Ah yes. How to get by without a job:
- Fraud (false warranty claims)
- Theft (stealing coins from vending machine)
- Gambling (crypto)
- Literally just self-employment (starting a drop shipping business/flipping things on eBay)
Crypto trade
There's where all the money went I guess. Gotta steal toilet paper to leverage that crypto position. (After you've already lost everything several times)
You can make significant money by trading crypto peer-to-peer. It is incredibly risky but you can make around 6-7% profit after fees. I made around 2,000-3,000 USD monthly, moving around 40,000 USD in volume. The main risks are chargebacks and account closures.
It wasn't free money, of course. But the profit-to-effort ratio is pretty high once you figure out how to weed the good clients from the bad (scammers who will pay, receive crypto, and then dispute the payment).
Do not ask me how to do this and do not reply to anyone who comments below claiming to know how, because they're probably a scammer.
Investments are not effort-to-profit. They are risk-to-profit.
There is no such a thing as risk-free investing. If there is an investment with good returns, it means it's just as easy to lose all that money.
This is not investing. I did not ever hold significant amounts of cryptocurrency. People would ask me to sell them crypto and then I'd buy it on a crypto exchange and then sell it to them.
I do not believe holding cryptocurrency qualifies as "investing". It is much closer to gambling as the entire valuation is purely speculative. I get that all investing is gambling to some extent, but it's not the same as stocks, for example, because holding stocks gives you voting rights for a company's board of directors and entitles you to a portion of the company's profits in the form of dividends.
There is risk, of course, but it is not market risk.
Don't call it investment if you don't want to, but there's no such thing as easy money.
If there's a way to earn money with little effort it means that there's a big risk.
As stated in the previous comment:
There is risk, of course, but it is not market risk
I understand and agree with everything you said.
it is legitimately better than having a real job though. I absolutely hate working for myself but working for somebody else is even worse
Who cares for the cash, the lost time hurts most. Jobs suck ass, even if they're mildly interesting. Could've pursued 5 hobbies instead of sitting in a stupid office doing stupid things for other people
Dude, I'm a software engineer. I work from home. Maybe 4-6 hours a day for 180k. I get to own a beautiful house on a big piece of property and play with my kid throughout the day. You're telling me thats not worth it?
Oh, and I like what I do. It's what I would choose as a hobby. And I've worked at enough startups and build up enough shares and options that I'll probably be able to retire at 40 and just travel the world financially sound from there.
If that's what you enjoy doing, then sure, it's fine :) Coding is fun, i do it as a hobby too. Probably not on your level though. But you're most likely not the absolute average working-joe.
And yes, retire as soon as you comfortably can. Did in my early 20s, would never go back. Tried once or twice for some months working, just because it sounded like a nice gig. Got bored quickly, left before I even learned some names. That was 3 decades ago or so :) Even if you love the job, traveling is probably better. And doing what you love for yourself and not for the benefit of others is even better too.
This is why companies have cheap toilet paper by the way. Not because they necessarily hate their employees, but because it would get stolen and they'd need three times as much.
Also one of the reasons why the huge rolls exist like you see at airports: impractical to use at home.
Joke's on them, when I have to use cheap TP I have to use 3x as much because it's such cheap trash.
Depending on the bathroom, some universities have decent TP. I'd say research buildings that you don't need card access to get in. Most of those I've worked at seem to be decent.
What I got from this is that Anon is undergoing serious financial struggles and is trying to scrape by.
Idk why op would be buying Sennheiser or Corsair peripherals if they're struggling.i just got that op is cheap af.
If they act like that their flatmate has every right to keep ot from them assuming they don't contribute to the bill.
The last three are horseshit.
Say what you will about the morality of the other but at least they are reasonably likely to actually work.
The last three are not.
Crypto is insane horseshit unless you are running a scam, which at best is a huge amount of effort and at worst is oops time to flee to thailand.
Drop shipping and 'picking' is basically boomer nonsense that requires a huge investment of time, space and money to conceivably make it worthwhile, and it almost always goes wrong, and you end up with a garage or storage unit full of useless crap that won't sell either at all, or for a profit.
There are so many ways you can get fucked as a buyer or seller on eBay, its ludicrous.
Flipping second-hand goods hasn't been viable at any worthwhile scale in over a decade. Too many people know how to use the Internet now, and usually google their shit before it goes on the garage sale or flea market table. The days of finding that rare vase or vintage toy that the owner doesn't know the value of are gone.
Estate sales. It's just a bank or company selling a deceased person's stuff to cover costs or save them the hassle of getting rid of it. You can get some premium stuff for cheap because it's not worth the effort to them to do otherwise. Girlfriend found some particular figurines for 25% of what they were worth, but because they're not a common collector item (and there were a TON) it's easier to sell cheap than hold out for the real value.
That's true, they can be a bright spot in a dark sea of overpriced used crap.
Unfortunately that seems to be fading too though. It seems like in-person ones are usually the only time that happens though, and many of them are moving online. That means you're competing with everyone else who knows how to use auction sites besides ebay.
Maybe I'm just looking for the wrong things though. Collectibles outside of my interests may be experiencing different trends.
As the other commenter mention, yes Estate sales and other kinds of government auctions / sales of things like repo'd property or good can be a decent way to find deals as buyer...
...but flipping them is not likely to earn you much.
Only form of profitable mass reselling I am aware of is when you're selling goods stolen from mass retail theft, lol.
Sending in Sennheisers for warranty is silly. Their headphones are basically bullet proof, at least their typical wired open cans.
I have a Bluetooth headset made by Sennheiser. It's battery died in the first two years of use. So I bought a new battery, except it was bigger.
When I opened it up it turned out that they have thought about someone wanting a bigger battery and I only needed to break a couple of small plastic pieces to fit a longer battery in. The headset has worked fine since.
Some people get on SSDI and sell magic wands on Etsy and beg for money on YouTube, shoutout to the Dark Lord KingCobraJFS, That's whats up!