Ewaste?? Was it the next big thing?

[phred59]

If your sitting on ewaste i hope its material that you paid very little for or nothing at all. Guessing on when the market will go up is a losing bet. If you get it and can sell at a profit always take the money. I think the days of 1800 an ounce and 3.50 for small socket mobos are long gone. If you can process it or know someone who can its an investment for the future.

oh no worries my man i know what im doing. i buy and sell still the same, i just hang on to the stuff that i can store easily and have no money tied up into.

I'll buy a pallet of towers, usually P4 XP, that's what are being replaced the most frequently right now. Optiplex's everywhere. and I'll pick them up for about $3 ea. I go through them all, decide which ones i am going to refurb and sell on CL. I might have to even buy a part or two, but I'll wind up with about 10 functional machines out of 20-25 of them. I sell off the functional towers usually around $70-$80 ea. Usually sell 2-3/week.



I take all of the ferrous scrap to the yard immediately, which 10-15 optiplex shells usually wins up yielding about $9-$12. I don't even count that as anything. I put it in the gas tank on the way back from that 2 mile drive. And as soon as I sell 1 tower on CL, I have made my money back. I make profit on these deals usually before I even touch the scrap portion. So anything I decide to sit on, has been paid for for weeks. I have another 3 scrappers in the area that brings me any PCs or Laptops that they find and I pay them by the lb. - double what the yard gives for them (local yard gives shred price for PCs .09/lb. so I pay them $.18 and everyone wins). These I process seperately, I hoard the CPU HD boards, CD boards and RAM, and ship off the MB and Fingercards to forum buyers. Just tried out my 4th one this past week. This way that cashflow doesn't lose steam and stays with the current market. If I pay out $50 i usually have about 12 desktops and a couple laptops, and assuming none of them are refurb worthy and i break them all down, within a week I have a check back for about $30-40 for the MB & FC, scrapped the shells, power supplies, copper and ali to recoup the rest of my investment, and and I kept all of the parts I wanted to keep. Total amount risked in hoarding these parts? $0

[mikeinreco]

oh no worries my man i know what im doing. i buy and sell still the same, i just hang on to the stuff that i can store easily and have no money tied up into.

I'll buy a pallet of towers, usually P4 XP, that's what are being replaced the most frequently right now. Optiplex's everywhere. and I'll pick them up for about $3 ea. I go through them all, decide which ones i am going to refurb and sell on CL. I might have to even buy a part or two, but I'll wind up with about 10 functional machines out of 20-25 of them. I sell off the functional towers usually around $70-$80 ea. Usually sell 2-3/week.

I take all of the ferrous scrap to the yard immediately, which 10-15 optiplex shells usually wins up yielding about $9-$12. I don't even count that as anything. I put it in the gas tank on the way back from that 2 mile drive. And as soon as I sell 1 tower on CL, I have made my money back. I make profit on these deals usually before I even touch the scrap portion. So anything I decide to sit on, has been paid for for weeks. I have another 3 scrappers in the area that brings me any PCs or Laptops that they find and I pay them by the lb. - double what the yard gives for them (local yard gives shred price for PCs .09/lb. so I pay them $.18 and everyone wins). These I process seperately, I hoard the CPU HD boards, CD boards and RAM, and ship off the MB and Fingercards to forum buyers. Just tried out my 4th one this past week. This way that cashflow doesn't lose steam and stays with the current market. If I pay out $50 i usually have about 12 desktops and a couple laptops, and assuming none of them are refurb worthy and i break them all down, within a week I have a check back for about $30-40 for the MB & FC, scrapped the shells, power supplies, copper and ali to recoup the rest of my investment, and and I kept all of the parts I wanted to keep. Total amount risked in hoarding these parts? $0

Agreed......Trust me I have made plenty and saved every penny.......I do the same thing.....If I sell a couple of computers out of a lot then the scrap is free.......I to am sending small loads off just to keep a few bucks rolling in..........Ewaste was my primary source of income there for a little while but now has become secondary and almost like a 3rd stream of income.........Oh well when someone figures out what "THE NEXT BIG THING" is will you let me know before it happens!!

[phred59]

Agreed......Trust me I have made plenty and saved every penny.......I do the same thing.....If I sell a couple of computers out of a lot then the scrap is free.......I to am sending small loads off just to keep a few bucks rolling in..........Ewaste was my primary source of income there for a little while but now has become secondary and almost like a 3rd stream of income.........Oh well when someone figures out what "THE NEXT BIG THING" is will you let me know before it happens!!

I'm never really looking for the next big thing. I just roll along with it. I agree with a lot of what SirS said too. I am more of a part timer/hobbyist and do not rely on scrap to pay my bills. If I were, I would look at it completely differently. I understand how it all works, and that is the main reason why i got in with some of the full timers in the area as their ewaste buyer. I don't have to hunt it down, it comes to my door after a phone call, and they make twice as much.

I guess at the end of the day, I am trusting my hoarded ewaste as my savings account more than I trust my savings account as my savings account. I couldn't operate the same if I were scrutinizing my checking account instead.

[Freakbilly]

I have another 3 scrappers in the area that brings me any PCs or Laptops that they find and I pay them by the lb. - double what the yard gives for them (local yard gives shred price for PCs .09/lb. so I pay them $.18 and everyone wins).

I have been cruising the forums for a good while before I ever created a account, and don't post very often. But this ^ just blew my mind, lol. It's such a great idea, which is why I wouldn't have ever thought about it... . I may have to steal this idea and see if
I can make it work in my area. I just had to point out how amazed I was at that, I'm a simple kind of guy!