Any advice would be helpful

Ms23 said:

i would love is to talk to someone thats done this and made money

I was able to buy old IT equipment from my employer and a few other companies, refurbish / dispose or recycle it as appropriate and resell it which was very profitable. I did this on top of my 50 hour a week day job which was a bit of a pain but managable.

My experience on working with IT equipment was my advantage here so I would buy equipment from companies that had a "replace it when finance team say it is no longer worth having" policy, so about 3 years for a laptop / desktop computer and 5 years for server room kit.

Anything that died was typically taken away for free and I had to sign an agreement to securely wipe any media and dispose of anything not resold to electronic waste standards.

I would repair most of it however and the bits that were not economical to do this on were stripped so I could recycle the metal & plastic plus the circuit boards were gathered to be sold for gold recovery.

I could make about £10k profit from this a year and a lot more when there was something like an office move of server room refresh where I would get loads of TVs / servers / comms equipment and could sometimes also get access to strip out network cabling from a building (straight to the metal recyclers) as this was often seen as me saving the company money from getting contractors in to do the task.

The reselling route would be via eBay - I would search for items of the same spec which had been sold to check the market price then pitch my items about 20% below this to ensure a fast sale. I was able to do hundreds of items this way.

For things like servers which are bulky and actually qute hard to sell, I would strip out the memory / disks / CPUs / cards etc and list these separately at 50% less than the average selling price - they would often take some time to sell but would still go and make a good profit.

Reselling was only part of it as I had to package the items too, but buying bubble wrap in 100m rolls was actually quite cheap, 10 packs of tape also, then 2nd hand cardboard boxes from house moves could be picked up on Facebook marketplace easily and anyi-static bags were cheap by the 100.

Postage was mosty via the Post Office and I used tracking for everything and insurance for anything over £50 - all build into the price of P&P when selling.

The biggest overhead was storage space, especially with server room clearances as I could end up with 50 server sized boxes stacked up in the spare bedroom.

I was able to advertise to a few other companies near where I worked and get their old kit too, so I would be able to co-ordinate a van collection every 6 months or so and smaller collections for broken stuff (often stripped in my lunch break) which I would take home in a bag.

For this sort of business model you do need to speak to people but scripting worked well for me here as the people I spoke to (IT managers) were largely of similar personalities and were more interested in the task in hand than being social.

I hope some of this ramble is useful - it was only ever an aside to my day job as a consultant manager but paid almost as much.

i dont have business plan its just buying and selling in demand items but i dont have the funds to start it either, because i dont like people i think my mind is trying to find anything to make money other than being around people, the most important thing i would love is to talk to someone thats done this and made money and get advice and just listen to what they have to say. as they say knowledge is power 

its more of the slow paced lifestyle, ive been to spain about 10 times and ive always just wanted to stay there, they care more about having the family time, better work life balance, slower paced, i just feel free when i go, its the place i go when i need to just forget about everything and just reconnect with myself, i know atm you cant just live there unless you get a certain visa like a digital nomad and stuff like that, i dont have the funds to be able to purchase a property atm either. i know its a dream, ive researched where i want to move to and everything, the type of house i want, im currently doing an accountancy course to get my qualification in that too, my buying and selling fixation is because ive seen so many video of people making money like that my head is telling me i should be doing that and now it just wont leave my head. im not great with computers i find it hard understanding stuff, like ive been researching into buying and selling for weeks and i still dont know where to start or whats good to resell.i dont have the knowledge of items in demand, i just want space out my own head, ive tried going for a walk in the great outdoors but my mind isnt free, its taking over my day to day life. 

Ms23 said:

I keep having hyper fixations over starting a buying and selling business and moving to Spain

In your position I would use my hyperfixation to develop and flesh out a business plan and have it checked over by experts to make sure the assumptions and projections you make are realistic. This is likely to be painful (especially the review stage) and likely to hurt your self esteem, but build this into the plan.

Go into it knowing that you are only working on version 1 and there are likely to be 5 more versions (for example) before you get to the point where it is a viable business plan.

Once you have established if it is viable then you have much more confidence in taking on the risk of debt to enable it to happen. Having the plan which has been reviewed by business experts then you can use this to get a loan to make it happen. Take care to get good advice so that if it does all fall apart from unforseen circumstances then you are not personally liable for all the debt.

Personally I would be very cautious to start a business at the moment as there is massice uncerainty in the economy and markets plus potential conflict with Russia / Iran clouding the issue and causing things like oil to shoot up in price that may have an impact on your business.

In your shoes I would look at developing the business plan over the next 1-2 years while building your skills and contacts in order to be able to make the business work. The product / service you provide may well change over this time frame so you need to be able to adapt it as the market changes and the technologies evolve.

If you have a tendency to meltdown then make sure there is someone you trust who can run the business when you are offline. If it all hinges off you being there (eg manufacturing or delivering services) then it is likely to put a tremendous strain on you mentally so increases your risk of burnout or meltdown. Be realistinc in assessing the risks here.

Ms23 said:

can share so coping strategies or any advice on what I can do to stop these

Part of the plan will be creating a time line with milestones to reach in your personal development so keep this displayed and find ways to break each milestones progress into small tasks so you can keep working away on it every day, marking off progress and looking back to see how far you have come.

Keeping the deadlines realistic is key and don't overcommit yourself to the point you end up burning out on route. There is no point launching the business and having a meltdown on day 1 from the effort to get there.

Keeping a firm handle in reality is also essential as you need to keep the roof over your head and your family provided for. This is likely to be the real kicker as it is hard to get another job, keep all your family responsibilities looked after and still find the energy to look after the business plan. This is why being realistic with your milestones is so important.

I've done something similar before - took a year in the preparation / planning but managed to move to another country, have a successful business there for 3 years and build up the big cash pot for the next phase which I hoped would be very early retirement but ended up bankrupting me through my wifes business venture which went disasterously wrong.

At the end I had to sell up everything I had to raise enough cash to fly back to the UK and try to find a job that could support my wilfe and I again and start from nothing.

At this stage I could only be philosophical and say "well we still have each other and our health" and start all over again. It left mental scars though.

The long winded point I was getting to is that you can only try. Failure is not the end but it always helps to set aside an emergency fund in case you need to make an exit with more or less just the shirt on your back. Keeping this in an appropriate offshore account is a good way to make sure it will be out of reach of any bankrupcy procedures.

Don't be afraid of failure though as this will stop you from ever taking risks. If the business model is strong then trust it, keep it flexible and take the leap.

Instead of fighting it, go with it. Make a plan, talk to people and research it.

Usually when I have had some idea, as soon as I look into it I find some showstoppers, or when I think about it in detail and what life would really be like it does not seem so good, like no friends, no language, no food, too hot, etc. Also if you have a UK passport you can't live and work in Spain without a visa.

You need to burst the bubble. You probably have some fantasy story in your head that isn't real. It is chasing the fantasy that draws you in. So you have to somehow see it is not how it would really be.

You might find the effort of planning it and the researching is enough to fulfil the need.

However, you can come up with a plan and the research shows you fantasy is possible, then go do it. Why not. Other people do.

Not all crazy ideas are impossible, but most have some risk, just leave yourself a way out. With children you need to be a bit responsible though.

Dreams are what keep people going. If not now then maybe plan for the future.

I have some idea in my head at the moment that won't go away. I am going to do something and see what happens.