Now that I’ve wrapped up my semester, I have the opportunity to discuss Matt’s lovely post “Going from a Ten Dollar Gig to a Thousand Dollar Gig.
If we look at the AMEX checkout offer, that started his post, it was just checking out with American Express’ service and you will receive $10. Some folks found Sabon gift cards, did TicketMaster, bought crap from Newegg, and various other means.
My first thought was to purchase gift cards from Newegg to resell to profit less and keep volume up. Then on Reddit I saw people were posting the garbage you could buy and I thought that’s cool. With more research, I saw you had to create new accounts and do all this other voodoo to make the deal work. After that, I said,”Oh hell no.” That was too much work for too little return.
Where Is This Coming From?
I do not post a lot of details to many things I do. It’s like many resellers don’t tell you where they source the product or what they’re selling. When I do post something that costs money, I’m taking a lot of crap from the trolls. That’s fine because I’m only painting a small picture for you to see, but inside the house of Points there’s more going on. I can’t say “I’ve been at this long enough,” but I can see enough to know that if you don’t do certain things today, you will wish you did it.
- Citi 5x Forward
- US Bank Visa Buxx
- Cards from Chase that can be converted into Freedoms
These examples come to mind that people are missing out today that you could have gotten yesterday if people opened their horizons which leads up to this from Matt’s post:
Don’t hoard redundant skills
You need to futureproof your goals. If your only skill in life outside of your day job is knowing how to ask Walmart to load a Bluebird card, you just became redundant when they pivot from this. You need skills that are adaptable and offer long term, future value. If you do this properly, you can protect not only your side hustle income, but create things that will supercede your regular job.
There is so much reliance on the various birds. If it shutdown tomorrow, I am still going to sleep easy knowing that my methods will still prevail. If gift card selling stops tomorrow, I will hit a roadblock as I am still in transition, but it would not be the end of the world. There are so many angry people on the Internet because their method dies. One member of the “Hobby” comes to mind with his tirades on the forums because his method was just prepaid cards from various stores into the birds.
Do I get upset when a program devalues? No, it happens. Do I get annoyed when a store stops working? Not at all.
Why Is That?
Late 2013, I began on a trek to automate many of the manufactured spend techniques that I was doing. It made 0 sense for repetitive actions. When Matt organized the #milesmadness in 2014, I began to “commericalize” the automation beginning with scraping Newegg for Free After Rebate items.
This will be the first and last time I write about this on the blog as many of my confidants already know this. I have been automating everything beyond your simple IFTTT and Twitter. It doesn’t make sense to repeat the same functions over and over. For those that say “but it only takes 30 seconds” to do something, I’m not spending that 30 seconds. I’m looking for the next deal and staying one step ahead of the “game.”
There’s all kinds of ways to evolve and not stay stagnant. There’s a type of scale that Bengali Miles Guru does with his team that he mentioned at TravelCon. Remember I don’t like going outside to manufacture spend, and my preferred method, the automated kind of scale. The automated kind that let’s me earn points while I sleep. The kind where I only tap a few commands and tell the computer this is what I want done.
Get Your Thousand Dollar Gig Together
You need to learn new skills and evolve. If you don’t you become that cranky old (wo)man when another door shuts. I recently found an offer where I can earn $.50 profit to a gift card, but is marginal at best. Even with automation, it’s not worth it. When you scale up to 100 cards,you would profit $50. Is that worth it? Still, not worth it. But with a little creativity, this offer becomes a thousand dollar gig.
If you continue to learn something new and experiment you will be better off. Who am I to tell you what you should do? Exactly, I’m not a cheeky Brit with a handsome smile.
great post, thank you. Just keep on learning new things and innovating and eventually you will be “I’ve been at this long enough”. Just remember to enjoy your rewards!!
Cheers,
PedroNY
Thanks! I gotta work on the redemptions!
yeah, let them eat cake LOL
In this “Hobby” there seem to be two kinds of people: those who profit from revealing their “tricks” and those who brag about having them while keeping secret . I guess a person needs to decide which category to belong to.
That’s right – in the beginning, I was spilling out everything and I’ve been turning more to a higher level of describing my methods, it’s a lot more fun this way & there’s a lot more questions and ideas bouncing around in private discussions
It’s like many drivers today don’t know the street names because of the GPS. I’m guilty of this. The GPS tells me where to go. All these guides to do things just makes everyone a zombie.
I’ll sleep easily because I have a job I enjoy, which is the real goal. And luckily for me, it doesn’t include Walmart. MS to me is a chore one does to be able to make travel more affordable; it’s strange (in my view) to call that a hobby.
That’s totally awesome! I hope one day I can join you for a job I enjoy – MS is definitely a chore which is why automation helps keep me sane
This is precisely why I decided to enter the reselling world. The birds are easy prey and it is of course what gets worked to death by everyone. A couple of months ago I decided to take a crack at reselling. I finally completed my first sale after an initial hiccup. Once you get the hang of it and understand your margins it is actually kind of fun. Earning miles and cash, that’s the way to go.
Excellent news! I won’t be far behind you
Thanks for the interesting thoughts… hobby/busy work that pays
Being relatively new to the world of MS (our first points/miles earning card is barely two years old), I understand the travel freedom that it brings us. But I’m also working to transition to reselling, as it’s more sustainable, as well as profitable outside the points/miles/cash back it earns.
I like the relative ease, and large numbers generated by the Bird I use. (I control four of them.) But I also enjoy the now weekly bumps to my checking account from Amazon, and the hourly rate I earn from them–far more significant than what’s available from TCB-AGC-VGC-RB.
In reality, I would miss the opportunities I’ve had and continue to have to travel better, and more often, if all the points and miles cards died. But with the skills learned from reselling, I can continue to earn money from whatever cards I use. And the earnings become more significant every month.
I’m with you on it – freeing yourself from the low hanging fruits is liberating
Hey, you’re handsome too!
Thanks, Elaine! So glad we had a chance to meet!
With your gc reselling net profit being in the red and being proud to do $20k MS for net loss, I would consider any deal you made a dime on above par.
Just because I’m a “blogger” doesn’t mean I explain everything I do for the world to see. I list out many things that doesn’t work because not everything is all rosy
Hehe cheeky brit. It’s very cool following your success. I just sold my first few GCs thanks to your pointers and motivation.
Thanks, buddy! Let me know if you need anything!
Thanks, great post!
I’m certainly guilty of being lazy, and following the masses, so to speak.
And yet, truth be told, I’m still a bit clueless about the trail toward more
individual empowering peaks. I’m attending my first conference in Chicago
this fall. Any other suggestions on how to self-study more?
Thanks! You know what, I’ll get you a post for you on the self study
Just checking in if you ever published such a post. Thanks.
I haven’t and don’t plan to, at least not openly
Ah, I think I may have misunderstood you earlier. I see now you wrote “get you a post” (as opposed to just “post”). If you could send me such information, that would be appreciated. If not, all good. Thanks.
Thoughts on maximizing that forward? 🙂