Average Investor

Been overloading myself a little bit. I definitely need to take care of myself well and make sure I am more recharged. I seem to get sick kind of often and I wonder if I am not exposed to enough germs or something. Now I have to say that I seem to recover fairly rapidly it seems like. I felt like garbage for like 24 hours and now I seem to be fine. So not really sure what he deal is with that. But I assume I caught some illness or maybe food poisoning briefly. I feel like I pressure myself too much to meet deadlines with the amount of time and energy I put into something. I need to relax a bit. Not stop what I am working towards, but it is really not the end of the world if I go a little slower on something or can't get to it. Of course I want to aim to reach my goals and work towards them as best I can though. Even with the journal entries sometimes it feels like I am just pumping out a habit just because. I really want to maximize the best use of this and not just do it to make it another check on the list. It feels like two days in a week is not enough time for me to produce a video at that. I am not really sure what I want to do. Of course I will become more efficient and better as I go though too. I just try to add to much new stuff and spend a lot of hours on something new to add to it. I see the value in it though, so I will keep at it even if I don't hit every dead line or get it right for awhile. Really liking my new book. I am excited to read it. I am really happy to have access to such good books. That is one of my favorite things to do anymore it seems like. There is so much good stuff to extract from a book. Each book seems to add this \change to my reality. Even if there is just a lesson or practice from each one that sticks it starts to add up. I think this is probably one of the most valuable things I am doing with my time. Today I am thankful for Not having covid-19 Awesome book Allowing myself time to grow and learn

Luck is really defined by the amount of opportunities that you take. The more you increase them, then you will likely get better results. I would recommend working on your speaking skills, attire, and resume. Also, start to follow up on your applications as well. By that I mean by actually going in and talking to the manager about you application a few times, even if they just blow you off. I should also mention that a lot of stuff is probably not going to be hiring as much during the pandemic aside from stuff like Amazon, grocery stores, etc.

You're killing it man! I am so happy to see how far this has come. It has really turned into something excellent already. I know you can position yourself to move higher up in that industry. Just keep your head down and keep refining your skills.

I spent 80 hours a week for awhile to really get this off the ground. But I wanted it to be my income so bad that I was willing to do anything for it. But it is a lot of work for sure. It depends how much you enjoy it to be honest. I get inspired to do it and feel good doing it a lot of the time. Plus I really enjoy going out and looking for items. That is by far my favorite part.

@supremeyingyang What I do to avoid that is try to have a lot of items in the store. So I will generally be able to cover my expenses just from shipping stuff for awhile and it kicks me into gear more if it slows down. But having a big variety of items and a lot of them can help. It all depends on what business model works best for you. I like doing that and have a good mix of cheap and more expensive items. It really helps my store stay more active throughout the year too. If you just sold clothes for example there are seasons that are poor for them and times where only certain ones do well. But that is not to say that just having a couple niches is bad either if you are really good at them. To be fair I do take offers on items often. But I make a profit on them regardless. I don't always have to get the most recent sold. I am taking some offers on stuff I just listed, but not much off the asking. Just moving products as I am uncertain what the next few months could hold. Rather have a good surplus of cash coming in now. Not to mention a lot of the items that are selling are a bit harder to move. Which I assume is the result of amazon slowing down their non essentials and some larger business competitors in the same field have closed up shop for the time being. So now is a good time for me to move those expensive music cds, dvds, etc. A lot of the time when I buy stuff I will have an item that pays for all of it and the rest can kind of just sell for whatever really. That usually results in me having a big pile of stuff laying around though lol. But I do get to it gradually. I just sell the one most expensive item from that group. Learning the most about shipping is really going to be in your favor. That is one of the biggest expenses and you can cut it down dramatically by investing time into learning more about the options you have. Of course if you can find better items and stuff, then that is good. But for example I have made some really big sales on large speakers. People practically give away high end speakers, when they move and stuff in the summer because they are hard to sell or most assume the don't have value. I can take those and I will ship 100lbs packages to people and make hundreds for just a few hours of work. But that is something that most will not do, so I can easily pick those kind of items up having my knowledge of shipping.

@kellyon What kind of industry are you in? What platform are you trying to bring clients to?

@supremeyingyang I really like garage sales the most. But thrift stores are good too especially if you frequent one enough. There is really no limit to the categories you can enter. That is why I sell such a broad range of stuff. It is good to specialize in probably like 3 areas though. But the more you do it and the more you go you will start to pick up on it more. Always try to buy new old stock stuff. You could find something like a old windows 7 copy for example new and that would sell well. I have sold those for $90 within the last year. Don't be afraid to take some risks sometimes. That is really what has made me improve the most. You get burnt on something, then you will likely not make that mistake again. You will also learn a lot in the process. I usually do that by buying things in big quantities that I want to learn about for a low price. You can do storage units or buy bulk wholesale stuff. I have a guy that will deliver 4000 dvds to my house all at once. You can make connection like that with all sorts of categories like books, cds, etc. A lot of it comes down to knowing more though and getting more practice. I can get so many items now that I have a hard time selling them all. I have got a lot of stuff at thrift stores, but I really do favor garage sales much more. Lot better deals usually and a you can barter. Are you in the US? Edit: Are you looking to buy while in lock down or just in general? I should have asked that lol.

Over 80 items listed in 3 days. That is really good considering yesterday was a bit of wash with how much time I spent setting it all up to be more efficient. Although, it was really worth it. I am going to get myself to set up a system to cross post next week though. I think I have mastered ebay enough at this point and I need to make sure that I have more traffic coming in. Not only that if something happens to ebay or something, then it would not be good. Granted I had been using local sales to offset that it is not the case anymore. I am going to make sure that I am on top of that. I am going to finish making my facebook page and all of my branding stuff too. I am excited about that. I am going to work on doing some green screen stuff tomorrow. Then doing some toast masters at night. It is going to be really fun I think. It will be really good practice for what is to come. I have some really cool stuff I am working on and I am excited to see how it goes. I am really starting to improve. I have been working my ass off in all areas I feel like. But I love all of the stuff I am doing. It makes hard to even find time to post on here it seems like sometimes just from that. I am really happy to have all of this good stuff in my life. I am really glad I bought the stocks when I did. I wish I had more capital to fund them. But I am going to keep adding what I can while it is in a bear market. I am really lucky to have the opportunity to do this. I have wanted to have stocks for so long, but they have always been too expensive since I had any interest. I think now more than ever it shows how important crypto currency is too. Having a trillion dollars just pumped into the economy is not a good way to keep solving problems and inflates stuff. Shows how much we work for something that is just created out of thin air that we place value on. Today I am thankful for Enjoying my work! Grinding out a lot of items! Health and wellness

@Anna1 Yeah, it is a tough one. It has taken me over 2 years of constant dedication. I went from someone who ate taco bell all the time to eliminating meat, added sugar, dairy, oil, processed food, frozen foods (besides fruit), etc. I don't think everyone needs to go that in depth. To be fair I could have never seen myself doing that in the past, so it really is possible. Takes patience though. Your taste buds also adjust after about 3 months. So fruits and vegetables taste really good now. I even make my own sauces and stuff too. I have to admit I invest probably about 1-2 hours into making food a day, so that is an extra drain if you don't have the time. There is a good balance for everyone though. I also eat nearly the same thing daily, but with making my own sauce and stuff it changes. The smoothie always has a variety of different fruits and other things added. I have a big mix of vegetables that go in, so not really a lack of stuff. The most helpful thing I did for improvement was just working on doing one meal and making that as best I could. I started with just the smoothie and that progressively spilled into all the other things I ate. I eat a lot of different nuts throughout the day too. Nuts are an incredible food source and require no prep time. Yeah, I am not sure what can even be done with stuff like that. It's really a shame how it works like that. In the future I will have a bit of stock pile I think from now on lol.

@Anna1 Yeah, I agree with you lol. I got irritated because I am eating sauerkraut with regular water and not purified water lmao. So my problems sound pretty superficial. I had just made a big effort to remove all that kind of stuff and I had a whole bunch of them stored that were with regular water I was not eating. They were $1, so I bought like 20 or so at the time haha. So I lucked out with that. I had been trying to eat only organic too, but that is not fully the case. It is what it is. I am happy to just be able to eat and if I have to eat stuff I eliminated to survive, then I would. I assume there is plenty enough for everyone. But because there is fear and panic, then everyone has to buy it all up. Which ironically just makes people have to go to the store more.

@Anna1I had to pay $10 for the delivery and they forgot an item I seemed to get charged for. I found around 4pm to be a good time to go when I did. Because they would restock for people getting off of work. Good luck to you too! I had seen costco does online orders if you are a member. I am going to try to get some cashews coming in if they have them lol.

@Preety_India I am sorry to hear that. That's pretty rough. I am a strict eater and that would drive me nuts. I am lucky that I have as much as I do. If I aim to buy more expensive items, then they are usually in stock. But that is not ideal.

I still go for a run, but don't really get all that close to people. It is outside, so I don't assume it is as risky there. Not to mention I jog past them typically. Try to go earlier and when it is raining. When it is both of those I hardly see anyone lol.

@Preety_India I bet your sales are doing well on that stuff right now! Especially more "emergency" geared kind of stuff. I have been listing mostly music cds and dvds right now. Mostly because I have a bunch to get through that I already pulled. Most are long tail kind of items. But I do find dvds worth $30-40 sometimes and I have found a few $50 music cds. Trying to get over the 1000 listings while they have the free ones for a month. At 770 right now and listed 70 over the last 3 days. Workout dvds are doing well right now. Going to be doing larger items next week though. Have some big electronics etc.

@Anna1 Yeah, a lot of it is way overblown. I was pretty lucky on a few items. I eat quinoa for dinner every day. So I am not sure what I am going to do when I run out and there might not be any lol. I am going to probably just start cooking some more beans with it and cut my use. I have maybe a month or so. I drink a smoothie everyday and don't have much issues getting the ingredients. I have just been doing house delivery on items now. I put all the fruits and veggies through apple cider vinegar, then wash off with water. I add a bit of the apple cider vinegar to the smoothie as well. No issues so far, but who knows really. I figure they are not going to run out of organic stuff because it would go bad too fast lol.

@Anna1 Yeah, I think the media has had a big problem with getting people scared about it. Not that it is not a serious issue, but more in the fact that they just get people to panic. People do a lot riskier and unhealthy things all the time. Granted the elder population I can understand being more concerned. I am coming more to terms with just dying whenever I do and if I decide I like it or not it will happen. So I am just going on about my business. Of course still being mindful of the danger of it. Good for you on not being scared of it. I would not want to be around the rush of it all if it got super busy. I think we really lucked out in the US in regards to the rate of spreading. My town literally has 3 cases.

@Anna1 Yeah, I have fedex and usps pick it up right off the porch! I am very lucky that I can still do this currently. Since you are in the medical field I imagine things are crazy?

@supremeyingyang I make a living doing it. I sell locally too, but not doing any of that right now. The income will vary really. How much I am listing, time of year, etc. I do it as a main thing, but only spend a few days a week on it right now. I don't earn any crazy amounts of income. Enough to live though. If I just did this, then I would make much more. But that does not bother me too much. I sell everything really. I specialize in things like video games, electronics, collectibles, Dvds, and music CDs. I sell really everything though. If you want any help, then I would be happy to help. I know quite a bit around the whole thing. I would like to expand onto more platforms soon. Aiming mostly to hit 1000 listings within the next month.

Doing really well with my online toast masters. This is going to be great practice for making videos. I did my icebreaker in both groups so far. It is kind of nice doing it online for a bit. It is still helping me keep my sleeping schedule around too. I think that is going to be one of the most worthwhile habits that I have. Working on getting a lot of stuff listed for sale. I am really going to ramp up my online sales. I do need to keep working towards cross listing though probably to try to bring in more sales. I want to keep working on making this as efficient as possible. Once I have a lot more of the ground work done for that this should be seamless. Got a scanner set up for small item pictures and is amazing. Switched to some new photo viewing software that really helped too. Really want to aim to get the business a lot more profitable and efficient. I think that I can do a lot of improvements still. I do want to gear it more and more towards hiring. But if I perfect the process I would really get the most for my money too. I just feel so lucky for how things have been going lately. I am so lucky to enjoy the work that I do. Today I am thankful for Doing well on my speech and improving Getting tasks done that I did not want to do Having a great life

Ooops accidentally posted here instead of journal.

@Identity Thank you. I have been doing this for a bit and can guide someone well for sure. I've been really nerding out on stocks right now. I think investing in those over the next several months is going to be really good for me in the future. I have been wanting to buy stocks, but thought they have been too expensive for quite awhile. I think there is some big opportunities there. I need to keep my income flow doing well to contribute to that more though. I have to admit I sold an emergency water storage for almost $180 today. It is not an item prohibited from being marked up and that was the going rate (some actually sold for $250). Trying to stay away from most of that stuff though. But if someone has other survival gear like a swiss army knife for example is selling well right now. I don't want to be the guy taking stuff from people in dire need or anything like that. I actually had the water thing before this was a big deal and forgot to list it. It just goes into someones tub and holds 100 gallons. I will put it more in perspective of the customer though of what they may want and see what else I can do. I honestly have so much crap to sell at this rate I need to do that mostly lol.

I had kind of slacked on the reading there for a few days. I managed to get about two hours in today and I finished the Steve Jobs biography! I am going to keep researching it a bit and make a couple videos about him I think would be worthwhile to do with it. That sounds like a good way for me to really help reabsorb the information I learned with the book. I would have to say this is probably one of my favorite books I have read so far. I think that biographies are probably going to be one of my favorite things to read. Going to work this week on getting a lot of music cds, video games, and dvds listed. These are going to be good sellers right now with a lot of people staying home. I am going to work on mailing out a thousand or so cds to a company for them to buy it as well. I have to scan a couple thousand to do that. Not really an ideal way to spend my time, but I want them cleared out and it will be guaranteed money. I think I am going to invest a lot of time into learning about warren buffet as well in the future. I think that is going to be someone really worth studying. So many great people even in our time that are incredible. If I can just spend the time to study and learn from them, then I am sure I could create an amazing life for myself. I think learning from others like that is the best way to expand and grow in life. Having lessons from many years compacted into a book can help avoid many mistakes and show what makes something great. Today I am thankful for Finishing the book Getting some sun Taking a day off to rest

Getting a bit back into the groove today. I think I need to focus more on the quality of work and not really so much the time I invest into it. I think I am going to keep the stock thing as more of a hobby as it does not really matter that much short term because the roth ira I have to be 59.5 to take the earnings out tax free. Not to say that it is not enjoyable to learn about it. I have a few investing books I have been wanting to read anyway. I imagine the stock prices are going to continue to head down quite a bit for awhile. I just hope that I am able to manage and keep my own finances in order while not going to crazy, but contributing to my "retirement" while the prices get better and better. It felt awesome to produce a good thumbnail in a few hours today. I am starting to really get better at all of this stuff. I need to set more defined goals around it though for sure. I guess where I am at I am not really aiming to get rich off it or something. I just think that is one of the better things I could do that contributes to the world with my time. I do have a urge a bit to start a company though. I like the idea of making something big and impact, but I am not so sure how I want to go about it. I don't think it will matter as it does not really conflict with the video stuff. While I realize the real importance of getting really good at one thing. I feel like each adventure contributes to that. I would not regret doing something that I have had a hard time doing for a long time and feel like it has been my calling to do. I am going to double down on my relaxing this weekend and not get too hard on myself. I am going to do the best I can and try to use my mind to create more money and not so much the work. I know there is better ideas that will not suck up a bunch of time that I can create a good amount of money with. I want to spend my time to continue to invest in myself and my future the best that I can. I want to keep my mind in abundance and keep myself healthy and well. Today I am thankful for Feeling good! Feeling creative! Getting back on track

It would be worthwhile to focus on having a main habit that you consistently do every day. I would recommend mediation for that and keep working on that and growing it well. But I started with exercise myself and found that the best for my situation, however I have traded it off to mediation for every day. I maybe take a day off a week for exercise. Sometimes none at all though. It can be hard to juggle a high amount of habits at once and that is why I recommend having the main focus. Eventually you will have a few that are built up. But you need to really get one down for about 2 months and it will start to form in a more concrete habit. I have a lot of habits going and I find that to be one of the best ways to live. Sometimes some will drop off as I get sick, or other things happen in life. But as long as I stick to the core ones, then everything seems to recover fine and I start to reintroduce those other habits later. As you go you can start building a morning routine that will help you grow exponentially each day and get a lot more done. We all get the same amount of time, but if you use it efficiently, then you can get a lot more out of it.

I'd try to focus your attention to finding out what gives you the most interest in life. Find some new hobbies and a lot can come from just that. Unfortunately, most who judge you are going to be making those judgement based on how they see the world and what they think it should be like. If you continue to follow those through life, then you are going to end up miserable. Find out what is out there that makes life worth living. I use to have issues with that type of thinking. I would account a good amount of that to having poor health and low energy. It would be worthwhile to have your blood tested, researching diet, and build a good exercise routine. What interests you the most currently? Or have you not been looking for something new to catch your attention? Do you read at all? If so grab some motivational books and that would be well worth your time to read.