From Debt Sucks’ blog post about his business ventures, it got me to thinking about the ones I’ve had, and the number surprised me.
If we’re counting blogs as businesses, then my grand total so far is 8*!
MY PAST:
*BUSINESS #??: Paper Girl
I didn’t include this because I feel like it wasn’t a business. All I did was manage some neighbourhood kids into delivering papers by paying them half the rate I got and praising the good ones with ice cream cones once a week.
Nah. Not including this.
BUSINESS #1: Selling used clothes on Ebay
Yes I did this. It started with me selling stuff from my closet (not my big closet clean out, just one or two things), and then I started scouring thrift stores and picking up gems, and reselling them after merchandising them nicely and writing these exhaustive descriptions on Ebay.
I didn’t make much profit on anything I sold, perhaps $5 each item or less, but it was more of a hobby that turned into a small money maker. I closed it after I had ransacked all the thrift stores in the surrounding area, and decided that I was too tired to sift through clothes for hours every week. It was fun while it lasted.
BUSINESS #2: Selling virtual treasures on Ebay
(I forgot to write about this in my comment on Debt Sucks!. Solly.)
Yes, still a kid here. In my pre-teens.
I was obsessed with multi-player online role playing games (RPGs). I would spend HOURS in front of the screen, building up character stats and running a couple of virtual “stores” online, with my mad characters that could do anything from make suits of amazing armor to selling reagents (these herbs you make spells with).
Probably my most interesting business to date. I used to be obsessed with this RPG, and I made millions in gold a day. At least $2 – $3 million and I spent “investing” in rare items and huge houses on islands in the game.
It translated into real money for me when I decided to get out of the game completely, cut myself off and focus on getting awesome grades to hit up those scholarship funds.
I sold a million gold pieces on eBay for $20 each “lot”, for new people who wanted to get into the game but didn’t want to put in the hard work of 6 months and save the money required to get properly outfitted and started in the game.
(Gee this sounds a lot like real life….)
In the end, I sold everything I owned plus the gold during the 2 years of my obsession for about $2500 USD. This sounds like a lot of money, but remember… I was spending hours on the game, every day, every weekend.
Sure, it was a helluva lot of fun, but I probably made $0.50/hour in the end. I’d have been better off flipping burgers.
BUSINESS #3 Doing web designing and web consulting
Let’s say I’m in my teens now. I had a job at a local burger shack and on the side, I was dreaming up designs for webpages. I’m sure you must have noticed this, but I can’t stick to a theme for more than a year. I think I re-designed this blog in February, and I’ve just recently changed it AGAIN.
Oh wait? You didn’t know? Plug, plug, plug come check it out! It looks a lot sexier, and I am hoping to keep this format forever, because it was a pain in the butt to tweak.
I used to design websites, and then counsel people on how their pages SHOULD look — no bright green backgrounds with black text please thankyouverymuch.
I did this for most of my teens and into college years, changing from a burger shack salary to a webdesigning salary, but doing the web consulting bit on the side.
I made okay money. Nothing fabulous, and in one client I think I traded free comics for webdesigning. OH YEAH!! 🙂 Free comics just to do what I love anyway. Score!
I think being a kid with braces, glasses and totally geeked out must have made these businesses trust my opinion even more, as they were mostly small to mid-sized businesses.
BUSINESS #4, #5 and #6: BLOGS
So you know my blogs:
This blog, The Everyday Minimalist and Style on a String.
I make enough to cover my hosting and domain name registration fees, but not much else. *shrug*
I made some bad decisions at the start with FB in the City and I’ve had a lot of problems struggling with the identity and set up in the beginning.
I had assumed I’d make some money but that was because I was in debt so I had $_$ in my eyes and I wanted even $0.10 to go towards my debt.
Then after 2 painful years of not listening to my wise readers from the start, I sliced out all those stupid pay per posts, put up ONE Google ad now I’m much happier than writing those crap posts (sorry everyone!).
But hopefully I’ve changed a lot this year and moving forward, it’ll be a better blog as a result.
Hey, it’s gotta get really bad before it gets better right?
I’ve come to these conclusions about blogging
1) I don’t need the money from my blogs (hence, quality not crappy money making quantity)
2) I really do write for fun, not for money
3) I don’t want to be famous or rich off my blog (kind of worries me)
4) I already have a career I love that makes me more than a blog ever could, in less amount of time
5) This is just a free hobby that pays for itself
BUSINESS #7 PERSONAL FINANCE WRITER
I just recently started doing this, so I forgot about it. I write PF articles on the side at Investopedia and I love it. It’s hard to NOT be a blogger and write with a neutral, third-party tone, but I think I’m learning the hang of it.
I know my profile doesn’t show my posts and they’re working on the code for that, but so far I’ve written about 10, some still to come.
My latest article is How to budget for an irregular income.
BUSINESS #8 FREELANCING CONSULTANT
This is where I pay the bills, my bread and buttah!
Most recent budget post: September 2010.
You already know about it through reading my blog, so I won’t talk about it.
IN SUMMARY:
Holy. I guess I’ve done a lot more work on the side that I had originally thought.
The thing with me, is I can’t seem to get into anything without making money.
They all start off as hobbies, or little things to do on the side and I don’t know what happens but it turns into a mini business that may not bring a lot of cash considering the time, but that I have fun doing them as well.
I mean, I started selling stuff from my closet which branched into getting stuff from thrift stores to fix up and resell. That turned from a hobby into money. I didn’t mean for it to make much of anything or turn into something I’d do regularly, I just thought it was kind of cool to write descriptions, take pictures and organize everything, and I became addicted to creating Ebay postings and tracking them.
And now with blogging, it started as a free hobby on Blogspot and now it’s covering its own domain name and hosting with the (small amount) of money it makes from Adsense.
Oh well, better than nothing. 🙂
EXTRA READING:
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.
I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year.
Now I am self-employed, and you can read more about 
I think that a lot of us personal finance people have done this multiple business thing a few times. Just reading yours makes me tired but thinking about my own past makes me just as tired. You know the old saying…If at first you don't succeed, try and try again.
My recent post Sunday Coupon Preview
That\’s exactly what I thought when I was typing it. I thought — Geez, could this get any longer?
I kept remembering odd jobs here and there.
Ebay doesn't cut it for me! One of my packages got lost in the mail and I had to refund my $12 profit from this Hollister sweatshirt lol. But I did make about $120 from selling stuff I didn't even like.
Wow! You have a lot of businesses! I love the pictures you use and the design of your blogs. You have an eye for eye-catching graphics!
Yes I do remember having a lot of eBay problems and buyers NOT READING THE DESCRIPTION, then leaving me negative feedback when it was their own damn fault.
Thank you 🙂
I have tried Ebay, and it started out as fun, but then after a month or two it was pure drudgery! some money was made, but certainly not enough to give up my real job.
My recent post Debit vs Cash
Amen. I couldn\’t do eBay stuff as a job. I\’d just… die. 🙂
I love RPGs, but I played table not computer (my son does that). And my ex and I made a good sum from those Magic cards. Who knew a piece of card paper would go for $60/per card on a norm. 😉 Then I had the whole series of White Wolf's Vampire Requim series… wonder what happened to them…
My recent post Frugal to survive or frugal to be rich
I\’m way more into computer RPGs than on the table. The only stuff I did on the table (Well, floor) was POGS. 🙂
I just liked building up stats and achieving a \’goal\’ in the games, until I realized it was virtual.
Another serial entrepreneur here. I've dabbled there and there with various ideas and some have panned out and others have not, but what is interesting is how I can never get it to stick or scale up. Lately I've done nothing but mistake after mistake with various blogs and sites, as far as that I built them scaled them and then sold them.
What a grand idiot I am. Since all that hard work is now for someone else to benefit.
For example this year alone I created a blog which was an income generating site and since I'm also a blog flipper I sold the site for $5,000 back in April. It was on the iPad niche and as luck would have it, that was a big mistake. The site still ranks highly for its key term which is a highly searched for term and with the upcoming holidays, it's gonna kill with sales and traffic.
But this is nothing new, I made the same mistake with another site I created back in March of 2009 on the ebook reader niche. Sold it in December 2009 for $2,000 and then the guy I sold it to – turned around and flipped it in April 2010 for close to $17,000 It's a long story and one I don't care to repeat. There's an article floating around the interwebs about the whole story, but I wont link to it. Since it just makes me the laughing stock of the site flipping world. lol.
Anywho, I've got a couple of sites on the burner now and although one that I thought would be big hasn't panned out. Google has decided it doesn't like it and wont rank it accordingly. It's on the iPhone 4 niche, but I haven't given up on it entirely. Not just yet.
It all boils down to self esteem. I didn't believe in myself and my skills and now there are several people out there benefiting from my hard work. It sucks big time, but all I can do is move on.
My recent post Top 8 Most Wanted Gifts This Christmas And How To Get Them At a Discount
Wow. I’ve never met a blog flipper! That’s really interesting work. I’m sorry your blog flipping hasn’t worked out. Can’t you just keep those blogs going until you see how it works? I guess it’s all risk in that case then.
Question mark? Well, then again, I don't think you've been reading my blog too long.
Silly thing is, a few days after I wrote that post, I thought of two more that actually made me a pretty good amount of money (including my first truck), but haven't gotten around to adding them in. Had my hand in too many things to keep track of, apparently.
My recent post How Preliminary Budgets Can Keep You On Track
No I haven’t been reading your blog too long! That was the first post I came across via Punch Debt and that’s why I subscribed to you 🙂
I’m the same way — I can’t really remember everything, except the few things…
Love the blog, but it would be nice if the newest post was displayed and you didn't have to click. 🙂
Duly noted! Thank you so much for the tip.
I\’ve made the main featured slideshow the latest 3 posts (I cannot assume that people RSS feed my blog or know what the latest post is).
I hope that helps 🙂 Thank you.
I think that's pretty cool. My bf works as a programmer, when he was a teen, he was learning how to program, when I was a teen I was watching Buffy and Dawson's Creek. I totally envy him for being wiser in his teen years, however I am happy for him, it just taught me that even though watching the telly is fun, it can be helpful to have useful hobbies.
I hope you keep writing, you seem to be a very good writer, and it can take awhile before you can make money from blogging and writing, but its nice to hear that you enjoy it as well. I don't like people who only do things for money.
I\’ve actually been writing for about 4 years *snort* but I haven\’t really found my style of writing until mid this year. I feel more confident… which is 3 years too late but hey, better late than never!
To be honest I am not that concerned about earning money from the blog. I have my own career and I never want to give it up just to blog full-time. Then it\’d become a real JOB!!
My teenage hobbies involved watching television and writing moody poetry = not making any money. I'm kind of jealous of the teenage you right now 🙂
LOL don\’t be. I was a geek and I can\’t seem to help myself. I was never really into normal teenage things — makeup, yes a little.. boys.. not really, and drinking/smoking/drugs? definite no for me. I didn\’t enjoy those normal teenage activities.
i would,nt even know where to start I,ve worked at more and varying jobs than I,ve had hot dinners. And none of them have ever made me a large fat pay check. I left school at fifteen and did a Hairdressing Apprenticeship and stayed in that line of work until I had my children, and after that came a succession of menial low paying jobs due to the fact that I have no credentials and no education.
I have tried Ebay too and I loved being my own boss, but it was very low paying and being such a perfectionist i spent more money on soap powder and packaging than I made