The Best Flippin’ Path to FI | Rob & Melissa from Flea Market Flipper

The Financial Independence Show - A podcast by Cody Berman and Justin Taylor - Wednesdays

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In today's episode, Cody and Justin are joined by  Rob and Melissa from Flea Market Flipper.

You can just hear the passion jumping out of their voices and it's easy to see why when they show how they make $100k+ working only 25-30 hours a week flipping items.

Throw away assumptions like long hours spent shipping or fixing junk just to make $5. This is a truly impressive system they've built.

They also love educating and are offering all the FI Show listeners a free guide to selling on eBay!

So go take a listen, leave that 5-star review and give us some feedback!
Episode Summary

Rob is the laid back one of the group and Melissa is the one who is the more money focused one
From the start of their relationship they always used flips to earn money
In the beginning, they would just use it for vacations and cars but not employment
Rob saw his parents flipping items and just fell in their tracks
When Rob sees an item he can just quickly research the item on eBay and also give you a ready to use post so you don’t have to do much effort at all
After their third child was born four years ago they turned this to a full-time job
They don’t see any advantages they have to anyone recreating their exact same business
They’ve even started coaching people around the country
The style of flipping they do and coach is revolved around doing a smaller amount of flip with much larger returns instead of focusing on quantity
Commercial equipment is often something that can be had really cheap but sold at a big premium
When you check out their blog and reports you’ll see that they’ll sell and ship anything
The only thing they typically won’t mess with is anything following much below $100 profit
They source most of their items locally through things like Offer up, craigslist, or Facebook marketplace but sell almost exclusively on eBay
Sometimes they’ll do some touch-ups or small fixes but for the most part, they don’t do any work to the items which are different than when you’d flip a house
Rob started flipping out of a convertible mustang but over time he upgraded to storage units, a truck, trailer, etc. 
He stresses that you should just stick to what you have until you start making money off the flips
On only 108 sells on eBay they made over $80k for the year which means they don’t have to spend a ton of time shipping items
Then we get into talking about a flip challenge they have going on
We’ve all heard of crazy stories/rumors of someone turning a rubber band into a car but this is real and is well documented
This challenge has them taking an item and turn it into a rental house within a year and they’re on track! It all started with a free chair from the trash
They stress that they try to teach what they can on taxes for these types of sales but note that they differ state to state so check your local laws
They do note that in this business you can see irregular income but they combat this by keeping recurring cost low because they pay for everything in full upfront
They’re currently not focusing on stock market investing because they’re really comfortable with real estate and already have two rental properties and are hoping for 10 over the next 7-10 years
They’re so excited about sharing their skills with everyone through the flipper university and also some free exclusive content for FI Show listeners!

 
Key Takeaways

* Money is Everywhere: Just another reason why quitting a job doesn't mean you can't make money somewhere, somehow if you need to
* Imitate then Improve: Rob and Melissa didn't create a new ind...