Happy Wednesday and Christmas Eve! This one is a bit on the longer side but it’s jam packed with how-to’s. Merry Christmas.

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Okay, now let’s get into it.

Yesterday I uploaded a YT episode where I interviewed Mindi, a stay-at-home mom in Eastern Washington who stumbled into a side business in which she turned one dollar into $5,000 in about two months. And only working maybe three hours a week.

She buys pallets of books from school district auctions for $1 and sells the curriculum sets on eBay for $50 to $400 each.

I know and love the resale market- as you probably know by now- but I was pretty blown away by how lucritive and straight-forward this facet is. So here’s the break down on exactly how Mindi does it, so you can try it yourself.

Our full conversation is up on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts, if you want to dive further into how to do it yourself. We walk through a live deal during the episode, which was fun and gave tons of insight on how simple this play can be.

Why This Works

Schools constantly cycle out curriculum. When textbooks get updated or materials get slightly damaged, districts auction them off on government liquidation sites. Most of these auctions get zero bids. A $1 offer wins.

The valuable stuff isn't the novels or picture books. It's the curriculum sets. Teacher guides, student workbooks, assessment materials, readers. Homeschool parents, co-ops, and underfunded teachers are actively searching for these on eBay. They'll pay $50 to $400 for a complete set because buying new from publishers costs thousands.

The reason most people don't do this is the sorting. That’s the moat. You’ll get hundreds of random books and have no idea what goes together, what's valuable, or how to price it. Before ChatGPT, this would take weeks of manual research. Now it can take minutes.

Inventory Option 1: Free

Post in local Facebook groups asking if anyone has old curriculum, textbooks, or teacher materials they want to get rid of. Offer to pick it up. Teachers clean out classrooms constantly. Homeschool parents rotate through curriculum every year. Most just want it gone.

Inventory Option 2: Government Auctions

Create an account on GovDeals.com or PublicSurplus.com. These are where government agencies and school districts auction surplus inventory. Set your search radius to 200-250 miles. Somewhere you can get to realistically.

Search for:
-Curriculum
-Classroom resources
-Learning materials
-Teacher resources

Most of these listings close with no competing bids. Zero. You can win pallets for $1 to $10. A lot of these are local pickup only, so you need a vehicle that can handle boxes. Rent a trailer from Home Depot for $30 if you don't have a truck.

Mindi mentioned these publishers that sell consistently:
-Heinemann
-Lucy Calkins / Units of Study
-SRA (sells quickly at $60-100 per set)
-Saxon
-Abeka

When you see these names visible on a pallet listing, that's a good indicator.

But before you bid on anything, screenshot the listing photos and upload them to ChatGPT. Ask it to identify any visible titles or publishers. During the interview, we did this live. I uploaded a blurry photo of a pallet and ChatGPT identified "Units of Study by Lucy Calkins" and several other curriculum sets that we couldn't even read. That pallet was listed for $10 and probably had $1,000 worth of sellable inventory.

Sorting that Inventory:

Look for materials with multiple components: teacher editions, student workbooks, readers, assessment guides. Complete sets sell for way more than individual pieces.

Picture books and chapter books can sell in bundles, but margins are thinner. Mindi donates most of those to her local library and focuses exclusively on curriculum. If you're short on time, do the same.

To sort efficiently, line up books so the spines are visible. Take photos.

Upload to ChatGPT with prompts like:
-"Identify every title and author you can see"
-"Which of these are curriculum sets and what pieces typically go together?"
-"Create a master list organized by publisher and grade level"
-"Generate bundle suggestions with a pick list showing which box each book is in"

ChatGPT will organize everything and tell you what belongs together. (Mindi said this process would have taken her months to do manually. Now it takes an afternoon.)

Pricing

Always verify on eBay before listing.

Search for your specific curriculum on eBay. Filter by "Sold Items" to see what actually sold, not just what people are asking. If there aren't many sold listings, check current active listings to see what competitors are charging.

Here's something Mindi mentioned that surprised me. This market is so niche that she's sometimes one of only three sellers on the entire platform with a specific curriculum. She sells it consistently because almost nobody else has it.

Don't bother listing anything under $15. After eBay fees and shipping, margins get too thin. Focus on items you can sell for $40 and up.

Listing/ Shipping

ChatGPT can write your eBay titles and descriptions. Tell it to include keywords homeschool parents would search for.

For photos, Mindi uses a white poster board on a folding table with decent lighting. Show all the pieces in the set clearly. Nothing fancy.

Offer free shipping on everything. Bake the cost into your price. Free shipping listings convert better even when the total price is the same. Ship using USPS Media Mail. Books qualify for this rate and it's significantly cheaper than standard shipping. A curriculum set typically costs $6 to $8 to ship.

Time Investment

Batch your work. Spend one hour photographing/ sorting a batch of inventory. Have ChatGPT create your manifest and bundle suggestions. Then list three to four items at a time in 30-minute blocks throughout the week.

eBay's algorithm rewards consistent posting over bulk uploads, so spreading it out actually helps your visibility.

The Math: A typical pallet might have 15 sellable curriculum sets averaging $45 each. That's $675 in gross revenue.

After eBay fees (around 13%) and shipping costs, net margins run about 60%. So $675 gross becomes roughly $400 profit.

If that pallet took you 10 hours from pickup to final shipment, you made $40 an hour on a $1 investment.

How to Start.. This Week. (It’s almost 2026!)

Mindi's eBay store is called "homeschooly" if you want to see how she structures her listings. And again- our full conversation is up on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. We actually walk through a live deal during the episode which gives tons of insight on how simple this play can be.

That's the playbook. You can just do things. Go do them.

Have a great week!

Chris

P.S. I share deep dives on business ideas and complete playbooks three times a week on YouTube and every podcast platform.