2 weeks ago
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At 6am, knee-deep in mud at Exeter race course car boot sale, Becky Chorlton secured the second-hand find of dreams.
‘It was peeking out from under a pile on the floor… a Red Bull vintage leather jacket. I paid about £40 for it and resold it at Fiorucci’s flagship store in London. It went for nearly £200.’
Becky, who is now 28 and living in Cheshire, started her side hustle back in 2019 – but it certainly hasn’t always taken her to glamorous sales in Soho.
‘I finished my undergrad degree at Exeter University and moved home for the summer. I knew I wanted to do a Master’s, but I had no money,’ the Sports Science graduate recalls.
‘I didn’t have a job, and my parents, rightly so, said the bank of mum and dad is officially closed.’
Weighing up her options at 22, Becky got inspiration where she least expected it.
‘I opened up my wardrobe and realised that half the stuff in there I never wore. Some still had the tags on, or some I had got from a charity shop. I realised I could probably get a bit more money for the items than what I paid.’
Becky started by selling her clothes on Depop. ‘I remember the first item I sold was a two-piece set. I listed it for £35 and it sold straight away. I was hooked.’
Then she started going to the local car boot sale.
‘Every weekend, rain or shine, my mum and I would go to one in Cheshire. I practically sold my whole wardrobe in a week,’ says Becky, who realised she would need to get creative to keep the side hustle up.
‘I’d buy clothes for as cheap as possible. Bring them home, wash them, iron them, sometimes even sew them, do stain removal. Then I’d model them, take pictures and flip them for a small profit.
‘Sometimes I’d be paying 50p or a pound for an item, then sell it on for £10 or £15 online. I’d invest that money at the next car boot sale, buy more stuff and keep expanding.’
Then, Becky ventured to vintage wholesale and thrift events up and down the country. By the time she went back to university for her Master’s, she was making around £70 a week by listing a piece every few days.
‘I had a rail in my uni bedroom which my housemates and I called ‘the stock’ – it took up half the room,’ she remembers. ‘I tripped over it coming back after a night out a few times.’
Maintaining the weekend car boot tradition while studying for her postgrad, Becky recalls: ‘I’d be there every Sunday at 1pm, and I’d go to the charity shops up and down the high street.
‘I definitely got some backlash at the start, for selling items on. You have to accept that some people might not agree with it, there might be some jealousy involved, or they just don’t understand.’
The entrepreneur explains: ‘The money I make reselling comes from the work of getting up early, going to car boots, getting the clothes ready and promoting them. That takes a lot of time.’
Becky also sees her work as an antidote to overconsumerism. ‘There’s so many clothes on this planet. I’m trying to be as sustainable as possible and to find a home for these items.
‘One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.’
While Becky was doing her Master’s, lockdown hit, which meant shutters were drawn on in-person sales and profits had to come solely from online buyers.
‘I started taking my side hustle seriously and set up a social media. That year, just working on it part-time, I made about £25,000. When I handed in my thesis, I started doing it full-time.’
With that, Becky’s Bazaar – her official business – was created. It now has more than 300,000 followers on Instagram, bringing traditional car boots to new, Gen Z customers. Within six months, Becky had made a profit of over £10,000.
Three years later, the 26-year-old had saved enough to put down a deposit on her first house.
‘Back when I started the side hustle, I wasn’t even thinking about buying… I genuinely didn’t think it would be possible for me.’
‘I started this as some extra cash for the summer six years ago. Now the turnover is exceeding £150,000 a year. It’s complete madness.’
With her partner, the business owner put four years of savings down on a three-bed detatched cottage in the North-West, which was on the market for upwards of £400,000.
‘It was built in 1903, and I love that it’s so open and light. There are dual aspect windows in a lot of the rooms, I still can’t believe it’s ours.’
She suggests that young people speak with a professional who can advise on a clear financial pathway to becoming a homeowner.
‘We naively thought you needed a really, really large deposit, so we were saving an awful lot to ty and keep our borrowing lower. I’ve learnt since that you only need £10,000 to get on the property ladder.’
Becky also recommends that anyone saving to buy a house invest in a side hustle. Almost half (49%) of people are now turning to extra income to buy a house, according to new research by Santander.
‘For me, that was reselling. For other people, that may be making items, or doing gardening,’ she says.
‘Turning your passion into an extra source of income is great. Obviously, side hustles don’t always become an overnight success – you have to dedicate a lot of time and effort to them.
‘But an easy way to stick at it is if it’s something you genuinely love and feel excited about when you wake up. That’s what did it for me.’
Santander’s My First Mortgage scheme offers up to 95% loan to value with a £10,000 deposit. Maximum available borrowing is £500,000 for an existing house.
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