It is always important to know where you come from. Know where and how you got started, and the reasons why you do what you do. I currently use craigslist to make extra cash mostly every weekend or whenever I need some money. But I didn’t wake up one morning and say “Hey – I should use craigslist to make some money”. I actually fell into it completely by accident. And when I say fell – I mean it. I found this at one of the lowest points of my life. But what I did do is once I came across it, I took the action to develop it into the system of Easy Money With Craigslist. This post is how I got started on day one and came across how to use craigslist to make money.

How I Started Making Money On Craiglist

The year is 2005 and I am at the lowest point of my life so far. I am 21 years old, a sophomore in college and am struggling. Big time. 2 years earlier, a wildfire destroyed my parents home and with no insurance on it, rather than being another mouth to feed (I am one of 7 kids) while they try to rebuild, I took it upon myself to branch out on my own. I wasn’t ready. I had nothing but other’s leftovers from the fire, I was a young, experienced male who thought I was more established than I was. I was at San Diego State University, going full time to earn a bachelors. I was working as much as I could going to school full time, but it didn’t seem like it was enough. It just seems like I am spinning my wheels. Even with taking out student loans to pay for school, the simple task of living wasn’t working. I would get paid every other Monday, so by the time paycheck rolls around, I would have less than a dollar in my account. I had to get groceries and knew that if I paid for them using my debit card as credit, the bank I was with would hold the charge until that Wednesday. Which means I had till Tuesday night to cash my paycheck and stay above water. That is how close I was cutting my living. Literally not a dime extra. And some months would be in the red which meant I would turn to credit cards and ended up racking up some serious debt with that. And being a sophomore in college, I still had at least 2 years of this – which ended up being 3 more years. I was stuck. I was frustrated. I was losing hope.

I vividly remember my breaking point. Tony Robbins says that you can change your life in an instant – the instant you make the conscious decision to change. It is that moment when you decide for you – not for anyone else – that you no longer are going to live a certain way that you change. My point was at a concert. I got some concert tickets for a Christmas present one year. My parents knew how hard I was working and wanted me to have a little fun, so they flipped for a show that I wanted to go see. Naturally, with two tickets, I decided to take my girlfriend of the time (now she is my wife). We ended up meeting up with some friends at the concert. During one of the opening acts, my buddy wanted to go get something to eat so I went with him. My girlfriend said she wanted a water (she is simple like that). When we got to the snack bar, my buddy decided that he was going to surprise his girlfriend with some candy of some sort. I don’t recall what it was, a pretzel, or pop corn or something like that. Anyways, he dropped about 30 bucks on everything. I got my $6 water and that was all I had. Literally, I went to the concert with a $10 bill and had no more I could spend. No cash. Nothing in the checking. Credit cards were maxed out. Really shouldn’t even have drove to the concert because I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to fill up my car. When we got back to the girls and my buddy gave his girlfriend the goods, I remember the look on my girlfriends face. She knew my situation, and she is part angel, I believe, so she didn’t get pissed or mad or anything. But that look – I will never forget it. It was a look of disappointment. A look of sadness. A look that is ingrained in my mind. It was that exact moment – the precise moment in time – when I made the decision that I was going to get out of this situation. That is all I could think about the rest of the concert was that look – and how that look is going to drive me to a better place. I told my girlfriend how I felt at the concert and how I am going to change. I made a promise to her – and myself – that our life will never be the same again.

The Start Of The Journey

The next day I started off on my journey. I am very analytic, needing to set step by step goals and instructions to be successful. So I sat at my table in my tiny apartment that I couldn’t afford and started to devise a plan to get myself out of this situation. I quickly realized I needed some quick cash. If I could come across just about $100 extra bucks a month, I would be able to start digging myself out of this hole I was in. Just $100 a month – that is all I needed. That would let me buy groceries, gas, and most importantly, take my girlfriend out to dinner. So I started whoring myself out to friends and family for yard work. I am not afraid of hard work, and spent my Saturdays pulling weeds, cutting grass and other manual labor activities. And this did it – I was making about $100 extra each month. But I was so tired the rest of the weekend and for the next week for school that it was taxing my body. I needed a better way to make this money.

I turned to google and started looking for ways to make money I got caught up in the world of online money making – affiliate marketing, CPA, ebook creation – anything and everything. And I started dabbling in this, but it wasn’t good enough. Yes – I was making money – but I had to wait for checks to be process, checks to be shipping and checks to post. It was too long of a process. I needed something more instant. Even eBay was too long of a process – waiting 7 days for the auction, waiting for the account to pay, waiting for the money to clear, then waiting for the check from PayPal. I couldn’t wait. I need cash and I need it now. I decided to make some cash in the meantime by selling some stuff. I had an old set of golf clubs I got from a 2nd hand store for $5 for the set. Now – it wasn’t a complete set, but it had most of the clubs. I didn’t play much golf – mainly because I didn’t have the money for green fees. I posted them on craigslist on a Saturday morning. A few hours after the post, I had a bite. Someone wanted to pay $30 for the clubs. Not knowing anything about deal making or negotiating, I decided to take the $30. He picked them up in the afternoon. In a single day – I made just about as much money as I charge mowing a lawn – but less physical labor and end to end, less time. If I could do 3-4 items like that in a weekend, I would have my $100 extra a month from a single weekend! AND – if I could do $100 extra a weekend, if I did that for all 4 weekends, I would have like $400 a month!!

So I started selling everything I remotely didn’t need on Craigslist. My first heavy weekend, I made $130 just selling my own stuff. In one weekend!! At the time, this was like striking oil for me. But I knew I would eventually run out of stuff. So I started going to garage sales and 2nd hand stores and seeing what cheap items I could get. Buy low – sell high. I read blogs on negotiating and practice. I would shop 2 or 3 times in the evening and early Saturday mornings at garage sales  to find stuff to sell. On Saturday late morning, usually around 10a, I would take 2 hours and post everything. Then use my email on my phone to email and close all the deals. I would tell everyone who bought my items that they had to pick up on Sunday between 3p-5p. Everyone came at the same time, which was less hassle on me. I would easily collect $70 – $150 each and every weekend. CASH PROFIT. No checks. No paypal. No waiting. Cash. In my hand. Every weekend. If I needed more one weekend, I’d sell more. Sure – I had some items that didn’t sell. I took those right back to the 2nd hand store to donate for a tax write off. One time, I even had my own garage sale to have a “close out” type of deal and ended up breaking even on the the items I purchase.

I did it. I created a system. I created something that I am in control in. Am I a millionaire? Absolutely not even remotely close. I still have a full time 50+ hour a week job and a 3 hour commute each day. Do I have something that I can earn some extra cash in a short amount of time? Yes.

So that is my story on how I got addicted to leveraging craigslist to make money. I have taking this principle to other online money making areas, but still to this day use craigslist when I need some quick cash. I hope that you can take this, see my story and use the same idea to create cash in your hand.

I want to hear from you. I want to know your same story. What is your why? What is the reason you want to hustle to make a better life? Why are you doing what you do?

Below is a secure message form. I would love to get a note from you explaining your why. It will help me to contribute better content to you to help you get farther to where you want to go.

To Your Success –

Zach