These 10 Inspiring and Famous Quotes from the Work At Home Celebrity, Curthom is not something that you don’t already know.  The truth is however very transparent in that we can’t hide from the truth. 1)  “A dream takes many shapes to which we ponder for relevance when our eyes are open, but the struggle for definition, is as elusive as any cloud.”

2)  “You’ve dreamed a pleasant dream only to wake up to reality.  Your dreams can become a reality when you live the reality of the dream.”

3)  “Those who seek their passion achieve great things and make a name for themselves.  The name matters less, when many have benefited from the unselfish assistance you have extended to others with no expectation of reward.”

4)  “If profit is the fuel of every business, then social responsibility is the oil that lubricates each transaction.”

5)  “Corruption erodes the moral fiber of what’s just.  If, you allow it, tolerate it or simply do nothing, like cancer uncheck, it’s fatally destructive.”

6)  “Resentment has no place on the path to success and those who engage in it, drain their ability to see the obstacle ahead.”

7)  “It doesn’t take much to get what you want, but it does take want to get it.”

8)  “Hope when realized is Heaven right here on Earth, but when Hope is diminished, Hell unfolds.”

9)  “There is a philosophy of self-preservation at work here:  A person that works for someone else, wants to continue working for someone else.  But, once a person works for themselves, they want to continue working for themselves.”

10)  “Let faith light your path and the darkness becomes a relic of the past.  To deny faith is to deny the DNA of belief.  Live the life you love and love the life you live, relishing in every breath you take, until you take your last breath.”

It’s no secret that the higher fuel prices get, the more opportunities there are to get free gas cards, if you know where to go.  Most of us don’t know what we don’t know, so it’s not surprising that the idea of getting free gas cards may even sound radical or absurd.  There is a catch or caveat with anything dubbed as free and getting free gas gift cards are no exception.  This particular exception I’m certain that many of those reading this article will find tolerable, if not doable.  Here’s what you’ll need to get free gas gift cards.

You will need to exhibit some interest in shopping or at the very least, learning about new products.  You will need the ability to do a little walking and pay attention to detail to the extent that you will be visiting some of your favorite stores and some stores that may be new to you.  You will need to pace yourself so that you can complete the product scans that you will be given.  Don’t worry, more than a few of the product scans change often enough to make it interesting, especially if you like discovery new products.

In order to do and complete your product scans, you will need a smartphone that operates on the Apple iOS (operating system) or Google’s Android OS.  It helps to have a car charging cable or an extra battery, if you intend to complete all of your scans each day.  You don’t necessarily need an automobile to do this, so long as you arrive at your local store or mall in time before they close.  I take the local city bus often, as I enjoy the down time from traffic, to read and just people watch along the way to various stores and manage to complete a fair number of product scans each day.

You will note that there are varying number of scans per store, but always enough to make your stop at a store worthwhile.  When you do a scan of the product indicated, you’ll be rewarded with points and a coin.  The points you can cash in for gas gift cards to your favorite gas station, or you can use the points for gift cards for Amazon, Home Depot, CVS, Bath & Body Works, Subway, iTunes, Fandango, GameStop, Sephora, Victoria Secret, SpaFinder, Facebook Credits, Farmville Game Card, Louis Vuitton and Neiman Marcus.  You can cash your points out for American Airlines Aadvantage Miles or Delta Skymiles or you can redeem your accumulate points for a Hermes Birkin Handbag, Apple TV, Nintendo Wii, iPod Touch 8GB, Quiet Comfort Acoustic Noise Cancelling headphones, 16GB iPad with wi-fi, Toshiba Netbook or an iPhone 4 8GB.

If, you’re really not into material things and don’t need the gadgets or gift cards, you can even take your points from scanning products and donate your points to a charitable organization that interests you, such as Cleanup the Gulf Coast Oil Spill, NRDC Fight Global Warming, The Humane Society, Aid Haiti Earthquake Victims, Breast Cancer Research, Kiva’s loans that change lives to help entrepreneurs in developing countries, The American Red Cross Tornado Relief Efforts, Prostate Cancer Foundation, Push Education Innovation or Democracy Matters.

There is something of interest to just about everybody and there is really no reason why you wouldn’t want to participate in getting free gas gift cards for the points that you accumulate.  From scanning products, you will also get one coin in which you can use to play a slot-like game or scratch-like game to win even more points, so the number of points that you can get in order to get your first free gas card could easily be within a few weeks when you first get started and then after you’re comfortable doing the product scans, you should be redeeming for gift cards within a shorter period of time.

Just about every week there are additional scanning opportunities to get even more points and you’ll be on your way to redeeming your points in short order for the items that interest you in no time at all.  Here’s how to get started.  You will need to copy down the referral link in order to get off to a great start with bonus points.  Don’t worry, as soon as you join, you too will be given a bonus code in which to sign up your family and friends too, so that they too can start earning points for gas cards and gift cards.  Here is the bonus referral code:  Livinglife.  When you sign up for Checkpoints, you will put the bonus referral code:  Livinglife to get extra points before you scan your first product, so don’t forget okay?  Click on the link, Get Free Gas Cards and download to your smartphone the Checkpoints application for Apple or Android and the bonus referral code:  Livinglife, for instant points.  Get started as soon as your comfortably able to do so and enjoy the myriad of gas gift cards and store gift cards or donating to your favorite cause and as always, profit from your understanding and don’t forget to play it forward, by sharing this opportunity with others.

How to save money while getting gift cards for free is nothing new, but the mobile applications that are readily available and free to download may be new to some people.  I do a fair amount of window shopping when I go out, both as a means to get a little exercise and as a means to get a better understanding what retail outlets are marketing at that point in time.  Yes, you can get gift cards to your favorite stores and other items for free and here’s how.
How would you like to get gift cards from your favorite stores such as Target, Best Buy, Amazon and iTunes, to name a few, just for walking into one of the selected stores and to earn even more points that you will redeem for gift cards and other items, you can scan preselected items presented by the mobile app?

This company offers you gift cards and other items for your time and effort and it is a free download to your Apple iPhone or Google Android handset.  The mobile app uses location-based technology to find the stores around you and even offers bonus points for visiting some retail outlets.

Once you download the mobile app, you will also be notified of deals and promotions in your area or wherever you’re traveling to.  When you sign up, you will get a promotion code to share with your family, friends and associates, so that they too can take advantage of the deals, promos and points earning opportunities.

The name of this location-based mobile shopping app is ShopKick and if you use my promo code:  lemon5296 when you sign up, you and I both will get bonus points.  Remember, after you download the free app and register, you too will get a promo code to use to sign up others and earn even more points.

So, far I’ve gotten a few iTunes gift card and a Best Buy gift card in just one month of checking in to places that I was going anyways and this week I’ll get an Amazon gift card to help with the purchase of a new hard drive.  Granted not a terrible amount of revenue that you can generate doing this, unless you have a boatload of people who use your promo code, otherwise its great for getting some exercise while you’re out and about.  Just another revenue stream that may be worthwhile to some of you.  If, you do decide to join, I would appreciate it if you use my promo code to get some extra points for  you and me.  The promo code is:  lemon5296.  Thanks and enjoy yourself while scanning.

Profitable Business Ideas have been the holy grail for Internet Marketers worldwide, but few and far do these business models consistently translate into online profits for everyone involved.  No doubt business profits are the lifeblood of any business, but achieving them 100% of the time, takes a certain level of expertise that many online marketers are not willing to share.  I chose to do otherwise and buck the trend and share what I know to be automated home profits that anyone can achieve no matter what level of business training they possess.

First and foremost, I’d like to say that yes, you can make Google profits and you can earn windfall profits sometimes, if you are first or nearly first to bring a business model online and share it with others.  Net profits however, are soley at the discretion of your business methods and best practices and of course, your overhead.    An example of a profit can be something that you did that was actionable, such as closing a bank account where the costs (fees),  far outstripped the rewards, thus saving you money over the short and long term.

Other examples of profits, could be you investing in a process or technology that returns a decent rate of return, such as 18% over a short period of time and being able to duplicate that process or technology, time and time again with similar results.  Remember, that saving is the same as earning and earning is the same as saving, so long as it results in additional revenue above and beyond the cost of acquiring that revenue.

Over the next few weeks, we will cover ways to add additional revenue streams that may seem small change at first, but cummulatively add to your bottom line.  These revenue generating streams will give you not only something different to do, but many have described as fun and educational.  We’d be amiss if we didn’t mention the element of risk and even this carries some degree of risk.  What we will introduce, carries for the most part, the risk of inaction on the part of the participant.  Stay tuned and profit from your understanding.

Content is king.  This is the most common belief about the Internet, but if content is king, what then about search and the role that it plays?  People go on the Internet for information about ____________; you can fill in the blank. If, content is king, what role does search play in the pursuit of information?  Find out why this integral piece of the Internet matters.

Search may not be king, but it is the God of the Internet in that it commands a huge amount of power as to what information gets returned in its search engine results page.  Among the Internet are the billions of pages that are indexed by the search engines and those who create those pages, such as bloggers, web site owners, content management platforms like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla and the content originators such as Associated Content and at the top of all of these are the search engines such as Google, Baidu, Yahoo and Bing, are plying for your attention and loyalty.

Compelling and interesting content will always be king on the Internet and the search engines will always be the gods of the Internet, deciding which content is worthy to be displayed and when.  User generated content will always be in demand so long as it is relevant and others can garnish the information that they are looking for from it.

Search engines are gods, not only because they decide what information is relevant for each search term but also because they are compensated on the basis of conversions of their text and image ads.  Some search engines do better than others, but all search engines ultimately decide what gets displayed or returned in their search results.

In the daunting content creation and content management process in order to produce web content, just concentrate on giving your audience what they need to know about what they want to know and throw a few insights or tips to make it interesting.  Remember, you are building a relationship with your visitors.  Those visitors who choose to interact with you by commenting, depending upon their experience may tell others about their positive experience or useful information and that could be the seed for your site to go viral.

Blogging is no easier than maintaining any web site and for many of us, it’s a challenge to keep abreast of some many changes and challenges in our industry that it’s not the lack of content that troubles us, but rather how best to explain it without boring our audience.

It is actually possible to write without really saying anything or offering anything of practical use, so let me say if you’re looking for free content, look at what you love and what your site is about and look at those sources related to your site, such as forums, discussion boards, question websites, such as Yahoo Answers and even though Google  Answers is no longer accepting questions, you can still search their database of answers.  There are plenty of places to get ideas for original content, hmmm, sounds almost like an oxymoron huh?  Create your own content and you should be okay and when in doubt about what your visitors are looking for, just ask them by way of a short poll or survey.

Content will always be extremely important on the Internet and the search engines will always be the ultimate ruler of that content, so write with your audience in mind and as part of your editing and proofreading, do a little search engine marketing to help your content do well for search engine ranking.  You don’t want to be one of those sites that rarely gets updated and the search engines deem to be of low-quality, that is, adds little or anything of relevance to Internet users.

Here’s a tip, make sure that your sites are mobile-friendly.  The number of people going on the Internet using their smartphones will only increase and you don’t want to alienate your viewers.  If, you’re working from home and in the market for another revenue stream, be sure to take a look at digital media such as affiliate programs that deal with Apple’s iTunes platform and Google’s Android Marketplace, because mobile apps is projected to be about $1.5 billion this year.  Think about the array of tablet computers coming to market this year alone that will need apps to make them worthwhile to their users.  Would it hurt to get a fraction of those visitors looking for what you’re offering?

Working at home is a great business model and works famously for many people, so long as we are mindful about mobile security.   Mobile security can help to make or break any home-based business.  Here’s Why?  The most popular mobile operating system for mobile devices is free to anyone who wishes to use it.  Free is good and in the case of handset and tablet manufacturers, free is great.  So, great in fact, that the Android mobile operating system is on a slew of smartphones and tablet computers to the extent that those in the computer security business have expressed concern about its security.  Here’s what you need to know to protect your mobile identity.

Mobile security for the most part is still in its infancy and with time, more will be known about the threats to mobile devices.  What we do know is that any specific mobile malware tends to concentrate on attacking or embedding itself within the mobile operating system of the mobile device.  It doesn’t matter what mobile operating system you have on your device, at some point in time, it will be the target of malicious hackers.

Mobile devices are inherently mobile and generally lightweight and the ideal form factor for carrying with you just about everywhere.  It is that portability of your mobile device which makes you especially vulnerable to losing your smartphone or tablet computer, either by sheer forgetfulness or having it stolen while you’re away from home.

The amount of personal information that most people carry on their mobile device is astonishing to say the least, starting with the customization and personalization that makes your mobile device truly your own, in the hands of someone with ill-intentions, makes your device and your life especially vulnerable.

Most of the known malware out there to date, has concentrated on disguising itself as a trojan, usually within a game app and then seeks to transmit your personal data to remote servers.   There are a couple of steps you can take to protect your mobile device and data and most are common sensical.

You want to keep your device close by your side when you go out and if you do get up to go to the bathroom while using public wi-fi, if possible take your mobile device with you or have someone you trust, watch it while you’re gone.   If, you do decide to download games, be certain of your download source and be mindful if the game you downloaded is asking for more than the usual, “push notifications and location requests.    That could be a red-flag, if any app is asking for an excessive number of permissions.

To lessen the event that you may accidentally download an app that has malware embedded in it, it is recommended that you download your apps from known sources only that have expressed an interest in maintaining some level of security.  Avoid alternative app stores, because they may just be harboring malware-infested apps.

Avoid accepting text messages from people or parties that you are not familiar with.  Text message trojans, when opened, take money from your account by charging fees that may be excessive or unusual.

Some mobile security systems concentrate on security your data within your mobile device and some mobile securities have a remote feature that wipes your personal data from your device, if it is lost or stolen.  Juniper Networks mobile security allows for mobile devices to be used within corporate networks.  Open Kernel Labs, also provides enterprise-level, mobile security.

Like computer threats, mobile device threats will overshadow those of desktops, simply due to the overwhelming volume of mobile phones and tablet computers coming to market.  Billions of smartphones and tablet computers will be sold worldwide and that creates a ripe environment for people intent on malicious activities.

Corporations have taken notice and are doing something about the threats now and in the future.  Intel, the largest chispset maker, purchased Mcafee for a little more than $7 billion, so that they could introduce Mcafee’s security into Intel’s chipset.  Look for enhanced security features from Motorola, Citrix, LG, HTC, Qualcomm, Toshiba, ARM, Symantec, Spare Backup, Kaspersky, Trend Micro and Webroot.

There are a number of free mobile security downloads from Lookout Mobile Security, AVG and Splash ID.  Lookout’s mobile security protects Blackberrys, Android OS and Windows Mobile systems from hackers, viruses, loss and of course, theft.  It is a free mobile security download and there is a premium paid upgrade version.

AVG is probably best known for their computer security software and has entered the mobile security market and offers both free and paid mobile antivirus downloads.  Splash ID is a secure password manager and is available for virtually all mobile operating systems.

Almost all of the aforementioned companies in this article offer an affiliate program for those interested in selling their products and if not an affiliate program, you can find office supply stores, such as Office Max, Office Depot, Staples and even superstores such as Walmart and Target that sell some of the mobile security products mentioned, for those looking for a niche, income opportunity.  There are even domain name investment potentials, if you find the mobile security domain name you want, available.

Craigslist may have a viable alternative if it takes off.  eBay has announced a new feature called Instant Sale.  The concept is that if you have items that qualify, you can use eBay’s Instant Sale feature to sale those items, but only for a limited quantity.  Theoretically, you can submit your qualified item and eBay will give you an offer and if you accept, then you’ll ship the item (free shipping) and receive payment by PayPal, after receipt of the item.  See if you can benefit from eBay Instant Sale.

eBay is apparently trying to take advantage of the huge number of smartphones that folks are giving up for the latest and greatest, new smartphones that seem to come out about every six months, leaving a tremendous number of cell phones on the secondary market for others.

eBay’s Instant Sale website takes you through a few seamless steps to find your item within its database, where they will ask you a few questions regarding the condition of the item you want to sale.  You’ll be taken to an offer page, then  a checkout page and a shipping page.

If, you accept the offer given, based on your responses to the questions in the condition of the item page, you will then be directed to an eBay reseller who will send you a free shipping label for you to send them the item.

The eBay reseller once they receive your item, has two days to inspect and ascertain that the items is just as you described, the eBay reseller will then deposit your accepted offer amount into your PayPal account.

If, by chance the item you sent isn’t as described, the eBay reseller will then resubmit you an offer in which you have 5 days to accept or reject.  If, you accept the revised offer, then the eBay reseller will deposit the revised offer into your PayPal account.  If, you reject the offer, then the eBay reseller will then ship the item back to you free of charge.

Note that if you do not reject the revised offer within 5 days, then the eBay reseller will deem that you have accepted their revised offer and deposit the revised offer into your PayPal account.

For example, I put in the information for my iPhone 3gs, 32 Gb.  eBay’s Instant Sale interface didn’t ask about the color of the iPhone, although it comes in black or white and some people will pay more for the white iPhone, than the black iPhone.  It asked me for the condition: it’s excellent and whether or not there were any issues with the item: no issues, functions beautifully.  It’s overall condition is like new, no scratches and in perfect condition and the offer they gave me was, $200.

Well, $200 might seem like an okay price until you do a routine search on eBay and see that a similar iPhone 3gs in exactly the same described condition selling for over $300 consistently over several weeks if you check the completed auctions also.  You’ll have to sign in to your eBay account or sign up for eBay to see the completed auctions.

How eBay’s Instant Sale will work out in the long-term is uncertain, since it’s launch in October 2010, but for now, eBay is attempting to capture some of the lucrative resell market for smartphones in particular and cell phones in general.  As more and more people in the coming months and years, go from their dumbphones (voice & text) to smartphones (mobile apps & Internet), the sheer volume of mobile phones of all types coming back to the market as gently used and used cell phones will proliferate.

Bear in mind this doesn’t even take into consideration, the number of “serial updaters” or “first adopters,” which are people who like to have the “latest and greatest” gadgets available and smartphones are no exception.  Decide whether or not, eBay’s Instant Sale is right for adopting to your business model or not, but at the very least, profit from your understanding!

You May Also Like:  Making Money With Electronics Recycling

Do you have an iPhone? Would you like an iPhone? Would you like to know how you can make money with an iPhone?  Would you like to supplement your current income using iPhones?  Did you know that there are over four billion cell phone users worldwide?  Do you want to learn how you can make money in the mobile marketplace?

First, let me point out that this is not for everyone, but if you are adventurous at heart, then this might be for you.   Let me also point out that not all of the four billion plus mobile phone users worldwide have a smartphone, but most wished they had one.  That is where you come in.  People want what they want, when they want it and many people want the iPhone, no matter what generation it is, so long as it is the iPhone.  We will show you how to monetize your interest in the iPhone.

I must tell you frankly that in America, there is the prevalent contractual agreements that wireless providers lock you in to, be it for one or two years or more, if you upgrade within any contract period.  Being an Internationalist of American-birth, I can tell you that it’s a pleasure to have a Factory-unlocked iPhone and no matter what country I’m residing with for that month or two, to have the ability to have cellular internet at a respectable speed, to tether the iPhone with my Mac or Netbook and get some research done.

Having stated that, there are substantial numbers of iPhones of current and previous generations that are available for sale and some are for trade, but the sweet spot are those iPhones that are damaged or have known issues that are easily repaired or corrected that can be resold at a modest profit.

Granted, you have choices and if you should chose the iPhone as the smartphone to enrich your life and earn extra income with, you’ll be richly rewarded in time with wonderful devices that you would be proud to own, if you weren’t in the re marketing business.

Consumer electronics changes so rapidly that most people don’t keep their iPhones for more than a couple of years.  Apple provides updates as necessary about every year or so and at that time, some people elect to purchase a new iPhone or new to them, iPhone.  This presents an incredible income opportunity for those work at home enthusiast who are thinking outside of the box.

The fact that most iPhones can be legally unlocked, affords others to chose the GSM (wireless carrier) of their choice and fuels demand for a highly-desirable smartphone.  What makes the iPhone especially more desirable than virtually all the smartphones past and present, is the fact that you don’t have to sell most people on its benefits.

Most people are familiar enough with the iPhone to have desired one and you have the power to make their dreams come true.  Forget about the naysayers and Apple product haters, they will just distract you.  A better than good condition iPhone sells at a premium and slightly-used iPhone sells almost nearly at the price of a new one, but without the contractual wireless commitment.  People love the latest and greatest in mobile communications, but not everyone can afford to buy new or qualify for a contract wireless plan.  This scenario provides an aftermarket for those switching wireless carriers or upgrading with their present wireless carrier, leaving thousands of one and two year iPhones in workable condition to choose from to recondition and remarket.

For those of us in the United States, analyst predict that 12 million people will get the Verizon iPhone this year alone.  That creates a potentially potent market for used smartphones in general and iPhones in particular.  Sure you can make money by buying smartphones and reselling them, but you may have to do some marketing to make it happen.  The iPhone from its branding and place in the smartphone sector, practically sells itself.  You just have to have it in stock to sell it.

There is no business plan for selling iPhones.  It’s just a matter of knowing your local and regional market and go from there.  Some of you will want to learn how to do your own repairs and others of you will want to farm your repairs out locally.  The key is to understand what you can resell the iPhones you have for and go from there.  If, you would like to know more about this lucrative niche, let me know and send me a comment and we’ll point you in the direction that has proven worthwhile for us.

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In an effort to reduce the amount of spam in search results, Google is reassessing its algorithm, including focusing on sites that have very little content and those sites that copy content.  What this means for the work at home industry is that “Content Is Reaffirmed As King,” by Google.  Remember why people go online in the first place?

When people go online, they want a solution to a problem, challenge or concern, be it how to solve this or that or to find a job or a way to earn more money or you name it.  Content and especially, original content is what Google will demand of those who submit to have their material indexed on the Internet.  Google still holds a commanding lead for search and dominates the level of accuracy that users have come to expect from the Internet.

The result is that Internet surfers will get more relevant original content rather than sites that have piecemeal content or other than original content.  The question of course for many of us who do business online, is how Google determines original content from piecemeal content?

Here are things that you don’t want to do with your content that you’re posting online.  You don’t want to put too many keywords and word phrases in your material without any relevant references.  For example, if you wrote an article about wireless handsets and sprinkled the words “IBM,” “Oracle,” or “Cisco,” without really using them in any meaningful way that relates to your content, but using those words just the same because you think that it will give you higher search returns, well, you’re probably keyword spamming within your content.

Google is also concerned that syndicated content, that is, content that is widely distributed through other sites on the Internet, can sometimes outrank original content. The question many of us have is what impact will this have on auto-blogging software, article spinners and content farms?  It can’t be a good thing if Google takes a negative outlook on these Black Hat methods, right?

What does this mean for article directories?  If, you publish the same article or parts of your article and then distribute different versions that are 40% of your original content, what impact will this have on your site or search engine rankings?  The answers lie in the future and seeing what affect Google’s algorithm changes actually has on search engine rankings and how that impacts your site(s).

In essence, those in the work at home field just need to continue to concentrate on providing your audience with frequently and compelling content that they expect to see each time they visit.  Write about what you know.  Your articles don’t have to be perfect, but they do need to make sense and have something to offer others.  Write about your passion.  Write about what you love.  It’s what you love.  It’s what you know and it’s what your audience wants.

The insane facts that those who want to buy and resell need to understand is that it is relatively easy if you know what to do and are armed with a sense of demand for each item that you wish to buy, to resell.  There is a learning curve, as there is with anything that you aren’t familiar with, but if you are willing to devote a few hours getting into the rhythm of what people are buying online, then you’re ready to begin buying, to resell.  Let’s get started!

There are a many online outlets to both buy and resell the items that you purchase locally or on the Internet.  Some of the outlets that have proven worthwhile are eBay Auctions, Craigslist, Backpage, Kijiji, which is now eBay Classifieds, Oodle, USFreeAds and Epage.  All of the aforementioned websites are great places to sell your items online, with Craigslist, Backpage and Oodle, giving you the option to sell and deliver locally or ship.

To get a sense of what items are in demand and anticipate what others are buying, before you start out on your purchasing spree, eBay completed auction listings are a good place to do your research.  You will find the “Completed Listings” on eBay on the left sidebar and you will need to sign in or join eBay, if you haven’t already, in order to see the completed listings.

Many people trust their instinct and purchase an item, only to find out that they are stuck with what they brought, because they miscalculated the demand for it, or worse yet, sell the item for less than what they paid for it.  Educate yourself about what you’re selling and what it is probably likely to sell for.

You do yourself a great service if you’re able to find items that still have their packaging,  boxes, labels and/or tags.  This things extend credibility among some of your buyers that the item was well taken care of, if indeed they were.  This will make selling the items easier in the future.  Concentrate your efforts on locating things that are in demand, of usable quality and of lasting materials, such as leather goods.  You will often find the more valuable items in the eyes of the thrift or consignment shop are in the front of the store, often in a glass cabinet.  Take a moment to see if there is anything interesting.

Once you know what is in demand and what people are buying, you are all set to start looking for inventory.  Yard sales, garage sales, thrift stores, consignment shops, and flea markets.  The key here is to be organized with your time, because you can spend an incredible amount of time looking and not really getting to the items that are worthwhile, so don’t get too distracted while you’re out on your hunt.

Looking back in hindsight from my own experiences, I found that buying second-hand or gently-worn clothing allowed me to cultivate a sense of who I was according to my own interpretive fashion sense.  It doesn’t mean that I was fashionably correct in the eyes of others, but I was shockingly comfortable in all that I wore.  I made a respectful income, enough to sustain a long vacation reading English Trade Law in England.

I believe to make a worthwhile income at whatever you do, there is a degree of satisfaction in what you’re doing and if you do it well, you can take extended trips abroad or check off a few items on your “bucket list.”  What worked for me was concentrating on a few areas that I felt some degree of knowledge and interest in.

Leather jackets that had easy to repair zippers, children coats, leather handbags and purses for both men and women and swiss watches, no matter how unusual.  In fact, the more distinctive the watch, I would buy it, even if it didn’t work, because I knew that I could resell it abroad.  Stick with what you’re interested in or what you know and if you’re motivated you can learn about other items in demand.

A hidden gem to sell your items, especially if they are clothing or shoes are consignment shops.  I haven’t really used consignment shops to buy things for resell, buy have purchased items for myself.  To be successful selling your items at a consignment shop, you have to match your items to the ambience or taste of the consignment owner.  Consignment shop owners/managers can be very picky at what they will take from you to resell, so it may not even be worth your time.  You have to more or less, be in sync with what the consignment owner or manager is offering to do well at selling anything.

You will do well if you’re buying for instance clothing and they are brand name, designer labeled clothing or something unusual and popular.  Expect to specialize in a particular size, style, vintage or modern-era with your clothing items to do well, but as long as what you have is in demand and it is selling, you should be okay.  Designer jeans that are in great shape tends to sell fast.  Look for popular names that almost everyone recognizes such as Old Navy, Nautica, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfinger, Diesel, Citizens of Humanity, Rockstar, Hudson, Dylan George, Mavi, Monarchy Current Elliot, Superfine, Genetic Denim, Red Engine, Dylan George and yes, even Levi’s.

Consignment shops generally offer you a portion of the sale price that can vary anywhere between 40 to 60% for you and the rest for them, so be sure to get the split first.  Don’t overlook the opportunity to buy and resell furniture and household goods.  Furniture and Household Consignment shops tend to be a better fit for furniture and other household goods, such as washer, dryers, etc.  Browse the furniture consignment shops in your area and emphasize the higher-income neighborhoods for nicer returns.

Here are your links to find a consignment shop in your area:

Consignment Shops:   Second-Hand Shops

Resale Shopping:  Thrift Stores

Best Consignment Shops:  Consignment Stores

The Thrift Shopper:  Thrift Shops

Consignment Pal:  Consignments by Zip Codes

American Pack Rat:  Bargain Hunters

Tips:

Purchasing items at a consignment shop, clearance sale, or factory outlet tend to be more expensive than a national thrift store, such as Goodwill or Salvation Army.  The local church or faith-based thrift stores tend to have the best prices, because often times you can haggle with the cashier about the price.

Use caution when you go into a “for-profit,” thrift store who partners with local churches and charities to have them collect items and then the “for-profit” thrift store purchases the items collected in bulk for a set amount of money and then gives the church or charity, on average about 25% of the proceeds once they sell the items through their affiliate, “for-profit” thrift stores at a considerably mark-up.  Examples are Savers, Unique Thrift and Valu Thrift stores.

Thrift and Consignment Stores are just another revenue center if you take your time and study what people are buying and meet their needs, you will do especially well for the time that you invest.  Any extra income you derive from your purchases and sales, should be proportionally reinvested and/or  serve as capital for your next income-generating venture.  Have fun and take yourself serious and profit from your understanding!