us wearing the kids and they're in the backpack or whatever.
They went every week. And actually having the stroller was nice 'cause we we'd get buy stuff and then put it in the stroller. But, and that was just, it was a routine for them. They understood we were going there and yeah. And people would give them free stuff, but we just built it into our schedule. And then you'd do some of the work after they went to bed.
So they went to bed fairly early, as little kids. And then we would work until like 12 or one o'clock on our business. So that was kind of our schedule that we had. We had the kids and then we did. And that's the flexibility that you have. You can do it. In the time that you have. So it is, and that was super, super helpful during that time because it was craziness.
I mean, it's still, kids are crazy where they're a little older now, so they're a little more self-sufficient. We don't, we don't have to do as much hands-on. But that was a, it was really good. Now we don't have to work till 12 or one o'clock. Yeah. Because we can do stuff while they're awake, but.
Rob: But even if you break down flipping a little bit more like what it actually is doing for society, what's it's doing for,
Melissa: well that was the other part of the comment, so I didn't mean to cut you off, but that was the next part that she said was, she's like, get a real job. You're ruining thrifting culture is what she said. So and so that was part of the other thing. I'm like, ruining thrifting culture. How the heck, like we're just buying and reselling stuff.
Rob: So we've been to many, many of thrift stores, where we bought stuff to resell. Gone to the backside of the thrift store, and they have so much stuff that they can't even process it quick enough because they don't have enough room inside the thrift stores to move the products.
Now we're taking stuff from thrift stores. We're taking stuff from yard sales, from flea markets all over the place, and all we're doing is recycling it. We're recycling it from one market in the local market, typically to a larger market that will pay more money of actually what it's worth. Now, one thing that people I think sometimes get confused. We don't price gouge. Most flippers do not price gouge. They're taking one from one avenue, one, what's it called? Facebook Marketplace. One of the resources.
Yeah.
Sourcing a local thank you. A local area or a, an app or something like that. You're taking it from one, enlisting it in another and selling for it for what the, the market value is not what, price gouging or,
Melissa: yeah.
Rob: Charging more than what it costs retail, because a lot of the stuff that we sell. I'll give you an example. Just two weeks ago we sold that crazy oven, that steamer oven. We bought it for a thousand dollars, sold it for $15,000, and in the, in the, off the retail.
And this was brand new too. It was never used, retail on, I believe it was like 50 some thousand dollars, $30 to $50,000 you could find them online. But that's what we're doing. We didn't charge somebody $70,000 for it because it would've never sold. We charged them. And typically I went off the lowest retail that I could find at $30,000 and I charged half of that and we charged $15,000 for it. But that's kind of giving people a great deal, taking it from a market that it won't really sell what it's worth in, and then bringing it to a bigger market, which is eBay, what it will a absolutely sell in. So, that's the cool thing about what we do. I don't feel like we're hurting. Only thing we're doing is helping everybody.
I don't
Melissa: I think people see, like they'll see people out and they're like, oh, you know, resellers are buying all the good stuff. But they don't realize, like a lot of people don't realize is that there are so many things out, like so many deals, there's no shortage of items to buy. Like, and we don't do clothes really, but like people get upset about people thrifting clothes, but.
You don't understand how many textiles we send overseas because like, is it, it's a huge problem. We send them overseas. It's like, oh, here, here's our donations. No, like it's a problem for these other countries that we're sending them overseas, but we don't even do clothes. But there's still so many clothes that get thrown away. And even just today. You were telling about your,
Rob: my scrapper,
Melissa: your scrap guy?
Rob: I went over to my scrapper, my buddy that, has, he's made me hundreds of thousands of dollars in the last 10 years. I went over to his house. I was a little bit late. He wanted me to come over early. When I got there, he already had his trailer loaded and they had already been cutting stuff down, commercial appliances that he got from a kitchen that went out of business.
And his model is to get his money as quick as possible. He was gonna let me look at what he had before he started cutting it apart and throwing it on the trailer. I was late, so he stacked up this trailer. With appliances that probably there's nothing wrong with, and he took them to the scrap yard so they could recycle them at that scrap yard.
That happens every day, every single scrap yard and almost every single town in the country. Stuff like that is happening every single day. But then you also think about like where we're buying items as well on Facebook marketplace. I'll find an item on Facebook marketplace that started out at $2,000.
They couldn't sell it, so they slashed it down to a thousand dollars. They still couldn't sell it. And a couple months later, I see it for $200. I'll go in and buy it, and then I'll turn around and put it on a different market, which is eBay, and I'll sell it for $2,000. What it's actually, actually worth, on the retail or on the resell market.
So what we're doing is, is really a helping in a synergistic way of the community, of everything. We're actually in the grand scheme of things, we're keeping stuff outta the landfills. Now when you think about scrappers, they're recycling stuff, so it's getting melted down. But some of these items are perfectly good.
There's nothing wrong with them. They can still be used and sold at a cheaper market price, than having to go out and buy a brand new one. So, and everything that we do, we are pretty much trying to recycle and make this planet better with what we're doing and make money at the same time for our, our, our travels and what we're doing, what we're finding.
Melissa: Yeah. And make, make some good money for sure.
Rob: Absolutely.
Melissa: But, and I think if anybody's listening to this podcast, they're not really even like, like they, they understand, they get it. Like, but that is, that is an issue that we, or that we see on social media lot so that people comment that stuff, which is kind of funny.
But also back to the one other thing I wanted to talk about, as far as it being, you know, a real job is you're unemployable now at this point. You could not be unemployed for sure by anybody. And like even when we worked together, that's something we had to learn. Like, he's like, I don't have a boss for a reason.
You can't tell me what we, what we got to do. Like he's good with scheduling and stuff. But anyways, so that is a, is something that you. You can't work for anybody, so you need to be your own boss. But I wanted to talk quickly. I know we're, we're getting, longer on time, but I, when the businesses that you started, like what are some of the businesses that you did, before you went into like you always did flipping on the side, like it was always this thing, but before it was our main gig.
Rob: Yeah, definitely. I mean, landscaping, pool maintenance, house painting, roofing. I even tried to start a parasail business. I grew up on a lake and wanted to do a parasail business.
Melissa: That's the one I wanted to talk about.
Rob: Yeah, of course. That one went south quickly. So we actually did not take off with that one.
Melissa: No, you did take off with it. And then so, so he bought this parasail. I know, I think we told this on here before, but he bought this parasail from the flea market. Or from
Rob: a yard sale.
Melissa: A yard sale? From a yard sale, and decided to try it out with his friends. Luckily, you were wearing a life jacket, so you tried it out, but you did it backwards, right?
And you ended up going up backwards.
Rob: Parasails are only made to catch the wind and go up one way, which we did not know that. So we actually didn't have the rope. We bought the parasail. We bought a rope from Home Depot, 500 foot rope. We bought clamps to clamp it to the parasail, clamp it to the boat, which a big mistake.
Should have had better clamps, but I probably bought the clamps that were on sale, the cheapest clamps I could, this was back years, the things that you do 20 years ago, in your twenties. Yeah. So we did it. I went, I was running down the hill to go up in the air. My buddy was pulling the boat and the parasail wasn't lifting.
All of a sudden, this gust of wind came, pushed me over and spun the parasail over the right way, which was me going backwards, and it shot me up in the air backwards. So I'm riding around the lake backwards and all of a sudden. I just blacked out and I didn't know what happened. Come to find out, the clasp on the back of the boat, came unsnapped from the hook. Hook, right?
The tow hook, that was pulling us and bounced it was like a, almost like a bungee cord bounced up and hit me in the back of the head,
Melissa: because you're riding like this,
Rob: riding backwards, gashed open my head. It was bleeding, but it knocked me out. I, I, coasted or I drifted down to the ground just like a parachute down to the, the lake.
And, my buddy came over, they picked me up and got me to the boat. I woke up and yeah, it was, it was a experience, a crazy experience from a parasail that we bought from a yard sale and we wanted to start the business off of that. But anyways, xnay on that, that was the last time I rode the parasail.
Still have the parasail to this day, but Melissa says I can't ride it.
Melissa: I know we saw it. I know we saw it the other day. You grabbed it out of something. I can't remember.
Rob: It's in my garage. I still have the parasail to this day so.
Melissa: No, we're not using it.
Rob: Crazy, crazy story. But all that being said is yes, we have tried to start, and I probably could name off another 20 businesses, throughout the last 30 years , that I tried to start, tried to start, which no, none of them really, really took off.
Which is okay, but once we really came in and took off with this flipping because it is absolutely a career, it's a profession. Once we started doing it, yeah, it's been amazing. It's been amazing for our family. It's been amazing for our finances, what we've been able to do, and pretty much just all around.
It's, it's an amazing, amazing gig.
Melissa: Yeah. And your schedule, I mean, that's a big one I think we talked about too. And I also wanted to just point out it was, as we end, is that like, you know, people like get a, is it a real job? Well, you can get paid real money. Like it is real money. Just this week I saw in our members group, Hernan had done his first a thousand dollars sale and he just joined us like, I think it was five weeks before, like, in five weeks he did his first big sale. Like, we love the big flips, like that's kind of our jam. So we get, we get excited when anybody makes any money, but you know, when you can make those big, big high dollar flips, it's really cool.
Rob: That's actually our first award in our community. It's a thousand dollars. Which is insane in one single flip a thousand dollar and you hit the first thousand dollar flip, which is insane.
Melissa: And Jenny and Teal had two really good flips yesterday they posted . $750 and $2,150. Insane. On jewelry that he got.
So, .
Rob: So that's what gets us excited. Not only our flips, but helping other people do the same exact thing, which is really, really cool. But absolutely, this is a real profession, a real career. If you are stuck in
Melissa: a, say that one more time fast.
Rob: Yeah. Stuck in a dead end job and you're trying to figure this out.
This is by far one of the funnest best things you can ever do is jumping into the flipping profession. It's just so amazing to be able to do it.
Melissa: Yeah, you love it. You'll never I do. You'll never stop. And if it's something that you would like to learn more about our business model, you can check out our free workshop.
We'll put the link in the show notes below. We would love to see you in our community. We have a blast and get flipping. Let's get some, making some money.
Rob: You're amazing. Thanks for spending some time with us and we'll see you on the next episode. Okay.