Crystal sent me a copy of her book Money Making Mom and a few treats.
One of the treats included was a jar of Jolly Ranchers and when my daughter opened it (hey, I am a mom, I rarely get to open my own gifts–especially if they are edible) she found a roll of dollar bills. 6 dollar bills to be exact. Why did Crystal include cash? Look at the cover of the book and I think you can see how the gift and the book relate perfectly.
That six dollars got me thinking. How could one take $6 and slowly grow a thriving business over time?
6 Ways To Turn $6 Into The Money-Making Mom Business Of Your Dreams
(Links in this post are affiliate links. I will be compensated when you make a purchase by clicking those links. See my disclosure page for more information)
1. Flip It
You can take the $6 and go to a yard sale or a thrift store in search of an item that is under valued. Clean the undervalued item up and resell it on eBay for a profit. Take that money and buy more undervalued products and repeat over and over until you are making enough to take a portion out of the profits each week for yourself.
Continue on this path if you are finding you love reselling items for a profit or until you have enough money to start the business that better suits your passions and talents.
For further research check out
- 5 Yard Sale Finds Worth Reselling For Profit
- How To Prepare An Item For Resale So You Get Top Dollar
2. Blog It
Go Daddy runs sales from time to time where you can buy and register a domain name for well under $6 ( I have seen the sales go as low as .99 cents) and then start on a free blog platform like Blogger. I know WordPress is the preferred blogging platform but I have seen some amazingly successful bloggers that have either started on Blogger and switched later or they find they love it so much they stick with it.
When you start making money, or you have a bit more than $6 to invest, you can switch/start on WordPress.org and pay as little as $5.95 a month (rate could change at anytime) to use BlueHost as your webhost.
For how to start making money from that blog check out
3. Buy Poster Board & A King Sized Sharpie
No, you are not creating a job out of drawing caricatures at the local park. Unless you are very artistic, if so–go for it! Why I am having you buy bright poster board and a king sized sharpie? You are going to host a huge yard sale. (psst…my local dollar store sells both items for $1 each. Yours probably does too).
Spend a week going through your home room by room, possession by possession and be ruthless. Put everything you can in a sell pile. Take a week cleaning up the stuff in the sell pile and finding out appropriate yard sale prices for it in your area. Then use the poster board and sharpie to make awesome yard sale signs to place in key areas in your neighborhood. You can be thrifty and cut them in half and still make decent signs out of them–double the signs for half the price.
Advertise your sale on Facebook in yard sale groups, on your personal page, and ask your friends to share your status (make sure you set it to public so it has the most eyes on it). You can also list your yard sale for free on Craigslist.
Use all the proceeds from the sale to fund your business idea.
For more ideas on hosting a great yard sale, see my best tips that have caused me to have sales as profitable as $600 in one day.
4. Craft It
If you have made someone a handmade gift before and they won’t stop raving about it, chances are you might have a product that will sell. Use the $6 to buy craft supplies (here is an article I wrote about how to save money on them which should help stretch that $6 further). Sell your finished product at a profit and reinvest, buying enough supplies to make more than one. Repeat and repeat and soon you should have enough to buy in bulk and create in bulk.
Not sure where to sell your handmade items?
Start with this simple way to sell your crafts.
If you have just the right environment this idea might work for you too.
Once you have more than just one item (I heard 40 items is a good number to start with) look into selling on Etsy or Shopify.
Both are low cost platforms for craft sellers. Here is a great eBook I read on starting your own Etsy shop and if this idea interests you, check out The Brilliant Business Mom’s website & podcast where they often give Etsy shop tips but they also talk about all other sorts of businesses as well .
5. Bank it
No, we are not being like the servant in the bible who buried the money his master gave him, although he didn’t even put it in the bank, and his master was really mad about that too since in those days they actually earned good interest on banked money–now not so much.
What I am suggesting is that you open up a bank account with that $6 and then start using Swagbucks to earn SB points that you can convert to PayPal and then through PayPal you can transfer your money to your account and pool it with your $6 and hopefully soon you will have enough money to begin your business idea.
I have readers that report earnings of $100 a month from Swagbucks so depending on the cost of getting your business it might not take that long to get the money you need.
To make the process go even faster, start using the ibotta app, Receipt Hog, and Berry Cart when you shop –all 3 have a PayPal payout option. You could also buy all your online purchase through Ebates who offer cash backs that you can cash out through Pay Pal.
Here are articles I have written to help you going with these sites and apps
- The Step by Step Guide To ibotta
- 9 Ways To Earn Gift Cards With PrizeRebel
- My Favorite Ways To Earn With InstaGC
- How It Is Possible To Earn $100 A Month From Swagbucks
A small trickle of income here and there can soon become a river-–Crystal Paine says so in her book! and I have seen it happen here on my blog (my income is currently more like a small creek, but it is growing steadily)
6. Print it
In no way am I suggesting you start printing your own money–that is 100% illegal (just in case you didn’t somehow already know that).
This idea will work well for service business ideas. Perhaps you love to walk and wouldn’t mind bringing a dog or two along with you and get paid for it. Perhaps you want to provide in-home childcare. There are a tonne of service jobs out there that don’t require you to go out and buy anything right away–you simply offer your labor & time.
Whatever your service talent you could take advantage of photo deals to advertise them for under $6.
(before I go further with this idea please note: some service jobs require licenses or that special steps be followed to protect both the server and the person being served. Check with your local governing office for details before you begin)
Here is my idea, business cards can get expensive and the free deal ones always come out looking cheesy (trust me on that one). Plus, business cards get easily lost. However, recently I ordered 101 prints for free using a Shutterfly code I got from the sites Facebook page and paid less than $6 to have them shipped to my house.
What I suggest you do is make up a 4 by 6 printable using the free area of the website Pic Monkey that is a good visual representation of your business and includes all the important information in print, such as how to best contact you, your credentials, your website address, and your social media accounts. Basically put on the printable whatever you would normally find on a business card.
You could also use a head shot of yourself, or another picture that shows your business in action and then put the lettering on top using the font area of Pic Monkey. Just make sure it is the same size as a 4 by 6. Use google to help figure it out.
Hand out these 4 by 6 prints to people like you would a business card. Put them up on community bulletin boards. Pass them out to your neighbors who might need the service your provide or know someone who does.
Don’t forget to also take the download of the printable you made and upload it to your social media accounts to further make use of it to advertise your service.
Got another idea of how to get a business idea off the ground for just $6 or less? I would love to read about it–share it in the comment section at the bottom of this post.
If you are serious about wanting to start an at-home business so that you can be a Money Making Mom, I highly recommend reading Money Making Mom. It will cost you more than $6 to purchase but it will pay you back in dividends–not only in money that you will make from implementing the advice Crystal shares, but in inspiration and encouragement to not just start a business, but keep at it when the going gets tough.
I have already highlighted several pages of my copy to look back at again and again on those low days when I feel like giving up on this whole work-at-home mom gig. So my suggestion, make sure you have a highlighter ready when you start reading your copy of Money Making Mom because there are going to be words in the pages of the book that you too will need to return to for a pep talk now and again.
Go Grab Your Copy Of Money Making Mom Today
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Laura Sue Shaw says
I LOVE this! A little bit of cash really can go a long way in starting a business. I just started reading Money Making Mom and I’m looking forward to digging deeper as I get further along in the book. Thanks for sharing your great ideas!
Victoria says
I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did and yes it doesn’t take as much money as many people think to get an at home business off the ground.