Spotted at a local carboot market recently was a young man wearing a hoody and a baseball cap with a table outside of his car with a handful of DVDs and books.
And when I say a handful, I do mean a handful. There must have been no more than fifteen items. It all looked lost on a large picnic table.
Everyone else at the carboot had tables buried in items for sale. Some people had so much stuff it could put people off from looking through it all.
And yet here he was with a handful of DVDs and books.
Unless he was just seriously desperate to make money and was hoping that the small pile would earn him a decent amount of money, something more suspicious was afoot.
I know for certain that he hadn’t had a good day and hadn’t already sold a lot of stuff as this was an afternoon carboot market and the gates had only just been opened.
What he had on his stall was what he had started with.
The pitch for the carboot itself is £7.
I would be surprised that he would make that back from what he was selling. If he was lucky to find people who were willing to buy all of the books and DVDs he was selling for a £1 each, then he might have gone home with a profit, he might have even doubled his money.
But I’m a suspicious chap and I can’t help but think that the small pile of books and DVDs was a front for something else he was selling.
There was something a little dodgy about it.
Carboots can be notorious places for selling counterfeit cigarettes and bootlegged DVDs.
One big carboot market held every Sunday at the historical air base RAF Hemswell in Lincolnshire – Bomber Command ran bombing missions from RAF Hemswell during WWII and it doubled up as RAF Scampton (just up the road) in the 1954 film The Dambusters – was raided several times by police and customs to clamp down on piracy and counterfeit gangs.
Although the market is still popular today, it is tiny compared to how big it used to be during its ‘wild west’ period.
It attracted many wrong uns on both sides of the tables.
Gangs were selling knock off goods, dodgy cigarettes and drugs, and people were going there to buy them.
This is what I believe was happening at this local car boot with the dodgy looking hoodie and his handful of books and DVDs.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he was selling something more illicit from under the table… or actually out of the carboot at the carboot.
In many ways, it kind of makes sense.
If word gets around that you sell a specific product and that you will be at a specific place at a specific time, customers come and find you. It saves you the hassle of having to go to them.
Sometimes selling illicit goods in plain sight is actually a good hiding place… but it also means that the police know where to find you if you are discovered.
A large number of people were arrested during the raids on the Hemswell Sunday carboot market which lead to many homes being raided and a lot of stuff was confiscated. Many were charged and fined too.
I can’t say for definite whether this hoody guy was selling something dodgy or not.
He might just have decided to pay the £7 pitch price and hoped that he went home with £14 or more from selling a few old unwanted items.
Money is money and if he could sell all of those items there that day for a profit without the hassle of having to sell them online via eBay which means having to post each item separately, it might have been worth it to him.
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Okay, so today’s article is not about becoming a criminal selling dubious products from the back of your car under the guise of a carboot stall, no, today’s article is about making money without wasting your time or taking silly risks.
If that young man who I perceived as dodgy because of the clothing he was wearing and the fact that he had very little to sell was in fact genuine, you have to ask…
Why is he spending three or four hours stood in a field on a scorching hot day selling second hand items which would earn him no more than £20?
I think it’s because he doesn’t know what else to do.
Yes, he may want to get rid of a few things that he no longer needs and instead of throwing them away decided that he might as well make some money from them, which makes sense… a little.
But I would still argue that he doesn’t know what else to do otherwise he might have dumped those items at a charity shop and focused his efforts on something more profitable.
Had he spent those three hours writing an eBook or report, or writing articles for a client or for a website of his own, he could earn far more back for his efforts, and it could potentially keep earning money for many years.
Had he chosen to use Belfair and traded football matches and/or the horse racing, he could have earned more without having to leave the comfort of his own home.
There are good reasons to declutter your home and getting rid of unwanted stuff, and if you can make some extra money from it, mores the better… but only if it is not preventing you from making more money.
If you have a few hours spare and want to go and stand at a carboot market haggling the price with the bargain zombies who wish not to pay more than a £1 for anything… then fine, fill your boots, I won’t stop you.
Just don’t be surprised if you don’t find me standing at a stall next to you though.
My time has more value than what I would earn from selling old and unwanted items at a carboot market.
I believe… actually forget believe…
I know for a fact that there are many better ways to make money than standing around trying to sell your old unwanted DVDs and books.
I’ve mentioned a couple already.
I doubt that you would find my friend John Lee selling old books and DVDs at a carboot market.
Firstly, he is approaching his 80s and secondly, he has a far better way to make money.
He has been using this system for 45 years and it has served him well.
Too well at times!
Some of the bookmakers closed his accounts down because they didn’t like handing large amounts of money over to him on a regular and ongoing basis.
They do that unfortunately.
Bookies are happy to keep taking your money when you lose, but if you start winning large amounts regularly, they will say enough’s enough and shut you down.
Fortunately, with Betfair being a betting exchange where they allow users to bet against each other, they are happy for people to make a lot or money because it means they make more money themselves.
John uses a simple system where he spends as little as ten minutes identifying which races will bank him a profit.
The system has not been changed in 45 years other than a tweak or two to make it easier to work with while using Betfair.
Had Betfair been around in the 80s, John says he would have packed up his electrical engineering business and focused solely on using it.
That’s how powerful the system is.
At one stage the Inland Revenue decided to investigate John to see how he could afford to drive an expensive car and live lavishly considering his business had been struggling prior to using the system.
The money he was enjoying all came from using the system, the same system which he wants to share with you today.
If you would like to learn more about John and his system, click the link below:
The Rainbow System
Kind regards
John Harrison
PS… Have you ever been offered a system before with a track record dating back over 45 years?
No?
Well you have now.
John started using this system back in January 1977 when James Callaghan was Prime Minister of The UK, Elvis Presley was still alive and kicking and Red Rum was set to win his third Grand National.
Any system which can last 45 years, can weather the current cost of living crisis and give you plenty of extra money to play with.
Here’s that link again: