Money-Code

February 17, 2026
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Before You Start Something New, Audit What You Already Own

When I started this Zero to Hero project, I made a simple commitment: start with nothing new.

No big capital injections.
No outside funding.
No risky shortcuts.

Just attention, effort, and assets I already control.

Most people, when they think about making more money, immediately think about starting something new. A new business. A new side hustle. A new account. A new idea.

But what if the first move isn’t creating something new?

What if it’s auditing what you already have?

Years ago, I was deep into affiliate marketing. I built blogs. I promoted eBay affiliate links, Commission Junction offers, ClickBank products. Some of it worked well. Some of it didn’t. Over time, most of those domains were sold or allowed to expire.

But not all of them.

I still own a handful of aged blogs. This one included. They’ve been sitting quietly. Dormant. Not dead, just unused.

That’s an asset.

Age matters online. Existing content matters. Domain history matters. Even if traffic is low, there’s infrastructure there. Instead of starting from zero, I’m starting from something.

So part of this Zero to Hero journey has been taking inventory of those digital assets. Looking at old posts. Identifying which ones used to perform well. Studying what keywords they ranked for. Then using AI to help strategize how to refresh, restructure, and monetize them again.

Ten or fifteen years ago, this process would have taken weeks of manual effort. Now, with AI, I can:

Analyze old posts
Identify gaps
Improve structure
Refresh titles and meta descriptions
Brainstorm monetization angles
Tie content back into Amazon Associates

AI doesn’t replace the strategy. But it accelerates it.

This is not guaranteed money. Nothing is. But it is leverage. Instead of building something from scratch, I’m rehabilitating existing digital real estate.

And this doesn’t just apply to blogs.

You might have:

Old domains
Email lists
YouTube channels
Instagram accounts
Digital products
Courses you never launched
Software scripts
Photography
Niche expertise

You might even have physical inventory sitting in storage.

Before you build something new, audit what you already own.

The fastest path to momentum is often sitting in your attic, on your hard drive, or inside your hosting account.

Zero to Hero is not just about hustle. It’s about awareness.

The question isn’t always, “What can I start?”

Sometimes the better question is, “What do I already control that I’ve ignored?”

And in today’s environment, with AI tools at your disposal, reviving an old asset is dramatically easier than it used to be.

You don’t need to reinvent yourself.

You might just need to reorganize yourself.

February 15, 2026
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Find Your Why: The Real Reason Behind Your Side Hustle

If you’re building side income, flipping items, investing, or trying to grow something from zero into meaningful wealth, there’s a question you have to answer honestly:

Why?

Not the surface answer. Not “to make more money.”
The real answer.

I’ve done reselling before. I’ve done affiliate marketing. I’ve built websites. I’ve started businesses. Some worked. Some didn’t. All of them made money at some point. But when I look back at those seasons of side income, I realize something important.

I didn’t have a why.

I was just trying to make more money.

And when money doesn’t have a purpose, it disappears.

Every dollar I earned from side hustles just blended into normal life. Lunches. Bills. Random expenses. It all evaporated into the ether because there was no defined goal. It was a game. Make money. Spend money. Repeat.

This time is different.

At the end of last year, I sat down and asked myself why I was doing this Zero to Hero experiment. Why am I selling things out of my closet? Why am I flipping items on eBay? Why am I messing around with surveys and device usage studies and every other little side opportunity?

The answer wasn’t vague anymore.

I’m 54 years old.

Time feels different at 54 than it did at 34. My friends are older. My parents are getting very old. My kids are grown. You can feel the squeeze. You start to understand that time is not endless.

And when you combine that awareness of time with money, the questions get serious.

Will we have enough to retire comfortably?
Are we positioned well enough?
What happens if something unexpected happens?

I have more than some people. I have less than many others. That reality is motivating.

But there’s a second part of my why that’s even stronger.

My in-laws have been incredibly generous over the years. They’ve helped us with our first house. Helped our business. Helped our kids with rent and school. They live in a constant state of giving.

And here’s the truth: generosity is easier when you have margin.

It’s one thing to give when it means you go hungry.
It’s another thing to give when it barely affects you but changes someone else’s life.

I want to be that person.

My kids are in their twenties. They’re in that stage of adulthood where everything is tight. Crappy apartments. Career uncertainty. Trying to build something. I remember that stage. It’s hard.

What I want, more than anything, is to be able to help them when the moment matters. A down payment. A business boost. A safety net. A lifeline.

Right now, we don’t have that kind of margin.

That’s my why.

Not to buy more stuff. Not to upgrade my lifestyle. Not to eat better lunches.

To build enough that we can retire with confidence and give with freedom.

When you have that kind of why, everything changes.

Flipping a $20 item isn’t just about the $20.
A $36 gift card isn’t just lunch money.
A $200 net month isn’t extra spending cash.

It’s fuel.

And that’s the question I have for you.

If you’re doing side hustles, reselling, investing, or trying to grow something from nothing, what is your why?

If your why is vague, your money will be vague. It will slip away quietly.

If your why is clear, your behavior changes.

You stop absorbing side income into daily spending.
You stop treating it like free money.
You start compounding it. Protecting it. Directing it.

Your why becomes the guardrail.

In a future post, I’ll talk about the tension between paying down debt versus compounding assets. There’s nuance there. There’s compromise. But none of it matters if you don’t know why you’re doing this in the first place.

Zero to Hero isn’t about hustle.

It’s about purpose.

Find your why. Then build around it.

February 13, 2026
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Turning $36 Into an Asset: Google’s Device Usage Study and the Zero to Hero Plan

On my Zero to Hero journey, the goal is simple: start with zero dollars and build a Growth Fund that compounds into something meaningful. This is not about paying a car payment or covering dinner. It’s about building capital. Real capital. The kind that can eventually buy assets like property, rentals, or small cash-flow businesses.

eBay flipping has been the primary engine funding this account so far. That’s where most of the real dollars are coming from. But I’m constantly testing smaller, low-effort side hustles that can drip money into the system. Focus groups. Surveys. Random opportunities that most people ignore. Recently, one of those showed up in my mailbox.

A few weeks ago, I received an invitation to participate in Google’s Device Usage Study. There was a QR code inside. Scan it, install their VPN, and you immediately receive a $30 gift card. After that, you earn ongoing rewards for continued participation. I signed up. Within five days, I earned another $6, bringing the total to $36.

Now let’s talk about the obvious concern: privacy.

The study works by routing your device traffic through their VPN so they can observe usage patterns. From a privacy standpoint, it’s not ideal. I’m not a huge fan of the concept. However, the app makes it very easy to pause transmission at any time. If I’m doing anything sensitive or private, I simply disable it temporarily. That balance is something each person has to evaluate for themselves.

But here’s the real point of this post.

Most people would take that $36 and treat it like found money. Go to lunch. Buy something random. Spend it because it feels free. And there’s nothing wrong with that if your goal is convenience.

But my goal right now is compounding.

Instead of spending the $36, I convert it. If I redeem an Amazon or Walmart gift card, my household buys the gift card from me at face value. I take the $36 in cash and deposit it directly into the Growth Fund. That money then becomes investable capital.

It’s not about the $36.

It’s about the mindset.

The difference between spending and compounding is everything. One path gives you a short-term reward. The other builds optionality. That $36 could sit in a brokerage account and potentially grow. It could be used for a small swing trade. It could stack with other small wins from flipping, surveys, and side hustles.

This is what Zero to Hero is really about. Finding money in places most people overlook and redirecting it into assets instead of consumption.

I could take my wife to lunch with that $36. That would be fine. But if I can turn that $36 into $50, then $75, then $150 over time, now we’re talking about leverage.

That’s the game.

The Growth Fund is not built from massive windfalls. It’s built from consistency. From flipping items. From testing side hustles. From compounding gift cards. From making small decisions differently.

Zero to Hero isn’t flashy.

It’s disciplined.

February 12, 2026
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How I Organize and Store Reselling Inventory (And Why It Matters More Than You Think)

One of the biggest differences between how I used to resell on eBay and how I do it today has nothing to do with sourcing or pricing. It’s organization.

In my earlier flipping attempts, inventory management was basically controlled chaos. I would source items, often through eBay arbitrage, have them shipped to my house, log the cost into a spreadsheet, and then… they would sit in a pile. Sometimes I’d print something out and attach it to the item. When something sold, I’d dig through that pile and hope I could find it quickly. It worked, technically. But it wasn’t scalable, and it definitely wasn’t efficient.

Today, the system is dramatically better.

The first major improvement is using Flipwise. It tracks my cost of goods, sale price, gross revenue, net revenue, and sourcing location. I can quickly see that I paid $2 for something and sold it for $20, and exactly what that actually meant after fees and shipping. But what really changed the game is how I connect that data to physical storage.

After watching enough reseller content online, I realized something: the serious sellers all have systems. Not piles. Systems.

My current setup is simple but effective. I have tubs, bins, and shelves in a storage room. Everything is labeled clearly: Tub 1, Tub 2, Tub 3. Rack 1, Rack 2. Bin 1, Bin 2. Nothing fancy. Just clarity. Every item that gets listed gets stored in one of those labeled locations.

Another upgrade from the past is packaging. I purchased clear plastic bags and every item gets bagged before storage. This does a few things. It makes the operation feel more professional. It protects items from dust. It prevents products from rubbing against each other and causing damage. It reduces friction later when it’s time to ship. Small improvements add up.

The workflow is tight. I list the item on eBay. Flipwise pulls the listing automatically because it’s connected to my account. I assign the cost of goods and sourcing location inside Flipwise, and I record where the item physically lives, like Tub 2 or Rack 1. When the item sells, I open Flipwise, click the sold item, and it tells me exactly where it is stored. No searching. No guessing. Just retrieve and ship.

You can take this even further. eBay allows custom fields where you can assign location codes. You could label something Shelf 1, Slot 23, and mirror that inside your storage area. For now, I keep it simple, but I like knowing that the system can evolve.

What I love most about this setup is that it cost almost nothing. As part of my zero-to-growth experiment, I didn’t want to spend money unless necessary. The only things I purchased were a $2 scale from Goodwill and clear plastic bags from Amazon (<-affiliate link). The tubs, shelves, and bins were already in my house. This proves you don’t need a warehouse to operate efficiently. You need structure.

Eventually, I’ll upgrade. The long-term vision is a wall of shelving units with uniform boxes labeled Box 1 through Box 30. Clean. Predictable. Expandable. But even now, with a modest setup, the system works because it is intentional.

The biggest lesson in all of this is speed.

Speed of listing.
Speed of photographing.
Speed of storing.
Speed of retrieving sold inventory.

If you spend 10 to 15 minutes looking for a sold item, that’s wasted energy. That time could have been used to source, list, or research. Operational friction kills momentum. Clean systems create it.

When I look back at my earlier attempts at reselling, the difference isn’t intelligence or effort. It’s structure. Organization is boring. But it’s one of the highest leverage moves you can make in any reselling operation.

If you treat it like a business, it starts behaving like one.

February 11, 2026
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Where to Source Inventory for Reselling (What’s Actually Worth Your Time)

When people ask where the best places are to find items to resell on eBay or Facebook Marketplace, my answer has evolved a lot over time. I’ve sourced inventory from just about everywhere, and some places consistently outperform others depending on your goal. If your objective is fast-moving inventory and steady cash flow, not just chasing the biggest possible ROI, the sourcing strategy matters more than most people realize.

For most resellers, Goodwill and thrift stores are still the best starting point. Yes, Goodwill prices items with resale value in mind. They know the market better than they used to, and truly premium items are often priced higher. But the game isn’t always about squeezing every last dollar out of a flip. Sometimes the smarter move is buying something slightly higher-priced that will sell quickly, instead of chasing maximum profit and sitting on dead inventory for months. Fast sales free up time, space, and mental bandwidth, which is worth more than an extra few dollars in margin.

That also means you shouldn’t automatically dismiss higher-priced items at thrift stores. Even when something seems expensive for a thrift store, they don’t always know exactly what they have. If the comps support it and the item will move quickly, it can still be a good buy. Velocity matters.

If you’re looking for maximum profit potential, free is hard to beat. Craigslist’s free section is one of the most underrated sourcing areas out there. I check it regularly, often during short breaks or downtime. There’s a lot of junk, no question. Pallets, couches, mattresses, things nobody wants to deal with. But mixed in are genuinely valuable items. I’ve found ski boots, tools, and other niche items that cost nothing and flipped for solid profits on eBay. The key is consistency. The free section moves fast, and the good stuff disappears daily.

Ironically, two of the places I like the least for sourcing are Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist, at least when you’re searching for specific items. These platforms are crowded with sellers who understand value. Everyone has a smartphone now. It takes seconds to look up sold comps or ask an AI what something is worth. That means most listings are priced close to market value, leaving very little room for profit. You can still lowball and occasionally win, but it’s far less reliable than it used to be.

When you do see something genuinely underpriced on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist, you have to move fast and aggressively. Hundreds of other resellers are looking at the same listings with the same mindset. If an item has been sitting for months, that’s usually a red flag. Most experienced resellers would have already bought it if the margin was there.

One of the most profitable sourcing areas, especially when you’re starting out, is your own house. People consistently underestimate how much value is sitting on their shelves, in closets, in storage bins, or in the attic. Once you start listing, it becomes obvious. Vintage clothing, old electronics, media like VHS tapes, bags, accessories, and random collectibles add up quickly. I’m still convinced I have thousands of dollars in sellable items at home that I haven’t even touched yet. And the best part is that this inventory costs you nothing and clears physical and mental space.

Another overlooked sourcing option is local resource or reuse centers. These are essentially Goodwill-style stores focused on home improvement materials. People donate hardware, shelving, brackets, knobs, hinges, pipes, and construction leftovers. Contractors, renovators, and DIY folks shop there to save money. I’ve bought items for pennies that sold online for $15 to $20 or more. These places reward creativity and niche knowledge and often have very little competition from traditional resellers.

The biggest takeaway is to think beyond the obvious and to align your sourcing strategy with your goals. Fast sales versus maximum profit. Time versus margin. Consistency versus occasional home runs. There’s no single perfect source, but there are definitely better ones depending on how you want to run your operation.

If you’ve found interesting or unconventional sourcing spots that work for you, I’d genuinely love to hear about them. If it’s not too secret, drop a comment and share.