Since 2015, I’ve sold 4,000+ fashion items.

And YES most of the items I’ve sold were from the thrift store.

I remember the first time I walked into a Goodwill store. I was visiting my younger sister in Los Angeles back in 2012, and she was raving about her newfound thrifting hobby. One of my first thrifted buys from that trip were a pair of vintage Nine West witch boots that were 2 sizes too big, but I couldn’t believe they were only $10 and they looked better than anything I’d ever bought from Ross or Forever 21.

When I returned home, I started shopping at Goodwill and other local thrift stores on the weekends. A few years later, I had an overflowing closet in my one-bedroom apartment filled with clothes I didn’t wear but had bought because they were $5. That was when I began selling on eBay out of my personal closet - back in 2015.

At some point, I started intentionally thrifting clothing to resell. Pay $2, flip for $20, pay $5, flip for $40 (or, and this was my fave), pay $5, flip for $100. It became a little side hustle that supplemented my income as a teacher. I used the money to help pay off my mountainous student loans and travel a bit.

I began selling on Poshmark a few years later, and was able to contribute even more to my student loan payoff and travel funds. All the while, I was increasingly burned out in my work as a teacher.

I left teaching after an entire year of actively applying to positions outside of teaching, and the truth was that I didn’t know what my next “career” would be. I had a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, but I was miserable in the classroom and then I became miserable sitting behind a desk.

As I was tirelessly pondering this by applying to job after job and reading career book after career book, I came across this Patagonia jacket at the thrift store for $25. The interior tag told me this jacket was a sample from the 90s. I did a ton of research online, but couldn’t pinpoint its exact value. So I decided to put it up on auction and let the buyers decide what it was worth. I started the auction around $250.

It got bid up to $525 in the last 10 seconds! To date, this is my highest profit sale. Selling this Patagonia jacket was one of the moments I started to believe that MAYBE I could make enough money doing this to turn reselling into my full-time job.

In 2018, I decided to leave the traditional workforce and resell full-time. How odd that after 12 years of clocking in and 5 years of higher education - my income would come from selling pre-owned clothing on the internet! Odd, but it’s the most connected I’ve ever felt to a job. I absolutely love bringing deals to my customers, and I love literally getting paid to thrift shop all day.