Mon, May 28, 2012, 11:20 AM EDT - U.S. Markets closed for Memorial Day

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First Person: $75 in Home Entertainment Profits, Just From Watching Movies

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Sometimes nothing beats hanging out with my family and just popping in a DVD to watch. But perhaps what makes our family entertainment so great is that I figured out how to make money with the movies we watch. While the amount isn't much at around $75 in six months, it is nonetheless a small profit and it means we are actually getting paid for our home entertainment.

Rent No More

It used to be that we would rent movies all the time which would carry a cost of a few dollars per rental. While that was no big deal I started to notice a trend a little while back which prompted a shift in our movie rental attitude.

More and more people seemed to be gravitating away from buying DVDs and were now more focused on the newer technology of Blu-Rays. Suddenly the movie store that we went to was selling all kinds of movies for special deals like five for $20, but as more time went on an opportunity opened up and I found an outlet for really cheap movies.

Yard Sales

One of the things that my family enjoys doing together is going to yard sales. I never used to look at the DVDs at yard sales as people just wanted too much for them. However, with everyone again making the move to Blu-Ray I started noticing that people were selling their used DVDs for very cheap. In many cases I have purchased a perfectly good DVD for under $1.00. In fact, I'd say that my average price paid per DVD is only about $0.75. So, I started out just buying some DVDs for my family to watch, but when some of the movies were simply collecting dust as we never watched them anymore I got an idea to resell them.

Looking Online

Sure enough, I went online to the typical places that people like to sell lots of stuff and there was indeed a market for DVDs. Though the money the DVDs were going for wasn't much it was still usually more than what I had paid at the yard sales. I decided to attempt to sell a few and the results were wonderful.

Making $75 Selling Movies We've Already Seen

Each DVD I sold online was selling for an average of $1.00 and while not a ton of money, that was representing a $0.25 gain for each DVD sold, or about 25% in profits. I have since come to know which movies can be grouped together and sold in lots and which ones go individually and my profit margin has raised a bit.

I started doing this at such a great frequency that I began to track my progress. In less than six months time we had made an extra $75 in profits just by selling movies we had already watched. The trend is continuing and honestly, this is a fun way to bring in a few extra bucks.

From Returning Rental to Return on Money

The extra money that we make reselling DVDs isn't enough to do much with, but it is like getting paid to watch movies. Before, we would spend money and then have to return the movie a day later. Now we enjoy each movie for as long as we want and when we are done with it we get to sell it for a nice little return on our money.

 

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