Over the last two years, I've built four streams of income as a stay-at-home mom that makes me over $5,000 a month and growing. And the thing is, all four of these income streams sprouted out of just one small online business idea which didn't cost me a dime to start.
This concept has allowed me to gain wide acceptance as a renowned platform builder, has allowed me to build a thriving savings account complete with high interest rates and reach my savings goals based only on how saving money has become my new norm.
This idea was also been instrumental in giving me a down payment I was able to draw out of a bloated emergency fund for a new car I had to get when mine bit the dust. I also now have a daily direct deposit routine, the ability to cover my monthly expenses for me and my children and a subscriber list the size of San Diego.
I'm super excited to spill the beans and break down what this business is and how exactly I'm generating four streams of income from it, some of which are totally passive. According to the Los Angeles times and the Washington Post, passive income is becoming the norm with the advent of AI.
Now before we jump in, let's just clear the air on something real quick: This whole "lofty idea" of passive income.
Lots of people like to talk about passive income like it's some sort of magic money fountain where you don't have to put in any leg work and can just just sit on a beach and relax for the rest of your life. The truth is building real passive income usually requires either a lot of effort or resources upfront and most of the time it's not something you can just set and forget. This is what makes passive income a tough sell for most people. Most people think they will be able to sell a million copies of something by posting on TikTok video or if they have not achieved passive income status is a week, it's not working. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Most passive income sources need a bit of looking after but of course once you do get things working the right way passive income becomes an incredible way to sustain yourself without working yourself to the bone every day. Speaking from experience, as a mom of two boys who once had no clue how to make ends meet and was desperate to make earnings and a paycheck in large part or totally online, it's a game changer.
Now let's dive into what this business model is all about and how I managed to stumble upon it, start putting one stream in front of another and gain acceptance as a stable platform builder that is affordable and available to everyone.
A couple years back I became a single mom and if you know anything about being a parent in general you know it's not cheap. I immediately started trying to figure out ways to make and save money fast to keep myself and my kids moving forward as a three pack. Like a lot of people, I found myself selling items online, usually on Facebook Marketplace sometimes on eBay. But I noticed it wasn't making nearly as much money as I needed because it always took a long time to get products moving and a lot of sales even fell through even after I spent a bunch of money on shipping and a bunch of time making items posted translate into sells and profit.
That all changed when I decided to implement the idea I had seen work on a small scale in a smaller town..... a local online dollar auction.
After getting my auction set up, I started selling and so did other people in my area. But it quickly became a four streams of passive income business that was giving me full time pay with part-time work. And allowed me to have income from an online sales site without spending on stock to sell.
The first income stream is obviously that I could move products much quicker and often for a higher than my asking price because the dollar auction method uses a quick 48h hour turnaround.
Simple supply and demand. Low wait times and quick payments fro sellers was the qualify factor that made my site the most sought after money making opportunity in my city.
The second stream of income was a bit more unexpected......savings.
The items I needed the most were often kids clothes and thanks to the auction I was getting them brand new and even name brand for a fraction of what they would cost retail. I was even able to create direct sale streams and gain clients for well known sellers in my group as personal shoppers for group members who had the money to purchase but did not have the time to shop for a good deal.
The final two income streams are truly passive: membership fees and sponsorships.
People pay a small fee to also be able to post items and make money quickly in my group. Local business owners also want a piece of the action by advertising to my targeted group of local buyers and are willing to pay a monthly fee to do that but here's the million dollar question........ or rather the 5,000 question.
How did I actually implement all four of these income streams and turn my dollar auction into a $5,000 a month machine that went from making extra money to allowing me to contribute to savings accounts?
Let's start with the first income stream: selling your own items.
This is the simplest and fastest way to make money ASAP if you're looking to make a quick buck.
Very simply, you can start by selling the stuff you've got just lying around your house. This is also where I started and it's how I even came up with this idea in the first place.
Now if you're worried about having nothing to sell, one easy trick is to just take a look at other sales groups even Facebook Marketplace maybe even eBay and you'll see that almost anything has value to someone. In fact, in my group, an empty cat litter bucket lot of about 5 buckets went for $35.
Once you find something that looks good to sell, get it listed and see if you have any additional. If your item turns out to be a hot sale, you want to list it again as quickly as possible if you have multiples . you can also offer additional's to the bidders who didn't win your auction the first time.
I have a few resellers in my group and they're always looking for the golden goose item. For one of my sellers that item was truck horns. She exchanged a promise with a liquidator that she would sell the horns if she could get them and pay him a small return on each sale. Well, turns out truck horns in my area were very popular. She immediately sold out at top dollar making this exchange just one example of a very lucrative partnership.
Now let's talk about the second income stream: membership fees.
When my group started growing quickly, I realized the dollar auction model was a big opportunity not just for me but for others to make money too and it turns out many of these members were more than willing to pay a small fee to get in on the action.
So, I introduced a small monthly membership fee, with tiered levels and benefits that my community was more than happy to pay in order to make more money every single week and have somebody help moderate their auctions so that they generally didn't need to deal with anyone who might be giving them a hard time.
On my end this meant a steady source of income even when I didn't have items to sell and the best part is, once you have a payment processor in place it becomes really easy to set the memberships up as monthly subscriptions allowing you to offer services without constantly begging for payments.
In fact, running this entire system is quite simple. There's no Logistics or shipping, and no transaction fees since this was just a local group. I could skip all the complicated processes that platforms like eBay have and members could just use good old fashion porch pickup. And you can sell anything in the $1 auction as long as its legal. I have had people sell anything from cars to tools to maple syrup from Canada.
Now the next thing I just love about dollar auction method is how much I can save. Here's what I mean:
When you're a part of the dollar auction group, not only can you sell items for a great price you can also buy them for a price you'd normally never be able to get in stores. A lot of the time this means you can even snag high quality brand name products for a fraction of their regular going rate in a retail store or even online. Once you know how to navigate and use the group effectively, you can find more and more of these exclusive deals and get tons of everyday items for a major discount. It's like having your own VIP discount store at your fingertips.
And yes, I know that technically this isn't an income stream but when I was struggling to make ends meet for me and my two boys in the beginning, being able to send them to school in brand new name brand clothes, new bags, all new school supplies and everything else they needed to get going that year felt like a huge financial windfall and a weight off my shoulders.
Now you've probably noticed that the secret to all this is having a community of like-minded people looking to buy and sell.
It's not just a great place for everyday people like you and me to make money, these types of communities are an absolute goldmine for local businesses with thousands of people engaged in buying and selling.
Having all of them see your brand and products as a business can be an absolute game changer for business profits and this means many of these businesses would be more than happy to pay you a pretty penny to advertise in your group.
It's just really a matter of finding a local business that you trust with access to you group and they trust you to advertise them. They also need to be willing to spend on advertising to grow their business locally.
A lot of the time a local business will come to you on their own without you having to put in any leg work at all. I found that small businesses and home based businesses may come and go but while they're here they want to do everything possible to find an audience through business sponsorships alone that are within their budget.
I've easily made an extra $1000 a month through business advertisements alone and that's without even advertising the opportunity to anyone outside the group.
Now some of you might be thinking, "Okay, this sounds cool and all but couldn't I just do something similar with something like eBay or maybe even start my own website?"
Well, not really. You see there's a couple of very important differences in how the dollar auction works that makes it far superior to really any other option when it comes to running an online Marketplace.
First of all, by using Facebook groups instead of any other platform you have three main advantages.
1. It's completely free and simple for you to set up meaning no website subscriptions and no need to spend days or weeks setting up and designing a website and then trying to drive traffic to it.
2. It's easy for people to join your group since most people are familiar with Facebook groups compared to some random website they've never heard of. Building on Facebook will quickly build trust since people are much more likely to participate in a group since they again already trust the platform. Plus, it's harder to fake your ID since Facebook is very strict on people creating multiple or fake accounts.
3.But that's not all. Aside from the trust and convenience of Facebook, another big advantage over platforms like eBay is that there are zero transaction fees. Everyone gets exactly what they ask for and all the money made goes to the sellers.
Again, this will encourage people to use your $1 auction marketplace far more because they know that they're not going to be charged an arm and a leg just to sell an old product wasting away in their garage and also have the reassurance that you are monitoring the group to cut down on non-pick ups or scam accounts. On top of that, unlike eBay, there's no shipping or handling since every transaction is delivered or collected in person or through porch pick up.
And finally, there's one more advantage with dollar auction groups that most websites or platforms don't have that I touched on a bit previously and that is an active group moderator.
Because you can monitor posts and conversations in the group you can drastically lower risk of scammers and bad actors/bullies who don't follow the rules and make a miserable experience for everyone. This further encourages people to use the group more and creates a healthy marketplace where everyone truly wins.
Now let's say you really don't have any time to put in place and operate a system like this. Maybe you have a job or kids that take most of your time. If that's the case, you can actually hire a virtual assistant who will help you out for a very reasonable price and manage the day-to-day operations.
And there are ways to automate systems with AI. Even the free version of chat GPT goes a long way! This is what I'm currently doing and these days I only spend a few minutes up to an hour at most managing my group daily.
So as you can tell, dollar auctions have totally flipped my world upside down in the best way possible from scraping by to securing 4 solid income streams all while being able to spend quality time with my boys every single day.
I truly believe this is the best way to make money if you want flexibility independence and the potential for a much higher earning scale as a mom or as any busy parent for that matter.
If you'd like a step-by-step guide on starting your very own online local dollar auction and tapping into these income streams check out this link.