People Who Became Rich With Junk
they say that money is what makes the world go round but with Rising rent prices food prices gas prices heck everything prices getting rich today is easier said than done but it's not impossible to go from Rags to Riches from stories of crazy collectors crafty entrepreneurs and dubster divers some of whom had as little as one dollar or less and it's time to take a look at a few millionaires who started from the very bottom from paperclip to money clip while growing up in belcarra Canada Kyle McDonald and his friends used to play bigger and better a game that involved taking a worthless item and trading it for something more expensive the game usually involves swapping things like rubber bands for toys but in 2005 a 27 year old Kyle decided to take it to the next level attempting to trade a single red paper clip for an entire house Kyle reached into his one dollar box of paper clips grabbed one and uploaded a photo of it onto Craigslist asking if anybody wanted to trade surprisingly two women from Vancouver immediately responded willing to trade it for a pen that looked like a fish the pen was pretty awesome but Kyle decided to trade again posting a picture of the pen on his block from this point on Kyle embarked on a long journey making 13 further trades that sent him all over North America he traded the pan up to a doorknob then a camping stove then a generator followed by an instant party or a keg and a neon Budweiser sign at this point Kyle's story was covered by the national media giving his trades more and more publicity Kyle traded up to a snowmobile a two-person holiday a box truck a music recording contract a year's rent in Phoenix Arizona an afternoon with Alice Cooper and finally a kiss snow globe now that last trade may seem like a huge downgrade but Kyle had a plan one involving director and actor Corbin Bernsen this guy owns one of the world's largest snow globe collections boasting over 9 000 Globes to each his own I guess and to Corbin the 20 kiss snow globe was priceless and the actor offered to trade it for a role in an upcoming movie called Donna on demand so Kyle took the acting contract expecting to receive further trade offers from aspiring actors however he received something totally unexpected a trade from the entire town of Kipling Saskatchewan offering him a key to the city and a house on the town's Main Street Kyle finally got his house and a few weeks later he moved in with the town hosting a giant party in his honor Kipling's government hosted auditions to determine which Kipling resident got the movie role and if you watched on on demand you can see Kipling local Nolan Hubbard making his Silver Screen debut today Kipling's giant paper clip was the town's largest tourism attraction and Kyle got himself a new home sounds like a fair trade if you ask me bougie blanket back in 2007 Lauren kreitzer sadly had to have his leg amputated after a near fatal car crash which wasn't his fault the injury forced him to quit his job and now relying on disability checks moving to a friend's Shaq in Leona Valley California he was paying 700 in rent a month leaving him with a little under 200 to live on that comes down to just fifty dollars a week and while it's not nothing it definitely doesn't get you far in California so for the most part Lauren was stuck at home now when you're stuck at home daytime television can be a lifesaver and one day in 2017 Lauren found himself watching an episode of Antiques Roadshow as the appraisers went through an endless list of old coins and furniture they moved on to a first phase Navajo blanket a rear piece of Native American art that was appraised at an amazing 500 thousand dollars Lauren leaned forward and squinted this pattern looked very familiar he reached to his side and grabbed the dusty blanket that he'd inherited from his great grandmother the heirloom was old and worn but as Lauren held it up to the TV he suddenly realized it was an identical match when Lauren took the news to his family they laughed at him refusing to believe that the blanket was worth anything however undeterred Lauren took the blanket to a specialist the experts were ecstatic informing Lauren that the blanket was an original passed down by Lauren's great-great-grandfather who'd bought it at a Trading Post in the 1800s they explained that the blanket was incredibly valuable convincing Lauren to place the heirloom up for auction Lauren obliged and win the dusty blanket went up for sale the bids flooded in the hammer came down on a final offer of an astronomical one and a half million dollars so after fees Lauren walked away 1.3 million dollars richer allowing him to buy a house a new car and a motorcycle well if anyone me I'll be back watching all episodes of the Antiques Roadshow in case any of my junk turns out to be worth millions bargain Bowl yard sales are usually full of vandalized Furniture Dusty DVDs and chewed up GI Joes however back in 2007 an anonymous New Yorker came across this pretty but plain looking 5-inch diameter bowl at a yard sale going for a measly three dollars after buying the bowl they displayed it on their mantelpiece for six years until a friend of the owner encouraged them to have it checked out by a pottery professional it turns out the owner had unwittingly been displaying a ding Bowl pottery from the northern Song Dynasty in China the bowl was made between the years 960 to 1127 A.D and the experts immediately valued it at three dollars wait no sorry I meant three hundred thousand dollars this would have been a pretty good return on investment but when the bull was taken to auction at Sotheby's the atom sold for far more over the last decade the economy has boomed in China and several members of China's newly wealthy middle class have started collecting Chinese artifacts driving up prices as they try to recover their country's lost and stolen Treasures this meant that the three hundred thousand dollar Bowl sold for a staggering 2.2
million dollars so this three dollar impulse buy turn the owner into a millionaire I think I'm going to start frequenting more yard sales Bitcoin billionaires the value of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin has skyrocketed over the last decade with the price of a single one of these crypto tokens rising from 14 cents in 2010 to 68 000 in November 2021. that's a 48 and a half million percent increase for perspective if the Earth's mass was inflated by that amount it would be roughly one and a half times heavier than our sun whoa but back around the time when Bitcoins were worth around five dollars a piece a netizen known as Knight MB acquired 371 000 coins from his business partner for around five thousand dollars that seems suspiciously low and it was because Knight mb's business partner assumed the coins were worthless and had no value whatsoever so was thrilled with the five thousand dollar offer somehow they didn't have any idea that those coins at the time were actually worth two million dollars and Knight mb's investment would have grown by an insane 500 million percent to be worth over 25 billion dollars at Bitcoin speak however nine and B's profit didn't last that long instead he used the value of the coins to get out of debt and then donated the rest of various causes leaving him with nothing by 2012. but he's not the only investor who failed to keep hold of their coins until that pivotal peak in 2010 a man called Laszlo haniacs ordered two pizzas for 10 000 Bitcoins at Bitcoin speak the crypto used to buy those pizzas was worth over 680 million dollars I really hope they didn't Scamp on the toppings back when Bitcoin was starting out lots of competitions actually gave the cryptocurrency away as a consolation prize in 2011 the Esports Starcraft brood War Clan announced that their icy cup star league tournament would have this prize pool at the time those 25 Bitcoins were worth a little over forty dollars just Ten Years Later this eighth place prize was worth the whopping 1.7 million dollars 3 400 times more than first places 500 bucks in March 2010 an amateur crypto poker tournament was held with a prize pool of 1500 Bitcoins splitting the crypto between first second third and fourth place this amateur prize pool ended up being worth 102 million dollars in comparison the most expensive professional poker event of all time had a prize pool of just 82 million meaning that these amateur players were unwittingly playing in the highest stakes poker game of all time with that kind of pressure I think I'd fold crazy collectibles as a kid I couldn't have cared less about money or Bitcoin the only thing I truly valued was toys despite this toys aren't always Child's Play and there are cases of people finding a small fortune inside their old toy boxes back in 1983 an anonymous collector from England bought some 93 Star Wars figurines from a grocery store bargain pile before taking them home and storing them the figures cost less than a dollar each but when the collector eventually sold them in 2022 the franchise had gained worldwide popularity and these original nostalgic pieces fetched over 60 thousand dollars at auction 60 grand for some action figures may seem like a lot to some people but the money in collecting gets even crazier in 2010 an anonymous couple were kicked out of their home after the bank foreclosed on their property due to unpaid debts the couple were in dire need of a superhero and as they started to pack up their belongings they actually found one they were rifling through the attic when they came across a box of old comic books most were torn and stained but if you had survived in decent condition including a comic called Action Comics number one after doing some research online the couple discovered that the comic marks the first appearance of Superman and it's widely considered to be the Holy Grail of comic books as it brought superheroes into the mainstream back in 1938 the comet cost 10 cents but less than 100 copies of the book still exist and these rare copies have sold for up to 3.2 million dollars making it
the most expensive comic book of all time the couple were in shock however their version of the comic wasn't quite as valuable as it initially seemed the experts explained that their comic was slightly damaged giving it a condition rating of 5 out of 10. in the comic collecting world the condition can have a drastic effect on a comic's value however this was still an Action Comics number one and despite the tears and stains the comic sold for Omega 436 thousand dollars at auction this was more than enough money to pay off the family stats so Superman had done what he does best flown in and saved the day million dollar home page now for most people higher education doesn't come cheap many of those who want to further their education like me are forced to take out a student loan to pay for college but back in 2006 Alex II from England funded his education with something called the million dollar home page it was a website that started as a blank grid of 1 million pixels an unbelievably simple web page that Alex turned into a gold mine the entrepreneurs sold advertising space on the grid for one dollar per pixel selling them in 10 by 10 blocks purchasers of these pixel blacks could display any image they wanted and their pixels acted as a clickable link leading customers to their website the site went live on the 26th of August 2005 and by New Year's Eve it had gone viral with companies and individuals buying 999 000 of the pixels on offer there was one blank space left on the home page and two auctioned off the remaining pixels receiving a further thirty eight thousand dollars for a million dollar weight loss.com incredibly two had made over one million dollars in five months and he used the cash to go to college and fund other Ventures this genius later moved to San Francisco and co-founded a little meditation app you might have heard of called calm at the time the homepage was a modern revolutionary way to advertise products but today visiting the Million Dollar Homepage is like traveling back in time to 2005. ah yeah there's just something nostalgic about a free ringtones or hot singles in your area pop up dumpster diver they say that one man's trash is another man's treasure but Matt Malone from Austin takes that phrase very literally Matt is a professional dumpster diver spending his nights inside dumpsters searching for overlooked and tossed out gems Matt predominantly finds rotten food however his most valuable recoveries include vacuum cleaners power tools and electronics all in perfect working condition he also claims to have found original artwork painted by Muhammad Ali and a Rolodex containing Donald Trump's cell phone number he cleans and restores these items before selling them on Amazon and Craigslist for a hefty profit Matt might deal with junk but his earnings definitely aren't trash with his hobby making him over a hundred thousand dollars a year that's a ton of cash and Matt only dumpster dive sport time working as a security consultant during the day that reckons he could easily make 250 000 a year if he gave the hobby his full attention however he'd have to spend almost all his time rifling through the trash that would sting All or Nothing for those who don't know in the world of gambling an accumulator is a type of sports bet that involves multiple bets combined into one for example you can bet on the results of four football games at once and to win all of your bets have to be correct if just one of your bets is wrong though you lose the entire thing they're the definition of high risk High reward and most of the biggest sports betting wins have come from accumulators so when risk taker Stephen Whiteley a heating engineer from England received free tickets to the horse races and a newspaper promotion he decided to really push his luck when he arrived Steven created a two pound accumulator about two dollars and fifty cents betting on a random horse for each of the day's six races Against All Odds the first five horses easily won their races meaning that Steven's bet came down to the final contest of the day unfortunately Steven had accidentally bet on the worst performing horse at the entire event a slow horsepower God Lupita that had lost all its previous competitions as the race got underway Lupita predictably started to fall behind until a miracle occurred halfway through the race the three best horses all fell at the same jump this made room for Lupita to take the lead and storm over the Finish Line making Steven 1.4 million pounds richer around 1.8 million
dollars at the time both Stephen and Lupita had won their first horse races and while I'm sure Lupita will go on to win many more I hope Stephen quit while he was ahead double jackpot Hollywood would have you believed that Vegas casinos are full of Jane's Bond types sipping shaking martinis while smoldering at a poker table in reality the majority of casinos look like this all bright lights and slot machines slot machine odds are some of the worst ranging from a one in five thousand to one and about 34 million chance of winning the top rise when using the maximum coin play that said it's no surprise they account for up to 80 percent of a Vegas casino's annual revenue but while they say that The House Always Wins sometimes Lady Luck flows on the gambler's side and no slot machine player has ever been luckier than Elmer Sherwin in 1989 Sherwood and his ex-wife visited the Mirage Hotel and Casino in Vegas share one borrowed 20 bucks from his accent after playing on the three dollar slots for 90 minutes he hit the jackpot winning 4.6 million dollars with a single yank this million dollar jackpot was a once in a lifetime win only for sure when it didn't only come once in a lifetime in 2005 he added the slots and Cannery Casino and after playing for a few hours he won again this time it was a whopping 21 million dollar jackpot the odds of winning the jackpot once or around one at 50 million and the chances of winning it twice holds the same odds of getting struck by lightning 100 times in the same year instead of singed eyebrows sherwin's lock left him with a small fortune and before passing away in 2007 he split most of the winnings between charity his kids and of course slot machines All Over Las Vegas what did you think he was going to stop playing instant billionaire let's move from slot machines to the lottery add two dollars a ticket entering the USA's Mega Millions lottery seems pretty affordable however the odds of winning are actually around 1 and 302 million so you're probably better off saving your cash sometimes a lucky person does walk away with the jackpot though and in 2018 a woman from South Carolina became the biggest lottery winner of all time winning one and a half billion dollars yep that's billion with a B the anonymous South Carolinian might seem like the luckiest person in the world but interestingly lots of lottery winners say that their win was the worst thing that ever happened to them one of these unlucky millionaires is Michael Carroll from Norfolk England in October 2002 Michael was a garbage man making ends meet while working nine to five a month later he won 11.7 million dollars in the lottery becoming an overnight millionaire this win allowed Carol to buy jewelry cars and property however it all also led to alcoholism court cases prison time and eventual bankruptcy within five years of his win Carol was back to working in manual labor though he partially blamed his Misfortune on money-hungry friends and family taking his cash without supporting him when the billionaire from South Carolina won then he chose to remain anonymous and judging for Michael Carroll's story that seems like a pretty good call junkyard King when Rod sturgeon was 17 his father died leaving the teenager with nothing but two thousand dollars in a beaten up VW Beetle Ron didn't have anywhere to live so he spent the two grand on a trailer in Fort Worth Texas and got a job repairing other people's Volkswagens Ron would fix vws with parts from abandoned cars at his local junkyard as he earned money for repair jobs he'd purchase junk cars stripped them of their parts and reuse them in his customers Vehicles before long run it accumulated around 35 cars and he soon realized that instead of using the parts to fix other people's vws he could just sell them if he bought a good junkyard car for a hundred dollars he could sell the parts for at least 150 earning a profit every time every week Ron would go to a junkyard and examine their cars aiming to buy them and flip their parts Ron's business plan was pretty foolproof and within a few years he'd bought his own salvage yard and Warehouse the beater businessman was able to move out of the trailer park and the company was so successful that Ford bought it for 15 million dollars in 1999 this could have been the end of Ron's story however Ford started to run the business into the ground and after a couple of years they sold it back to Ron at a hugely discounted prize after reclaiming control of the company Ron was able to use his expertise to turn it back into a profitable business before selling it again for tens of millions of dollars today Ron is out of the Junk game and the Texan has managed to swap his trailer for several mansions and junk cars for private jets that's what you call an upgrade trash to cash let's keep it trashy and turn our attention to another company that's made Millions with pure jog College Hunks hauling jump sounds a little dirty and it is the multi-million dollar company dealing with private waste removal today hunks is a successful company but the Venture had very humble beginnings in the summer of 2003 Nick Friedman and Omar Solomon wanted to make some extra money for college so the duo decided to take on Mars Mom's van then drive it door-to-door offering to collect people's trash they earned over nine thousand dollars that summer and the service was so successful that they continued to receive calls after they headed back to college with graduation looming the duo were expected to start applying for office jobs and begin adult life however Omar still had faith in their business idea so he decided to write up a business plan and enter the highly competitive Lee Ross child entrepreneurship competition Against All Odds on Mars playing one earning the top prize of ten thousand dollars with this money the duo decided to focus on the business buying a truck and creating the hunks brand the company started by posting flyers and hiring college kids from the University of Maryland paying them to haul trash a year in they had to buy four more trucks and after two years of rapid growth they decided to franchise the business allowing other people to open their own hunk stores across the country today the business has over 50 franchises 200 trucks and they make 25 million in annual revenue proving that for Nick and Omar our trash really is their treasure Reinventing the wheel you can't reinvent the wheel however you can use Wheels to invent something else it turns out globally 1.8 billion tires are discarded every year an act that's placing a terrible strain on the environment as climate change gets worse lots of people are trying to find ways to recycle this discarded Rubber and one of the most interesting ways where this is being done is in Kenya the Maasai are a group of people that live in East Africa with distinctive Customs language and dress the Maasai technique for making sandals has remained largely unchanged for hundreds of years however recently they've started switching up the materials they use making the sandals out of discarded tires these cobblers use the smooth side of the tire to make the top of the shoe before using the grippy tread to build the sole the shoes won't increase your horsepower but they might give you more miles to the gallon tire rubber is incredibly durable designed to carry heavy Vehicles over asphalt as a result the shoes have been dubbed 10 000 milers and the durable design is become incredibly popular shoemakers like munyao here who's from Nairobi can reportedly make up to seven to eight pairs of shoes per tire and sell them for up to five dollars a pair munyao collects the discarded tires himself so he makes a decent living without spending any money on materials well he's not Reinventing the wheel but he is saving the planet the pursuit of happiness today Chris Gardner is a millionaire stockbroker a best-selling author and motivational speaker he's the definition of success but it wasn't always that way back in the 80s Chris was a single father making ends meet as a medical equipment salesman one day while walking to work Chris happened upon a man in a suit climbing out of a red Ferrari intrigued he approached the man and asked what he did for a living the man explained that he was a stockbroker and after a long conversation Chris managed to persuade him to get him an interview for an internship at a stock brokerage firm incredibly Chris impressed the firm and got the job however the internship was unpaid forcing him and his son to become completely homeless Gardner used what little savings he had to put his son in daycare while he worked but at night they were forced to eat in soup kitchens and sleep in a locked public restroom despite this Gardener suited up every morning and headed to work wowing the company by arriving early and staying late after a year of living rough Gardner was hired as a full-time employee finally able to use his salary to buy a house for himself and his son after working for a few years he started his own brokerage firm and wrote an autobiography a book that was adapted into the oscar-winning film The Pursuit of Happiness today Gardner has a net worth of about 70 million dollars and the businessman even bought a Ferrari of his own this story has inspired Millions around the world including Nick Makuta another homeless man turned millionaire when Nick moved from Romania to La at 21 he had no money was forced to sleep on a bench and survived on a single dollar menu Burger every day after a while Nick managed to get a job as a valet and he started saving immediately pinching his pennies until he could afford a real estate broker's license once in real estate Nick started saving serious money and in 2013 he decided to use his savings to experiment with e-commerce buying cheap electronics online and reselling them on eBay Nick's e-commerce business was soon earning 4 48 thousand dollars a year and today Nick owns multiple online stores with Amazon and Walmart so instead of benches and burgers now he's dating on champagne dinners he might not have a Ferrari like Gardner in his car collection but he definitely had the drive to be a millionaire so that about wraps up our look at these unlikely money makers which Rags the richest story did you find the most inspiring let me know in the comments below and thanks for watching [Music]
2023-04-01 23:08
