I have $500 spare!
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So, I've been doing small work on helping small businesses as a freelance and thru my connections in US. And now, I've earn enough to say that I have a "spare" money that I want to invest into something that is profitable. It's a small amout but, I've been hanging out on FLIPPA and saw some site that can buy around 100 USD to 500 USD. I'm also thinking about starting a blog site and monitize from there. I know wordpress offers a package that I can use and allows monitization of the site. I'm not really sure, but, I want to have something to do between 4pm to 11pm. Any thoughts? Is it worth buying start up biz on flippa or should I start a blogging site?
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@darrel are you talking about URL real estating? That's generally a terrible investment. That's something you do at an incredible scale, not something you do on a small scale because the risk is enormous. 99% of sites that you buy that way will never be sold, ever.
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@scottalanmiller Yeah, I agree with you. It is something that I've been thinking about lately. Glad I ask here first. Thanks!
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Oh, do you mean this stuff?
Buying a $500 business is going to do nothing for anyone. Those aren't actually businesses. You are like just buying a worthless website or something. If they were worth anything, people would keep them.
A real business comes with IP, employees, etc. These are not businesses. The cost of registering a business is more than what these are going for.
So think about this...
- Cost of listing on this site: $25
- Cost of registering a business in the US: $650
- Cost of a URL: $15
You are basically at a $700 fee to "start a business" minimally, just to start one. The business is worth $0 at that point, it's just the basic requirements to "be a business."
So anyone selling below that point is literally just trying to unload some liability.
Realistically, $10,000 might be the starting point for the smallest business ever in the first world. And that would be a super tiny business that would make essentially nothing.
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@darrel said in I have $500 spare!:
I'm also thinking about starting a blog site and monitize from there. I know wordpress offers a package that I can use and allows monitization of the site.
So as someone who manages sites with some pretty extreme traffic, I can tell you that monetization is very hard and very small. If blogs made money, everyone would do it. And automatic monetization is tiny compared to focused monetization. It would be an amazing blog to even cover the cost of hosting.
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If you have $500 to burn, your best bets are investing it well in a good index fund or whatever. $500 isn't enough to really do something.
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Starting your own business can be a great thing, but you want to do a LOT of research first, and generally you need to dedicate a huge amount of time and resources for it. No site or business will easily just "make money on its own", that market was saturated the instant it first popped up.
You pretty much need...
- A ton of money to invest into something someone else built.
- A brilliant idea that no one else has had.
- Huge luck in discovering a huge market gap that no one else ever noticed.
- Tons of sweat equity.
- A bunch of money to purchase a government license to "own" an exclusive market that has little choice but to pay you.
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@scottalanmiller Yep that flippa .com thing. I think I'm looking at my spare 500 as how flippa showed me. So I thought it can be any of use.
Yeah, monetization is hard but I'm not targeting or expecting big from it. I just have so many spare time that I thought about this. But I get your point though.
Now I realize how small is 500 is.
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@scottalanmiller said in I have $500 spare!:
It would be an amazing blog to even cover the cost of hosting.
Mine more than does
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@scottalanmiller said in I have $500 spare!:
Starting your own business can be a great thing, but you want to do a LOT of research first, and generally you need to dedicate a huge amount of time and resources for it. No site or business will easily just "make money on its own", that market was saturated the instant it first popped up.
You pretty much need...
- A ton of money to invest into something someone else built.
- A brilliant idea that no one else has had.
- Huge luck in discovering a huge market gap that no one else ever noticed.
- Tons of sweat equity.
- A bunch of money to purchase a government license to "own" an exclusive market that has little choice but to pay you.
This is all noted. I'm gonna add this to my 'read it to refresh list'.
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Buying and flipping on eBay is your best bet with $500.
Just pick random things up on Craigslist and flip on ebay
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@scottalanmiller Thanks for you inputs. Really much appreciated.
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@IRJ said in I have $500 spare!:
Buying and flipping on eBay is your best bet with $500.
Just pick random things up on Craigslist and flip on ebay
Exactly man!
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@darrel said in I have $500 spare!:
@IRJ said in I have $500 spare!:
Buying and flipping on eBay is your best bet with $500.
Just pick random things up on Craigslist and flip on ebay
Exactly man!
I think that's your best bet honestly. It can also be quite profitable. Yeah there's some work involved, but it's easy to lowball on Craigslist and Facebook marketplace
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Invest in TSX symbol WEED when it drops next and wait... ?
Up a little over $21k myself this year with very little invested initially. -
@manxam You just gave me an excellent idea!
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Hey there! I finally found and decided where to spend this spare $500 of mine. I know you guys proved to me that it's just a very small amount, it's not ideal to use this and buy small business on Flippa, not even worth using to start a small IT Business(actually, not enough), and not even worth using to start a blog site('coz you don't know when you can get your investment back because monetization is very hard). I agree to all of you and thanks for that. Now, where I'm gonna use it? I thought about investing it on stock market, but, I don't think I can get that much from it.
So, I decided investing it to myself, yup you read it right.
$50 will go to Udemy courses, I think that's enough since they are always on sale, one course could probably cost around $12.00 only. I already have skill set to use for a freelance work but I thought eating more knowledge would help me more on my career, and I want more and more knowledge('coz it's me :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: ). While doing so, I'll create a profile in Upwork and will avail their $10/month Freelance plus plan and thinking about getting a year worth of subscription, so a total of $120.
After that, I'm going to avail a year of subscription on wordpress and build a landing page for my upwork profile. That will be around $60 for a Personal plan.
So the total is now at $185. I still have $315 left, which I probably be using to buy Connects on upwork ($1/connect), it's like a token in-site so I can submit a proposal to possible clients.
I know this is not something that I can say a good use of $500 but I'd say, it is a good move. Once I get my profile approved (might take weeks) in Upwork, I'm gonna open another thread and update you there until I land my first freelance work. :smiling_face_with_smiling_eyes:
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@darrel said in I have $500 spare!:
Hey there! I finally found and decided where to spend this spare $500 of mine. I know you guys proved to me that it's just a very small amount, it's not ideal to use this and buy small business on Flippa, not even worth using to start a small IT Business(actually, not enough), and not even worth using to start a blog site('coz you don't know when you can get your investment back because monetization is very hard). I agree to all of you and thanks for that. Now, where I'm gonna use it? I thought about investing it on stock market, but, I don't think I can get that much from it.
So, I decided investing it to myself, yup you read it right.
$50 will go to Udemy courses, I think that's enough since they are always on sale, one course could probably cost around $12.00 only. I already have skill set to use for a freelance work but I thought eating more knowledge would help me more on my career, and I want more and more knowledge('coz it's me :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: ). While doing so, I'll create a profile in Upwork and will avail their $10/month Freelance plus plan and thinking about getting a year worth of subscription, so a total of $120.
After that, I'm going to avail a year of subscription on wordpress and build a landing page for my upwork profile. That will be around $60 for a Personal plan.
So the total is now at $185. I still have $315 left, which I probably be using to buy Connects on upwork ($1/connect), it's like a token in-site so I can submit a proposal to possible clients.
I know this is not something that I can say a good use of $500 but I'd say, it is a good move. Once I get my profile approved (might take weeks) in Upwork, I'm gonna open another thread and update you there until I land my first freelance work. :smiling_face_with_smiling_eyes:
I like the idea of training, but paying for upwork seems silly? I've worked there a few years ago and that was never a thing. It was free and clients pi ked you based on your portfolio and reviews.
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@IRJ Yep, I know right! But, with the current system of UpWork, I think this is the best way if I want to fully utilize their system. Thanks for the feedback though.
This is the difference in between plans. The basic is a free plan.
