This 18-year-old buys abandoned storage units — his side hustle brings in $135K/year
An 18-year-old entrepreneur runs a side business buying and reselling items from abandoned storage units, generating $135,000 in gross revenue and $82,000 in pre-tax profit in 2025 while spending 20-25 hours per week. He invests most profits into ETFs and has generated $85,000 in revenue by mid-July 2026.
Summary
The speaker is an 18-year-old who operates a storage unit arbitrage business as a side hustle. He dedicates approximately 20-25 hours per week to the business, with variable scheduling during the school year. In 2025, his business generated $135,000 in gross revenue with $82,000 in pre-tax profit after accounting for delivery and postal service expenses, which represent his largest cost category. By mid-2026 (January through July 15), the business had already brought in $85,000 in revenue. The speaker has adopted an investment-focused approach to his profits, depositing most earnings into a Fidelity brokerage account where he invests in US stock market-tracking ETFs. In 2025, he contributed $46,000 to his own brokerage account and gave his mother $36,000 to invest. The business has also eliminated his need for personal purchases, as most of his possessions now come from items found in storage units. Storage units become available primarily through two circumstances: owners unable to pay rent and abandoning their belongings, or deceased individuals whose storage spaces were not mentioned in their wills. The speaker demonstrates his findings by showing examples of valuable materials like copper, which can be scraped and sold at approximately $6 per pound.
Key Insights
- The speaker generates $135,000 in annual gross revenue from storage unit reselling while only investing 20-25 hours per week, resulting in approximately $82,000 in pre-tax profit after delivery and postal expenses
- The speaker invests almost all business profits into US stock market ETFs through a Fidelity brokerage account rather than spending the money, allocating $46,000 to his own account and $36,000 for his mother to invest in 2025
- Abandoned storage units become available through two primary mechanisms: renters unable to pay bills who abandon their items, or deceased individuals whose storage spaces were not included in their wills
- The business model has eliminated the speaker's need to purchase new items, with most possessions now sourced from storage unit findings rather than retail purchases
- Copper recovered from storage units can be sold to scrappers at approximately $6 per pound, representing a significant valuable material category despite oxidation discoloration
Topics
Transcript
[0:00] I currently spend about 20–25 hours a week on this . I think the schedule was a little more variable during the school year. In 2025, my business's gross revenue was approximately $135,000. Of course, the largest expense item is the actual cost of delivery and payment for postal services for sending the goods. In 2025, my business's pre-tax profit was about $82,000. After I started working in storage, I no longer had the need to buy anything. Most of the things behind and [0:30] around me are from the storage room. Well, here it is . I mostly deposit the money I receive from them into my Fidelity account and then invest in various ETFs that track the…
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