Thinking Outside The Box

How a simple Amazon project taught me so much.

Back in March of 2024, we were in Boston and I decided it was time to try something completely outside my comfort zone: the Amazon Affiliate Program.

First, I needed a new laptop.

We weren't leaving the country until the middle of June, so I knew I had all of April and May to get this up and running. That was my goal. I wanted to learn the process, get accepted into the program and then just hit it hard.

We were pet sitting, so I had lots of time on my hands—and lots of things around me to review.

So I did it.

And it worked.

What I quickly learned was that the Amazon Affiliate Program opened up a whole new way of looking at the things around me. If something was sold on Amazon, there was a possibility I could review it. It didn't necessarily mean I had purchased that particular item from Amazon.

That's when I came up with something really silly.

Road Trip Taste Tests.

I would go to the dollar store—although, of course, it's $1.25 now—and buy a bunch of little food items. Then I'd sit in the car and make videos tasting them.

We were traveling anyway. I was in the car anyway. Why not?

I turned it into a little series and probably made about 50 Road Trip Taste Test videos.

And I had fun doing it.

In May, there was a contest for who could post the most videos. I went whole hog and ended up winning third place. My prize was a $100 Amazon gift card.

So what did I do with my $100 Amazon gift card?

I bought ten $10 items.

There was another promotion involving videos for products that cost around $10, so I turned that $100 gift card into more things I could review. I think I ended up earning another $450 from those videos.

It became a game for me.

Then we left the country and started traveling overseas again, so naturally I slowed down. But Amazon turned out to fit surprisingly well with our strange full-time-traveling, pet-sitting life.

When we're pet sitting and staying somewhere for a while, I can have things shipped to me and make my reviews while we're there.

Even better, a distributor eventually reached out to me and offered to send me free products to review. That relationship has now been on going for about two years. Whenever we're going to be in one place long enough, she can ship things to me, I can make the videos and post my reviews. And if we are in a hotel or AirBnB I can easily find an Amazon drop box nearby and pick up the items there.

A free car vacuum seems an appropriate item to review for full-time travelers 

And sometimes the homeowners get the products when we leave.

We're full-time travelers. I'm not carrying a cat bed, a pet fountain or a litter box from one house sit to another!

So I've left all kinds of things behind for the homeowners whose pets we're watching. I get something to review and the opportunity to earn commissions. They sometimes get something useful for themselves or their pets.

It's a win-win.

Now that we're staying in one place for an extended period again, the distributor has been sending me products and I've been making more reviews.

At this point, I have 425 review videos on Amazon from the last two and a half years.

But some of my favorite commissions haven't come from anything exciting at all.

I've reviewed a towel rack in a hotel room.

Seriously.

I noticed the towel rack happened to be sold on Amazon, so I reviewed it. I sold a bunch of them and earned commissions.

Sometimes it's the strangest, simplest things that continue earning commissions over and over again.

A bottle of nail polish.

These are things that are already in the houses, hotels and other places we visit. It's actually unusual for me to walk into a place and not find something I could potentially review.

Meanwhile, we carry our own things that we've actually bought on Amazon—and sometimes I get lazy and don't even review those.

Go figure.

But the money isn't really the biggest thing I've gotten from doing this.

When I started, I had to teach myself how to edit videos.

Amazon also has guidelines about what you can put into a video, including things like music and the language you use, and what you can and cannot say. I had to learn all of that.

And it was a great learning experience.

I've always loved making travel videos, but Amazon gave me another reason to learn how to make videos better. It tested me. It taught me new skills. It made me more comfortable creating videos, and eventually I was able to take those skills and use them for my travel videos and other things I'm creating today.

I think that's especially important in retirement.

We need things that keep our minds active. We need to stay engaged with what's going on in the world. We need things that challenge us and give us opportunities to learn something new.

For us, being full-time travelers makes that a little different.

We're not tourists. We're travelers. We just happen to live out in the world.

Traveling is our lifestyle. And when we're staying in one place for an extended period, I like having something that grounds me and gives me a purpose.

Amazon has done that.

I really enjoy it. I love making videos. I've always made travel videos and posted them simply because I enjoyed doing it, but I thought it would be fun to turn something I already liked doing into something a little more lucrative.

And I've been able to use the money I've earned to pay my Medicare premiums each month. Back in March 2024, before turning 65, that was one of the incentives for finding a successful side hustle. 

For me, that's a win-win.

I had no idea where it would lead.

Two and a half years and 425 videos later, I'm still learning, still making videos and still finding ridiculous things like hotel towel racks to review.

So I guess it's time for me to get back on the Amazon box and keep doing my reviews.

If you have the time and the energy to learn something new, I highly recommend stepping outside your own box once in a while.

You never know where it might take you.

It's never too late to learn something new.

There's always a story.