How I Became Debt Free with My Drop Ship Side Hustle

Guest Post by Becky Beach

Debt and sky high interest rates were piling up on me and I couldn't break free. Every month, I could only afford the minimum monthly payments from my obscenely high credit card debt.

Like clockwork, the creditors would stack on a hefty 20 percent interest rate, and it was like I wasn't paying anything off at all. I'd lie awake at night and toss and turn. This wasn't my life, was it?

Join the debt club

At least I wasn't alone. Should I feel better? The crisis is at an all time high with U.S. consumer debt at $13.51 trillion. No, I didn't feel good about this at all.

Now, I've always been hardworking and try not to spend so much each month. School loans and medical bills from my son being in the NICU was the majority of the debt.

My husband I worked full time jobs, yet could not pay down this debt, no matter how hard we tried. Budgeting helped a little, but the interest rates grew and grew each month. Something had to give.

It all started with an ad

After working 10 hours one day, I was lounging around on the couch and watching makeup videos on my phone. I had tried to start my own YouTube channel doing makeup tutorials awhile back but didn't attract any followers. I gave up too quickly, I think.

While watching a video of my favorite beauty guru, Nikkie, an annoying ad came up with this guy perched pompously on a white Lamborghini.

I was about to skip the ad, but this guy was intriguing. There was something about him that intrigued me, so I wanted to hear what he had to say. It turns out that this guy, Kevin David, makes millions a year doing drop shipping.

Drop shipping? What was that? I had never heard of it before.

Adventures in drop shipping

Kevin David's channel had all these free videos on drop shipping and even a paid course. I devoured everything I could on drop shipping. It seemed so easy.

I wouldn't have to buy any inventory up front or have to ship anything to customers. There wouldn't be a need to find space to stash inventory in my tiny home either. Drop shipping sounded fabulous.

Using a free tutorial on YouTube, I set up my first shop on Shopify, an eCommerce platform, in order to begin drop shipping that weekend. The only expense I incurred was paying $29 a month for my Shopify store and spending a little money on Facebook ads to attract traffic.

The ad spend started at $1 a day for different ad sets in an A/B test. If one ad set performed better than another, I would scale that ad set by increasing the budget to $5 a day. This process was repeated, so I didn't waste money on ads that didn't target the right people.

When I ran ads, I focused on customer pain points and highlighted how my product would solve their problems. Problem solving products do the best and are easiest to advertise.

3, 2, 1. . . profit

The weekend of my drop shipping adventure, I was able to earn $5,000 in profit. This was amazing, and I couldn't believe what was happening.

It had to be beginner's luck. I joined several drop shipping Facebook groups and saw that several other people had even more success than I did. Drop shipping was legit. I continued doing drop shipping throughout the year, making sure to invest my time watching free YouTube videos to learn the current trends.

My first store was a general store, meaning that I sold various products that didn't go together. For example, I sold a purse and a flashlight all in one store. What I wanted to do next was narrow it down and start a niche store, which I did. I decided to go with the woman's niche because I know it well. ;)

I used Google Trends to see what items were popular in my niche and looked at competitor's stores using Nichescraper. After finding tons of winning products, I built up my new store.

Niche down for success

This store was so much more lucrative than the first one now that I had narrowed down my customer base into a niche.

Just like with blogging, you pick an avatar for your target customer. Then, import winning products for that customer using the free app, Oberlo. You can also fulfill orders with Oberlo for free.

On month seven, I hit $50,000 in profit with my niche store and made sure to put all of that money towards paying off our debt. It was hard because I wanted to go on a Disney cruise with my family, but being financially free was more important. Getting rid of all of our debt is a number one priority for my family.

Becoming financially free

Now, I have been drop shipping for nearly two years and have paid off over $80,000 in debt. Our credit card debt is now paid off, and we only owe a few thousand on our mortgage.

This year, I plan to pay off the mortgage in full and then start planning for retirement and a college fund for my son. I don't want him to have to take out huge loans like I had to and be in financial trouble when he graduates.

Drop shipping is always changing so you need to keep on watching the latest YouTube videos and be involved in Facebook groups so you know what is going on.

Drop shipping goldmine

The newest trend in drop shipping is starting one product stores, which I am currently implementing. What that entails is selecting one winning product and building your whole store around that one product, even the domain name.

I hope it will help me be able to skyrocket my success this year.

No longer do I toss and turn or stay up all night worrying about my future. With the help of my drop shipping side hustle, I feel like the shackles of debt have crumbled away.

Becky Beach is first and foremost, a mom to a wonderful 3 year old boy named Bryan. She is also married to her best friend in the whole world and has a playful Pomeranian. Becky teaches other moms how to drop ship and learn other ways to make money online with her blog, MomBeach.com.