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That's FijiAirways.com. You deserve this. Go from here to happiness flying direct with Fiji Airways. What would you do if you were 29 years old, were deeply in debt with over $25,000 of credit card debt, had $200 in your checking account, and had five children to support? Where would you start?

Would you start with buying and selling stuff on Craigslist? Welcome, my friends. Welcome, radicals. Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast for today, Thursday, September the 11th, 2014. This is episode 59. My guest today is a man named Ryan Finley. And yes, that is his story. He paid off $25,000 of credit card debt in four years with buying and selling stuff on Craigslist.

I'm not sure that's where I would start if I were in that situation, but I certainly was inspired when I first started reading Ryan's story. And I think you'll be inspired after hearing it. And there are a number of amazing lessons that we can learn from his experiences. I first heard about Ryan several years ago and started reading his website, which is re-craigslist.com.

And today, I have for you an in-depth interview with him. And we're going to talk in the beginning about his story, find out what he learned. Then towards the end, we're going to talk through some of his tips for buying and selling stuff on Craigslist, how to get top dollar and how to get deals.

Remember, this is a man who has made his full-time living on Craigslist, supporting his family for the last four years. So if anybody knows anything about how to get good deals and how to get top dollar, I think he would be a good person to listen to. Enjoy the interview.

So Ryan, welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast. I appreciate you being with me today. Yeah, thanks for having me, Dr. I've been looking forward to this chat. I've been reading your site for, man, it's got to be at least a couple of years. I don't know where I first saw it.

It might have been your life hacker mention. I don't know how long ago that was. But I have really enjoyed reading your articles. I've learned a lot. I learned about how to pick out a good washing machine. That was a helpful article to me. But let's start with, tell us a little bit about your story and how you got started in the Craigslist business.

Yeah. So I think it was about four and a half years, something like that, ago. I had just gotten my general contractor's license and I really wanted to get into business. But I realized that general contracting in construction just wasn't something that I wanted to do for the long term.

And I kind of realized that pretty quickly after getting my contractor's license. Anyways, I was just kind of at a rough spot in life at that point. We were deeply in debt. I'd just been trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And finally, I was able to meet, I met with a couple of friends of mine and they basically real pinned me down on it.

They told me to pick an idea. We talked about a couple of them and then they were just going to kind of help keep me accountable to make sure I stuck with it. And the idea was Craigslist, buying and selling things on Craigslist. Yeah, that's kind of how it all started.

Did you ever know anyone who was making a living on Craigslist? No, I'd never, nor had I ever read about anybody. It was just something that I'd always been fascinated with buying and selling used items, growing up, going to garage sales with my mom. And when you're a young kid, when you're thinking about business, that's all you can think about is like, well, how can I buy and sell a video game to make a little bit of money?

And that always fascinated me. So when Craigslist came out, it didn't actually come out in our city, which is a huge bummer. When they first started out, it was just in a few cities, sprinkled around. But I eventually moved to Portland and that's when I started seeing the potential of the Craigslist marketplace.

So you had the idea, I want to buy and sell. Craigslist was a useful medium. How did you start? So after that meeting, I met with a couple of Chris and Jason and one morning just met with them. And I had $200 to my name, basically. And basically the assignment was go home.

We'd agreed on I needed to make 100 bucks a day profit. And I would email them every day, just tell them what I bought, what I sold, and how much money I'd made, and how much time I'd spent just to make sure that I was putting in my time.

And so I went home that day with my 200 bucks and I had to make $100 profit. And so I just jumped on and anything that I knew that I was seeing that was underpriced, that I thought I could sell quickly, I would go out and pick it up and bring it back and clean it up and then put it back up for sale.

And I was getting free items off the free section. I mean, it was a real back against the wall hustle at that point. So... Did you think about just going and getting a job? You know, I had to have, I mean, at that point, I'd probably had like 25 plus jobs over my, you know, through my life.

And I just, I didn't want to work for anybody else anymore. I was just kind of tired of it. You know, and it wasn't just about like, I have entrepreneurial blood in me. And, you know, I'm constantly thinking of ideas, business ideas, and how to create value and add value and looking for opportunities.

And, you know, and then I had long term goals, you know, that I was trying to reach to. So... How'd you get into so much debt? It was a combination. We'd moved out to Hawaii, and my family and I, and, you know, we had, I had a credit card, and we would just put a few expenses per month on it.

And what would happen is, is it would just slowly, you know, the balance would slowly creep up or like, an unexpected expense would come up and it would, the balance would go up a little bit higher and I just wasn't super, you know, I wasn't super disciplined. I am, you know, I wasn't saving very much.

And yeah, so at that point, I would call myself a pretty undisciplined, foolish, foolish person with money. So you're breathing. You're like all of us, right? So what made the switch? Why did you, what happened? What was the chain of events that led you to decide to pay off your debt?

Okay, so that's actually a really, really cool story that I haven't really talked to too many people about. So incidentally, it was like five days before that meeting that started the whole Craigslist venture. I was approximately 25, actually, yeah, I was approximately $25,000 in credit card debt at that point.

And some of that, some of that, like I said, was from Hawaii, some was when we moved back. We had, after we'd moved back, not too long after that, we were able to borrow a little bit of money for a down payment and we purchased a house at, we had a great price on a house here.

But I needed, I bought it with the plan to remodel the basement, to rent it out to a family and I needed to borrow a little bit of money to do that work. And so, some of it was that. So it was, some of it was decent debt, but I'd, unfortunately, I'd put it on like a Home Depot card.

So anyways, back to the story, five days before I started the Craigslist venture, I was, I was basically, I was at my breaking point. It was the rock bottom. I couldn't make my minimum payments. I was signed on a mortgage. And I was just, I was at that point where I was just like, I kind of, I lost hope.

I was like, nothing's working out. I don't have any business prospects right now. It would just be easier just to walk away from it all. And so, I went out to coffee with my friend Jeremy and he sat me down and I told him what I was thinking about doing.

He got a look over him. He basically, he sat me down and he goes, "Ryan, you do whatever it, you know, stinking takes, you know, basically, to pay your next payment." And he's like, "Start with your mortgage because you don't want to lose your house. You got renters right now." And he basically just encouraged me to pay my next payment and hustle my tail off to, to basically to pay the next payment after that.

And one, one payment or one debt at a time, just to try to stay current. And, and that's what I did. You know, I went home and spent the rest of my money on the, got the mortgage payment paid. And, and then I think, yeah, it was like four or five days later, I started the Craigslist thing and, and yeah, that's what started it all.

And I basically just, it was kind of a blur of months of hustle and started seeing progress, like started paying them down, starting to paying the debts down, working really hard. And once I, once you start seeing progress and I started reading some financial books, yeah, I saw some hope and that was it.

I made, I was determined to get out of that at that point. And so good for you. Yeah. Did you make the a hundred bucks the first day? I did. Yeah. I still don't remember. I haven't written down what I bought. Maybe it was just like a combination of, you know, I don't know, a couple of piddly little items and, but yeah, I made the, I made the a hundred dollars pretty much every day for the first couple of weeks.

And, you know, there's one day or here and there after that, that I'd, I'd miss it, but then I'd start going way over. And yeah, and, and it started, it went really well. So. Let's see. So a hundred bucks a day, were you considering that seven days a week or six days a week?

I was doing at the, when I first started, I was, the first couple of weeks, I think I was probably working every day. I was taking obviously some time off. Sure. Of course. You know, here and there, you know, cause I have a family, but I was with my back against the wall that much.

I was, you know, I had to do whatever it took to, you know, to provide for my family and pay bills. So. Do you have any sense of, at the beginning, like, were you working 10 hours a day, 12 hours a day, any sense of how long a day in a day?

It was, it was at least eight to 10 hours a day. Cause eight hours was like, that was my, you know, even though I was working from home buying and selling items, I needed to have a structured schedule, especially to start out with. And yeah, so it was at least eight hours, some more, you know some of the summer months.

And I was in the, yeah, the summer months weren't totally, it was like five months later, but yeah. Well, it's interesting cause I mean, I'm sure you're probably doing better than a hundred dollars a day now from, from seeing how much debt you paid off and whatnot. I'm sure it's, I'm sure it's an excess of that, but I mean, basically if let's assume that you work 10 hours a day and you're able to make a hundred dollars, a hundred dollars a day getting started, you know, after a few months, then at the low end, that's 10 bucks an hour.

And that's, that's again, more than minimum wage. Now you obviously need some intelligence and some skill to develop some skill of buying and selling and learning over time. But that was what so impressed me about reading your, about your story is that here's something that is sitting out there.

It's a, it's just a medium that everybody has access to. There's no cost to buy or to sell something on Craigslist. And by going out and saying, let me see if I can connect buyers with what they want and sellers with what they want, you're able to create an income source that's in excess of a minimum wage, minimum wage starting position.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty, um, and you know, that obviously, uh, you know, as every time you buy and sell something, you learn something. And, uh, as time goes on, you start, I began to start learning which items were more profitable, which items were in higher demand, which items had more room for me to add value to them.

And, uh, that's eventually what led me to, to the appliance niche, because, you know, naturally you would like to make more money and work less hours. And, and, you know, I, I think I had one, one instance in particular, I had a friend who was helping his friend get rid of a refrigerator.

And I, I went and picked it up for, uh, it was 150 bucks or something like that, or $175. And, uh, just came home, cleaned it up and reposted it. And it was a nice side-by-side refrigerator. And I ended up selling it for 500 very, very quickly within a day.

And, you know, it doesn't take, you know, when you put that amount of profit in your pocket, after an experience like that, where you basically, I probably worked an hour, hour and a half total, um, you know, you, you start realizing the potential of, of that little, of the appliance niche and, and not just the appliances, but other, other products, more, you know, a little bit more expensive products as well.

So. Cause that, you started with like, if I remember, and I'm going off of memory here, your first week or something, I mean, you sold a power tool for 20 bucks, that type of thing, where it was five or $10 at a time, right? Yeah. And that's where you moved to appliances and say, well, you know, 10 power tools at 10 bucks a pop of profit versus one washing machine at a couple hundred bucks of profit.

It doesn't take, doesn't take a rocket science to say, let me go where the margins are better. Yeah. And a lot of that was, you know, just really quick. A lot of that was just part of the learning experience. At first I was terrified of losing any money, especially when I only had a couple hundred bucks.

So I didn't want to buy something that wasn't going to, I wouldn't be able to quickly sell. Cause I, I afford to just sit on items for a couple of weeks waiting for them to sell and not make any money. And so I had to, I had to turn things quickly and I also couldn't tie up all my capital in just a couple items or one item for that matter.

And yeah, but you know, it's, it's a learning experience, you know, it's kind of like, uh, yeah. Learning how to invest, learning how to, um, yeah. So how many years ago was that that you, that you first started now? Uh, it's been, let's see, it's been four and a half years ago, I think.

I'm really bad with dates, but it's, yeah. Four and a half years ago. How, how have you developed your business over, over time? Yeah. So I, I eventually, I eventually, uh, I think it was, it took about a year, I think, or a little less than a year, but I eventually saw the potential in appliances and I just went all in on appliances.

I still buy and sell other things, you know, like I go to garage sales and, and just for like, it's kind of a, it's a hobby of mine just for fun. And I'm always just randomly buying things on Craigslist too. So, um, but yeah, I, and one of the reasons is, is because if you, if you, especially if you find a high profit niche, uh, if you focus on that and become an expert in that niche, you don't have to work as hard, like just because you have to, you don't have to think as much on every single transaction or potential purchase.

And, and that's been really nice, you know, um, cause basically once you become an expert, you just, you can, um, you know, I can look at a page of a hundred ads and probably 20 seconds, 25 seconds. Wow. Just, I can scan all a hundred of them and tell you which ones are worth buying and which ones aren't and how much money you could make on them.

So, um, it takes much less of my time to do what I used to spend all day doing. So just over time, you've, it's become intuitive for you just to understand, okay, that, that, you know, this brand of washing machine has this certain value, as long as it's in this certain condition, or have you specifically studied it, charted it out in some way?

Yeah, it's, it's basically, it's recognizing the makes and the models, like which brands they are, the age, the type, you know, um, you can, you can tell a lot about the condition of it. The color is important. Um, you know, and it almost seems they, they'll affect, you know, how much, how much is that?

I mean, how can I, how much can I pay for that and still, uh, turn a profit on it, you know, so it's worth my time. Uh, and then, you know, and then even once I do find the items that I, or appliances that I want to purchase, I'm very quickly, or I'm, I can quickly scan through the, the actual description of the ad and, of the item and, and decide if it's a good buy or not.

And so I know all that, you just kind of, you learn what red flags to look for and what, uh, what to stay away from. So. Hmm. So it's worked, you've succeeded, are you still getting out of debt or were you able to pay off your debt? Yeah. Yeah.

We paid off the debt. Congrats, man. That's so exciting. Yeah. It was a, that was a really, um, that was one of the, that was a really big accomplishment for us. So, yeah, that's exciting. And you've expanded your operation, right? You have at least one person working for you at this point.

Yeah. Well, it's, it's expanded and contracted a little bit. Like, um, I brought on a partner and, and we, we went, we worked at it for quite a while. And then it was just more of a difference in philosophy and like how we're, you know, like partnerships that ended up happening.

Um, and so we went our separate ways. And so then it was back to myself and my brother and, uh, and, and just recently, like even within the last month, I've been encouraging him to start up an operation back in, in our hometown, uh, where he's got a couple of girls there.

So, um, yeah, it's actually right now it's back to me. And, um, yeah. So I was excited when I saw you put up a course, cause you're selling a course now on how to do this business, right? Yeah. I thought about this as, and I know you have kids and I've got, I've got one son so far, uh, and he's almost a year old.

So he's a little early, little early to get out in the pickup truck and start loading up appliances. But I've been thinking a lot about how I want to teach my son the skills of business. And one of the things that I've, I've seen recommended in the past by many people is, you know, take your son to, uh, or a daughter to a flea market, teach them how to bargain, how to ha how to haggle things like that.

But where I live like, Hey, we don't have a lot of flea markets and the ones we do don't have anything that I want. So it has seemed like, ah, that's not something I want to do. But I feel like for maybe like for a high school student or for a home educated student, a business like this on the side is way better than, than getting some, you know, job somewhere, just some entry level job because a, you're learning the fundamental skill of business and B it's entirely self-directed and you can do it on your own time.

You can do it more when you have more time and you can do it less when you have less time. Yeah. Yeah. It's, um, I guess just a couple of little tidbits about what I'm, what I've been doing with my son. So my son's eight years old. He's almost nine.

Um, he knows how to diagnose most of the, you know, most of the, uh, um, repair is needed on, on the top of the washers and dryers. Uh, he can already, I've already taught him how to scan the Craigslist ads cause he, cause he just wants to, like, he's very driven.

Um, you know, even at seven, eight years old, he was already able to find the good deals on Craigslist. Basically. It's not a scientist. It's, it's teaching them how to recognize what is a recognize certain brands makes models and how much a good prices, you know, and then that's takes a little bit of work, but you know, if they want to learn it, they can do that.

And, um, yeah, you know, we homeschool our kids. And so like when I have a delivery or I'm going to take in a bunch of machines to the scrapyard, you know, my boys love going along and, um, I fully expect with, with a reasonable amount of work, uh, my son should be doing, he should be able to do most of the work by the time he's 10 to maybe 11 years old.

And obviously the things like answering the phone for a sales call, that's, I'm not going to have him do that. You know, imagine someone calling about an appliance and a 10 year old answering the phone. Um, but, but everything else, I mean, he can, he already, he can take pictures.

He can write up the descriptions, post the ads and Craigslist. Um, there's really not too much other than moving really heavy appliances that they can't do. They just need a little bit of help on that. So, um, and then just the last thing is, it's an incredible opportunity to spend time with your kids.

You know, they're, my boys will never forget all the time that I've spent with them. You know, going around doing pickups and stopping for ice cream and just doing fun things, you know, when we're driving around. And so, yeah. And I mean, it's a perfect business that it's a perfect business to be able to integrate family.

I think about that a lot cause I used to run a financial planning firm and one of the things that I didn't like about that business is I couldn't, it's not the kind of thing where I could easily bring, uh, you know, my children with me, but your type of business is one where you can be fully integrated with your children.

And what an amazing way to, uh, what amazing, what an amazing way to teach them social skills. What an amazing way to teach them business skills. What an amazing way just to build time with them. Yeah. And go ahead. Oh yeah, no, it's, it's, it's amazing. I've had, um, yeah, both, both in the good and I've seen the good, uh, learning about, uh, yeah.

Learning, learning how to, uh, um, basically learning how to deal with people. Um, my, my son, my oldest son especially goes with me on a lot of deliveries. And so he's helping, he like holds my tool pouch as I'm bringing the washers and dryers inside of houses. And, um, yeah, it's been great because it's basically, it's not sheltering them from the world.

Like I had a, I had a delivery, uh, about a month ago and this lady refused to pay for the washer. Um, because she was convinced that she was hearing a noise, you know, that there was something wrong with the washing. And, and I had to be firm with her and tell her that she was going to pay for the washer or we were going to have to pack it back up and leave.

And she was trying to get, leave it with her and she would send a check and all this stuff. And, um, it kind of got a little heady cause I was like, this is not going to happen. Like, you know, this is how it's going to be. You're going to pay or we're going to leave with the washer machine.

And, and he's standing right there next to me the whole time. And it, it got really awkward. And I said, all right, we're, we're going to take the washer. And so we packed it back up and hauled it back out of the basement. And, and basically, you know, the whole time we're driving back home, uh, I'm just teaching him.

It was like, you know, I was teaching my son Moses, you know, that, uh, you know, not every, not every, uh, person is worth doing business with. And sometimes you just need to walk away and not, it's better to not do business with something that's going to, uh, that really is going to come back to bite you the next day or a week later.

And, uh, it's just not worth the stress. And so, yeah, there's been a lot of really good learning and teaching, teachable moments, um, just observing, uh, you know, how to do, how to do business with the public. Right. I wouldn't be surprised if by 10 or 11, he is, uh, he's capable of taking a sales call.

Uh, remember Thomas Jefferson was running a plantation at the age of 12. You know, Ben Franklin at the age of 11 was, I think I could be mixed up on my date, but by about the age of 11, Ben Franklin and his buddies were starting their, um, uh, the, the almanac thing that they had done.

I mean, we've, it's throughout history, there have been many people that have served, you know, 12 or 13 has been a very traditional age for, you know, the transition from childhood to manhood, in, you know, throughout history in many cultures. Yeah, that's very interesting. I read, I was just trying to find it real quick.

I couldn't find it, but I was recently reading a story about a, uh, I think it was an Admiral and I can't find the name again, I can't find the story, but it was talking about an Admiral. It was a young man who was given charge of, uh, was given charge of a ship.

I think it was during the Revolutionary War, uh, and he wasn't, he was in, you know, he was in his early teens and he was commanding a ship full of men. I can't confirm that if I can find it, I'll, I'll put it in the, after, after the interview, uh, for the audience, but it's just, it's interesting.

I think it's a, it's a theme. It seems like young people are far more capable oftentimes than we give them credit. Yeah. You wrote, go ahead. I didn't mean to interrupt. Go ahead. Oh, no, no. Yeah. I was just going to say that's, that's kind of my wife and I's philosophy as we've been raising our kids is, um, and it's kind of my philosophy in life period is why, why can't this happen?

Or why can't I do this? Why can't our kids do this? And, um, you know, so we have, you know, especially reading some, um, you know, reading some of the financial books, it was really getting me to think out into the future is like, why can't my kids pay cash for their first house by the time they're 18?

Right. They absolutely can, you know, and, and why can't my kids run their own business or, or learn how to run their own business before they're 10? And the kids pick up on that and, and kids tend to rise to the, to the level of expectations that their parents set for them.

And unfortunately in our culture, people and parents, many parents set the expectations pretty low. And, um, we've just been finding that, you know, we're not putting pressure on them because I'm not pressuring them into any one way, one business or another, but, um, I kind of, I do encourage them if they want to, you know, spend time in the different businesses that we've got going.

Um, yeah. And it's, it's been amazing. I've seen enough examples of it to know it's possible. Uh, there's a book, uh, that I haven't read it yet, but it's on my list of people that I'd like to talk to about it. Uh, there's a man named Steven Maxwell. Uh, he and his wife wrote a book called Buying a House Debt-Free, and with their children, uh, their three oldest children, their three oldest sons so far, uh, all of them purchased a home debt-free, uh, by the time they, uh, see, before they were 30.

And so like kind of when they were starting their, when they were starting their lives, uh, all three of their oldest sons at least have started off on that foundation. And if you compare that, I mean, I can, I can point to you and your wife, uh, you, you teach your children at home, is that right?

Yeah. Okay. Right. So, I mean, when you look at that and you start looking around in the, uh, the home education community, I mean, you can find example after example after example of normal everyday, I wouldn't say average, but people of not extra special intelligence completing their college degrees by 16, 17, 18 years old, and being positioned, uh, with business skill, with the academic credentials to get started, uh, at an earlier age.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's pretty mind-boggling when you think about how far ahead your, your kids could be, you know, compared to their peers at, you know, by the time that their peers are coming out of high school. Like, yeah, not only teaching them not to be into debt and to save, but like to, to potentially already own their own home.

And I mean, it just, the position it puts them in going forward, um, it's, it's pretty incredible. So. Yeah. It's amazing. And there are so many people who have done it, uh, even just, you know, one of the things I'm a little bit bitter about is the fact that I was always taught by all the financial books I read as a young man that, you know, I need to save 10 or 20% of my income and that I was doing really good by the, if I saved 10 or 20% of my income.

And then later I stumbled across the, you know, all of the financial independence, early retirement community online. And I found out that people were saving 50% of their income and 70% of their income and 80% of their income. And I think, you know, I could have done that. I could have done it without a problem, but I, no one had ever told me I could.

And so for some reason I didn't, I didn't realize that I could do that. Uh, let's switch gears and I'm interested in your talking through a scenario that is probably my favorite blog post that you wrote. And the reason is that, that, or at least of your posts that I've read, it's my favorite one that I've sent various people to.

Uh, the thing I see about a business like yours is it doesn't depend on anyone else. And what an amazing boost to the con to your confidence. If you always know you can fall back on this, uh, on this as a skill, as a skill to learn that you can exert.

So you, I'm sure you'll probably move on to other businesses in the future, but just the knowledge of the fact that you could sell out your whole inventory and if you could start again with a few hundred bucks or, and you could build your business back up cause you've done it already.

Yeah. You wrote a blog post, uh, piggybacking on a blog post that Mr. Money Mustache wrote called, if I were starting over again from zero, how would I do it? What would you do if I took away all your money, took away everything that you've got, took away all your inventory and said, Ryan, you got to start over again.

What would you do? Yeah. I mean, uh, I haven't even looked at that post a long time, but yeah, I remember a lot of what I wrote and, um, I'm off of, it would be a really fun, it has to be a fun little adventure, um, to be able to like almost be dropped in a city with nothing and you have to start over again.

Um, but yeah, I, you know, the, the first thing, the first thing I would do is, uh, you have to, as long as you have a place to stay, I mean, I guess how, how from nothing are we starting from? You can start from wherever you want. If you want, you want me to put you on the street sleeping in a cardboard box, I can do that.

If you want to be sleeping in your car, that's fine. Or if you want to be crashing with friends, I think it's unrealistic for most people that a friend wouldn't take them in on their couch. So let's start from there. Yeah, we'll start from there. And usually that friend would probably have internet, but if they didn't, uh, there's public internet, the libraries and many other places, uh, and computers, if you didn't have a computer either or a phone.

And, uh, but basically, you know, to start off, you just have to figure out how to get just enough resources, um, to get your first item or, um, and, and right off the bat, like going to the public library, even without a phone, you can, you can just start looking at the free section.

And there's like, I never added up the value from one day of Portland. That's where I live. The free section, the amount of stuff that's given away in the free section every day, it's, it's in the tens of thousands of dollars. Like, and it doesn't take, but just picking up one or two of those items that are just kind of decent to make, you know, you're not going to get, sometimes you can make a ton of money on the free items, but, um, anyways, just picking up a couple of those and then, and then reselling them.

Um, and it is possible to sell items without taking pictures of them. So you can just go back to your public library computer and repost it without a picture and with a good description. So, I mean, it really, that, that's where it starts. I mean, or you can start with as much, you know, um, you know, one of the things that I talked about in the post was getting a mode of transportation, like a bike.

So going on the free section until you get a bike, get the bike and then go from there. Yeah, there's a lot of valuable free items that you can pick up with your bike and, and resell. And then you all, then you just need to save some of that money and, and then reinvest some of it, live off some of it.

And, uh, yeah. Yeah. The, the, the, the thing about the free section is that just because something's on there doesn't necessarily mean that it's not worth anything. And this is the, to me, this is the key with Craigslist or, or garage sales, anything like that. Value is worth what an item is available for.

It doesn't necessarily start, you know, that that's not necessarily what it sells for. There've been lots of times where something is, is valuable to me and I want to get a good price, but then there's times when I just want to get rid of something. And I've put lots of good things on Craigslist because I want it gone in two hours.

And I know if I put it on the free section, somebody will be done. It'll be gone in two hours and it saves me the guilt of sending it away, a perfectly good item away for free, excuse me, to the, to the garbage. I'm not, I don't want to throw something away if someone else can use it or repurpose it or something like that.

So, I mean, you can start with that. I mean, on your post, how to start from zero, you said, starting off, you know, get a bike with a trailer. So that way, you know, you got to figure out how to get that and get one for free or fix one up or, or offer somebody to, you know, some extra yard work or something like that.

Get a mobile computer, AKA a smartphone, get some tools, you know, get some tools for fixing dryers and then go right into the appliance business was, was, was what it is. But to me, that's a formula. What I like about that is that's a simple formula that can be applied to really any business or any job.

And as a metaphor, you need a transportation to get where your work is, work is valuable. If you don't have that, you've got to get that. Then you need to build some tools. And so whether that's in your case, you're talking about a pair of pliers and a wrench, or whether that's a basic skill set of some kind, you need a mobile computer, AKA a smartphone, which is a method of marketing that.

And then, you know, you just get started. And that's what the fundamental basis of business is. Every single business is exactly the same. Yeah. So any tips? Let's close with this unless you have anything else. Last thought I have is any you are probably the you're the most experienced buyer and seller of things that I have I have ever talked to any tips for getting a really good deal and any tips for for getting top dollar for your stuff on Craigslist?

Let's see, let's go get in a really good deal. Starting, I'll start with the free section, you have to be really quick. So obviously, everything on the free section is free. And like you'd said, there are some incredibly valuable things that are given away in the free section. You know, a lot of it, people are like people will be like, for example, on appliances, they'll use their appliances up until the day they move in there, right?

Just because they need to, you know, and then they'll dump them for free, you know, a couple hours before they move. And that happens all the time, as well as lots and lots of other items. So you just have to be really quick, like you have to be sitting there refreshing and wait in this the moment the new post didn't get listed, you have to respond quickly.

And if you don't, you're not going to get them. Because in Portland here, there's hundreds and hundreds of people sitting on the free section trying to snag those items. So quick tip, how to get free items, when there's 300 other people trying to get them as well, respond to the item you want as quickly as you can.

And then in this subject line, instead of just letting it auto fill itself, offer a little bit of money, like, say, I will give you $10 for this dryer. And so there'll be 50 or 100 other people that will respond to that free dryer, but yours is going to stick out.

And most of the time, they will end up giving you the item because you're willing to give them a little bit more value than anyone else. You pick it up quickly, and you'll give them $10. That worked for me, I had some tile on, I had, I was cleaning out a shed that I had to take down.

And I had a bunch of miscellaneous tile that was left over. And there were a few pieces of mismatched ones. But there were several boxes of some pretty good tile. And I tried to sell it, I'd had some good success selling of some other things. And I'd listed it and nobody bid on it.

And finally, I want this stuff gone. So I put it on the free section, a guy and I said, first come first serve. Well, then some guy called me and said, I'll come pick it up tomorrow morning. And I run a charity, you know, out of a church, we collect this kind of stuff.

And I said, Okay, you can come tomorrow morning. And then some and then somebody else texted me and said, Hey, you know, is it still available? I said, No, sorry. There was somebody else. And they responded back, listen, we really want it, we really need it 20 bucks, and we'll be there in an hour.

And I said, Okay, you know, and I called the guy, the pastor guy back. And I said, Hey, listen, I'm sorry, man. I said in the ad, first come first serve, but this guy gave me money. And you know, frankly, that I'll take the money. But he got a really great deal on quite a value of of tile just because he offered a little bit of money.

Yeah, yeah, no, that's a great. Yeah, you know, it's just a great way to position yourself to really get some of those free items. As far as buying items, it really comes down to research, like no, know what you're buying, know what it costs new, know what the average price costs use.

And in really, an item that has a flaw that you can't detect isn't a good deal. Like you need to be able to know enough to about the items to detect flaws, cracks, problems with it. So I mean, I get a lot of emails from people that are bought things and they ended up being lemons or they've broken.

So you need to know enough about the item to be able to to inspect it properly to make sure everything works great. And yeah, and as far as getting good deals, it helps if something's someone's overpriced something a little bit and you want to get a good deal on it.

Just don't hesitate to shoot out an offer. Just email them and say, hey, I'm interested in the item. Would you be willing to take such and such amount? No worries either way. Have a great day. Be pleasant about it. Some people need the money. They need the higher price and let them have that.

If they don't want to go down, it's not worth being ruthless over it. But yeah, eventually, just be patient. Because eventually, if something's not listed one day, usually that's when people get tempted. Oh, I got to go out and buy it new. But just patient. Check later in the day.

Check the next day. Patience is the number one reason or the number one contributor of you saving money when you buy things. And if you're just willing to wait for it, you're going to be able to eventually find it cheaper. The next iPhone whatever is going to come out and there's going to be a huge number of people going for it, paying hundreds of dollars.

And at about a year and a half, they'll give it to you for 99 bucks brand new. Or you can buy a bunch of them on Craigslist for not much money, right? Stay away from the bleeding edge of especially technology. Right. Be willing to live just a little bit behind everyone else, which is totally fine.

Right. And then one more tip on the selling side. And this is huge. A lot of times, most people aren't experts at, you know, in the market for their items market. They don't know what the average used price sells for. They don't know what the supply and demand is.

And one of the things I encourage people, if you really don't know how much something's worth, price it on the higher side. Just by default. And I also encourage people not to put their phone number on it. If you really don't know how much your item's worth, just put the ad up.

Let people email you if they're interested. If you put an item up and you get like 10 emails in the first hour, probably greatly underpriced the item and just take it down or change the ad. Right. And raise the price. And that's why I encourage people not to put their phone number on it, just because otherwise you're going to get 10 calls.

Everyone's going to keep calling you and tell you answer. So but if you just leave that out, you just you can it enables you to change the price. And then the other thing is, is once you settle on a price like, nope, this is what we think the item's worth.

Be patient. Like don't, you know, cars are the worst. You can put a car up, you'll get 10 dealers calling you in the first 20 minutes, offering you half of what you just listed your car for. What I encourage, I encourage people to wait, like set a designated amount of time, especially on bigger ticket items like cars or motorcycles or things like that.

Wait like a week. Let the item sit up there at your listed price for a week before you drop the price. And when people ask if you'll take half or, you know, knock it down by 25 percent, say I'm going to stick with our listed price for the first week.

And that tip alone can save hundreds and even thousands of dollars for someone willing to follow that advice. So do you go back through ads when you're looking to buy things from old dates and try to make offers since you know that maybe you can get better deals? Is that worth the time?

I don't do it as much anymore. I used to do a lot, especially, it all depends on where you're at. I mean, if you really, and it kind of comes down to the hustle. If you really need inventory, like say it's really slow. Yeah, absolutely. Go look through all the old ads, the ones that have been up there for a number of days and say, hey, if you still have this, would you be willing to take such and such amount?

And a side tip, when you're making low ball or when you're making real offers on stuff, when someone's overpriced their item, be really courteous because it's a real sensitive thing with people. And if you're really courteous and kind in your emails and you say, hey, no worries either way, it really communicates to the person.

It kind of puts them in a good mood basically. If you're real harsh about it, like I'll give you half price with a grant, they're never going to respond to you or they're going to respond, they're going to be absolutely not. Be friendly and you're more likely to get a friendly response from people.

You've settled on appliances, but do you think there are other niches that could also be good? I mean, you mentioned cars, that may be good, maybe not, but whether it's things like lawn equipment or I don't even know, but there are probably other niches, right? There's a ton of other niches.

And one of the things that's difficult, it's hard for me to write about each one of them extensively just because I'm not pouring that much time into each one. I mean, I know a lot of people that are doing bicycles, at least part-time, some of them full-time, just bicycles.

And pretty much anything that can be expensive, new, you could usually make a living off of buying and selling it used. So bicycles, furniture, lawn equipment, small engine repair, any of the niches where you can actually repair the items, that can be a good one. Electronic repair, computers, and some of the smaller electronics, you really have to be good at it because it's a ruthless market.

But it's just, yeah, there's a lot of different items. I don't have an exhaustive list, but if it's somewhat expensive new, then there's probably... Yeah, the more expensive it is new, the more room there is for a used market. - Right. And that's the fundamental of really, again, like every item.

You're not gonna go and buy a recycled Dixie cup necessarily. But if an item has some value, whether that's what a jeweler does, they buy cheap, they sell deer. That's what a pawn shop does, they buy cheap, they sell deer. That's the fundamental nature of business. And the key, as I see, is simply that the service that you're providing is inventory and convenience.

So as I look at car dealers, I think to myself, "How does the car dealer make money?" Well, the way they make money is that they have an inventory there. So when somebody is ready to go shopping, they've trot right down to the lot, and there are 48 cars there that you can choose from and you can buy it.

Now, the person could get it on Craigslist, but the problem...themselves, and save probably whatever the dealer markup is, anywhere from a few hundred bucks to many thousands of dollars. But the problem is that there's an asynchronous need and transaction. So unless they were thinking ahead, which is what most people don't do, and recognizing, "My car is...I need to be starting to shop for another car and spending the next six months finding a deal." Well, then the car goes out on a Thursday afternoon, they have to skip work on Friday, and they need a car over the weekend.

So you overpay by 3,000 bucks versus what you could do if you had the time to shop for it. And the same thing with appliances. I mean, you're providing a good deal for the people buying it, but you're providing the convenience of having it now, not having to sit around and look at the ads and then figure out how to fix the thing.

You're giving people a good deal, cheaper than trotting down to Sears and getting a new one, and you're providing a service for the ones that you're taking away and keeping them out of the trash, which is great. Yeah. And that's where there's a lot of money. If you can repair the items that you get back for free, that's where a lot of money is made.

That's great. Tell us about your appliance school. I haven't been through it. I have just seen it, and I've sent a couple people to go look at it because it seems like a really cool info product offering that you have with your appliance school, if anyone's interested. Tell us what's in it and how that works.

Yeah. It came out of consulting. I was consulting for people all over the country through the blog that found out about me doing the appliance thing and eventually realized that I needed to automate it to some degree and also make the teaching more thorough. There's only so much you can cover in consultations that are one hour at a time.

So yeah, basically, we put everything that a person would need to know, starting from scratch with no mechanical ability or understanding about appliances at all for the business, and just walk them through what to expect, what tools they need to get started, which machines to buy and sell, how much to pay, how to inspect them before they buy, how to repair, how to clean, how to paint, how to list them for sale, how to deal with the sales calls.

And then we added training videos, and we have a forum with everyone else in the community all over the country and Canada that's a part of the appliance school community. Yeah, it's an awesome little community. The response has been very encouraging and very good. There's many, many people all over the country that have gone through the course and that are doing it full-time and earning a living.

And there's a lot more people that are doing it part-time, just getting it going. My son, we're 12 years, 13, 14 years old, he would be taking it right now. And I'd say $147 for education, that can start a business that can probably be done anywhere. It'd probably save...

I mean, you succeeded in making $100 a day most days when you were getting started. But I guarantee after a couple of years, you had learned some of the tricks that you share in that course. And to me, that's called education that pays off. Yeah. Yeah. So when you sell an appliance, the average profit is somewhere between $120 and $140.

One deal. Yeah. The course gets paid off pretty quickly after you sell the first couple of appliances. That's great. Minivan and a small trailer and a web connection and you're in business. Yeah. Ryan, thank you for coming on. re-craigslist.com, links in the show notes. Anywhere else, anything else you want to plug while we're on?

Yeah, I was just in the appliance courses over at applianceschool.com. Cool. Perfect. Applianceschool.com. Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate it. Yeah, it was great talking to you, Joshua. Thanks for having me. Told you it'd be fun. Of course, I've told you all the interviews I've ever done on this show.

I've told you they would be fun. But Ryan, thank you for coming on. I enjoyed it. I learned a lot. I want to share with you a couple of things here as we wrap up today's episode. After the interview, I couldn't remember who the person was that I referenced as far as the admiral that I had said was an admiral at a young age.

And I couldn't remember all the details from it. So after the interview, I went back and researched it. And there'll be a link to the Wikipedia article in the show notes if you would like to read. But the person that I was thinking of was a man named David Farragut.

F-A-R-R-A-G-U-T. David Farragut. And David was born in 1801. And at the age of nine, he enlisted in the Navy, in the American Navy, when he was nine years old. And then he continued to serve in the Navy for the next 60 years until his death at the age of 69.

And I'll read two quick paragraphs here from the Wikipedia article. So remember, he was born in 1801. So listen to this right here. "Through the influence of his adopted father, Farragut was commissioned as a midshipman in the United States Navy on December 17, 1810, at the age of nine.

A prize master by the age of 12, Farragut fought in the War of 1812, serving under Captain David Porter. While serving aboard the USS Essex, Farragut participated in the capture of HMS Alert on August 13, 1812, then helped to establish America's first naval base and colony in the Pacific, named Madisonville, during the ill-fated Nuku Hiva campaign.

At the same time, the Americans battled the hostile tribes on the islands with the help of their T'le allies. Farragut was 12 years old when, during the War of 1812, he was given the assignment to bring a ship captured by the Essex safely to port. He was wounded and captured while serving on the Essex during the engagement at Valparaiso Bay, Chile, against the British on March 28, 1814." So he'd be 13 years old at that time.

"Farragut was promoted to lieutenant in 1822 during the operations against West Indian pirates." So that would be at the age of 21. "In 1824," age of 23, "he was placed in command of the USS Ferret, which was his first command of a U.S. naval vessel." And then it goes on with more details.

Isn't that amazing? So clearly he wasn't given the full command of a U.S. Navy vessel, which is what I was remembering, until the age of 23. But at 12 years old, he was assigned to be the captain, a prize master. So a prize would be when they defeated another ship, and the prize master would be the captain that they put on board that ship to bring it into port.

A prize master given the assignment to captain a ship and bring it into port at the age of 12. Amazing, huh? We'll talk more about that stuff later. A couple of quick things that I learned from the interview with Ryan. And then one mentioned about his course, because after the call, we were talking about his course as far as his appliance school course.

And he offered me an affiliate link, and I'll give you that information real quick in just a moment. That was cool. It was unexpected, but I'll mention that to you in case you're interested in checking out his appliance school. So first of all, a couple of things. Number one, notice some of the themes.

Ryan had a system of accountability with his friends that he had to email, and he had to be accountable for his actions. I've noticed this theme among a lot of entrepreneurs. And so consider, is there a way that you can put some accountability into your life? Because without that system of accountability, I'm not sure that he would have been as effective at building his business.

Maybe so, but I think that probably helped a lot. He was also in that do or die situation, that place of desperation, having to make something happen. And that's a serious place that can really result in major changes. He learned a lot through the process. He started off not exactly knowing what he was doing, but then he continued to do an 80/20 analysis and focus on where his highest profit was coming from.

And then he was able to cut out some of the lower profit activities and focus on the higher profit activities. That's what's nice about entrepreneurship. One thing that's nice about entrepreneurship is you can get rid of the activities that are not very productive. You don't just have to keep doing them.

And then notice that his business has led to new businesses that he probably didn't ever anticipate. I don't know how successful his appliance school sales have been for him. I really don't. But I bet you they're making him some money. If I had the bandwidth, if I were going to be interested in this kind of business, I would take it.

I would buy the school just because I would imagine it would save you at least six months or a year worth of experience from learning how to do it. Well, that's a new income source. He's got a school that he set up called Shirt School, how to learn the t-shirt business, and then a scrap metal school.

I don't know how much money he's making on that stuff. I didn't ask, and it's none of my business. But he probably didn't anticipate those things when he was sitting there at the coffee shop with his friends. So get started and see what happens as time goes on. See where things take you.

And the last thing is I was just struck by how strong his position is as far as having a fallback position. Once you've made a living with Craigslist and a smartphone, do you have any fear of failing? I'm sure you still have the fear, but at least you know, "Hey, I can still go back and do that." So wherever his business opportunities and business pursuits take him in the future, I am sure that that will set him up.

And especially for his kids as well, what an awesome learning experience. Check out the article that I will link in the show notes that he wrote about some other high school kids that got in touch with him a couple years ago, just two kids, and they were working after school and during the summer on their own business.

And they started up their own business doing this and earned far more than whatever they would have made in a retail job. So hopefully you check that out. If you're interested in the Appliance School, like I said, after we closed up the interview, Ryan told me that he offers affiliate links.

So if you're interested in the Appliance School, he went ahead and set one up for me. Wrong button. There we go. He set one up for me and it's linked in the show notes. It's at applianceschool.com/?a=rfp. Looks like he put that in wrong. Oh, well. Just follow the link in the show notes.

That'll take you directly to where it needs to be. And I'll get a credit. I don't know. I don't remember what he said as far as how much it was, but I'll get some sort of referral commission for that if you're interested in checking out his Appliance School. Haven't been through it myself.

I have checked out his sales page. I haven't been through it myself, but I definitely think I would. I'm pretty sold on that. If I were starting an appliance business, I would. So maybe this would be an opportunity for some of you who are looking for some part-time income or looking for some full-time income even.

Who knows? And if you do go through it, I would love to hear from you. I would love to hear from you. And then also the other thing, if any of you know, if any of you are involved in home education and teaching your children and implementing and integrating your children into your business, I would love to hear from you.

I'd love to interview you on the show. That's a special interest of mine is how to integrate your children into your business from an early age to give them useful skills that they can generate money beyond just simply going and taking a retail job at the age of 16.

Nothing wrong with that. It's a good place to start, but maybe there might be a way that we could set our kids up for higher earning potential, a little bit more financial success and business skills on the way through. So if any of you are involved with that, or if any of you are familiar with people who have done a really great job, maybe you read their blog or you've read their books, I would love to get that information.

I'd love to have them on the show. That's it for today's show. I hope that you all have a lovely Thursday. Thank you for listening to today's show. This show is intended to provide entertainment, education, and financial enlightenment. Your situation is unique and I cannot deliver any actionable advice without knowing anything about you.

This show is not, and is not intended to be any form of financial advice. Please, develop a team of professional advisors who you find to be caring, competent, and trustworthy, and consult them because they are the ones who can understand your specific needs, your specific goals, and provide specific answers to your questions.

Hold them accountable for your results. I've done my absolute best to be clear and accurate in today's show, but I'm one person and I make mistakes. If you spot a mistake in something I've said, please come by the show page and comment so we can all learn together. Until tomorrow, thanks for being here.

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