Teen Money Canada

Alright, here it is — my first article! Today I’m going to be writing about one of the simplest, yet most profitable ways of making money at school — arbitrage, also known as ‘merchanting’ or ‘buy low, sell high’. Some of you probably still have no idea what I’m talking about, so I’m going to go into a bit more detail. Arbitrage is basically the purchasing of items for a relatively low price, and reselling them for (much) more money than you paid. An example of this is Coke. You can buy a 12 pack of Coke/some other soft drink for about $5 at Superstore or some other warehouse like supermarket. Now, you take that to school and you can resell it for *at least* $1 a can — I sell them for $1.50 That’s a minimum $7 profit. That may not sound like a lot yet, but there’s much more to come. You can do this with virtually any item, examples being chips, gum, candy, other types of food, school supplies (pencils, pens), and pretty well anything else you can think of.

If your school is like mine, very few people actually bring money, whether out of fear of it being stolen or someone begging for it and you giving it to them out of pity. The key to this is finding good customers: these can either be people who bring money to school, and are often wanting to buy food/drinks, or they can be people that you TRUST and you’re positive will pay you back the money that they owe you (this is my main customer base). If you play your cards right, you can make up to $100 a week – even more if your school is relatively large. If you plan on attempting this, you should follow these rules.

1. Establish a price for your goods: NO fluctuations or deals for enemies/friends! People won’t buy if they think they’re getting ripped off.

2. Check with a teacher/principal to ensure that selling pop and gum/candy at your school is allowed. They really shouldn’t be able to stop you, but it’s always best to make sure.

If it isn’t allowed, you probably can sell it ‘underground’, though I don’t recommend it.

3. Sell at lunch! In class can get teachers upset, and you may be banned from selling alltogether.

4. If you’re going to sell gum, make sure it’s allowed to be chewed in class – this is the only one that you REALLY shouldn’t sell if it’s banned at school.

I’m looking forward to comments on this, and hopefully some success stories ;P.

Austen.