Hey guys. The team at Stuff For College is doing some guest blogging over on our site Teenspirational, so we thought we'd return the favour with this helpful entry!
Books are expensive. Tuition is expensive. Beer is expensive. Here are some businesses you can start from your bedroom this summer or your dorm room this fall to help keep the student debt fairy away if a McJob isn't your scene…
1- Drop-Shipping
Drop shipping is a business where you sell items to people but ship them through the manufacturer. This saves you any of the hassles of having to keep inventory, having to pay for shipping, or having to handle customer service or returns on defective items.
For example, do you like a certain brand of iPhone case? Well simply find out the manufacturer's policy on drop shipping (usually on their website). From there all you have to do is promote and sell the items and input the orders to the manufacturer and wait for your cut to roll in. That's all!
It's super easy to set up a website promoting the items (there's a million services out there for website building, there's countless ones specifically for setting up online stores, or you can sell them on things like etsy or ebay or amazon if you wanted) or you can sell them to your friends and family!
Careful though, you can make tens of thousands of dollars in a job like this and you may not want to go back to school in September!
2- Sell Your Stuff
Craigslist exists for a reason! You're never going to wear the pumps you wore to the sophomore semi-formal again, but your mom will kill you if you throw them out after spending so much on them. You bought that Jeremy Lin jersey during a moment of Linsanity but now that you've come to your senses, you don't want to wear it in public.
Go onto craigslist or kijiji or whatever your preferred site is and list the stuff. People want your things, and it's better to get $10 for something you paid $30 for than to have it sitting in your closet gathering dust until you move off to college and your parents throw it out.
3- Sell Other People's Stuff
Craigslist exists for another reason! You can find some cheap deals of people selling stuff before they move on Craigslist, or at garage sales, or at the thrift store… then you can clean them up/fix them up and re-sell them for profit.
Examples:
Cheap old denim jacket from the thrift store? Buy it, cut the sleeves off, iron on some funky patches, and sell it online (or to your friends) for big profit!
Dusty looking end table at a garage sale? Buy it for cheap, throw a coat of lacquer and a spray of Pledge on it and sell it online for three times as much as you paid!
See something on craigslist with a bad picture or bad writeup? Buy it for cheap, clean it up a little, take a few high quality pictures of it and spend a few minutes writing a really stunning review. Your extra bit of effort in the post can DOUBLE what the bad pictures and writeup netted the original seller.
4- Car Wash
Car washes don't just have to be for charity! Let's face it, the way your bank account looks right now you're a charity case yourself!
Get some friends together (preferably ones who look good shirtless or in wet t shirts), find a bucket, a sponge and some soap and you're done! Make a few signs, set up in a parking lot near a hose, and you're in business!
Guys or girls, people love getting their cars washed by people having fun in the sun.
5- Babysitting
I know, I know, it's such a cliche. But you can put your own twist on it. The babysitter's club had it right, get together with a couple of your friends and form a babysitting conglomerate. All of you will be in charge of marketing (putting up posters in the lobbies of daycare), networking (asking your family members and parents' friends if they have any leads), babysitting (Cindy can't do Friday? Get Kevin to do it.) and scheduling.
When you pool your resources, your time, your skills, your smarts, your connections AND your profits, it will make the summer seem fun!
If you like what you've read from us, be sure to head over to Twitter and check Teenspiration out!
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