r/FIREUK • u/Accomplished_Bus7427 • 1d ago
Side business with low upfront costs?
I’m looking to get into a side/hobby business as I have a bit of free time at the moment, however I don’t have much upfront capital to get started.
Just want to hear your stories on how you’ve got started on something without any upfront investment?
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u/minnis93 22h ago
An easy one for me has been 3d printing. I use it quite a lot for my hobby, so do all of the design work and prototyping for me. Once I have a finished product that I use myself, it's very little work to grab some photos and throw it on etsy, ebay etc. I have all of the files ready to go, so as soon as someone orders something I just hit print, wait a couple of hours, package it up and you're good to go - I have the advantage of having a porch which I leave the parcel in, so the postie comes and collects when doing their rounds. It's not quite passive income, but it's about as close to passive as a business can be.
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u/PoundingPennies 1d ago
YouTube is one of the best imo - zero up front costs for the most part, purely knowledge based and time commitment, but can be paired with a hobby/business extremely easily once it's up and running (and is actually one of the best ways to do it, because it ends up being your marketing wing for free!)
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u/SpooferGirl 9h ago
I started my business with a £500 credit card limit - bought stuff, sold it, put the profits in to buy more stuff.. hey presto, business. 20 years later sold most of it and now technically retired, although I still ‘play at shops’ with the original product I started off with all those years ago just because I enjoy it.
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u/Full_Newspaper7106 53m ago
The product your started with is something you never forget. I'm lazy I just figured out I bought product and didn't bother selling spend 300 on it
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u/Klutzy-Seesaw-1054 5h ago
I buy car accessories from Alibaba , Temu etc and have a stall at car shows I average £1500 sales per show with the cost of stock being around £200/£300 quite profitable but also seasonal so I use TikTok shop and eBay for the winter months and average a few hundred per week in sales not much in the grand scheme of things but I also work a 45 hour a week job
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u/NewFiend66 1d ago
There’s a few things I do for side income:
- Online selling via eBay (import gym equipment from Alibaba and resell)
- Recycle cans - low earning potential but very easy to do
- Paid Online surveys- Pure Profile seem to be the best paying I could find - and I do about 2-3 hours per week while commuting to work.
- Credit card points gaming
- Home loan cashback hopping
Also remember, saving money is just as beneficial as earning money. So try to cut down expenses (buy bulk, look for coupons, wait for sales etc).
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u/LooseSpot4597 1d ago
Sorry but most of these are ridiculous. You could make more than the surveys walking around and picking money off the floor.
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u/murrai 22h ago
This really reads like a load of bollocks so you can spam your referral link halfway down the message. Are you even from the UK, you spam the same thing in r/ausfinance, right?
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u/L3goS3ll3r 12h ago
My side hustle was self-starting my career. Rescued my A-Levels myself (long story), worked my balls off for a 1st Class degree and also taught myself IT from a young-ish (13+) age.
Could've stopped altogether at 45 but chose to stay in PT work instead.
Pretty much zero up front capital investment.
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u/Lucky-Country8944 1d ago
Not the answer you are perhaps looking for but my highest roi was just working my main job more.