Time is Money

When first starting out flipping, especially if funds are limited, it's hard to justify any purchase that isn't directly flippable, but the sooner you fork over the cash for certain tools, the faster you'll make more money. The first thing you'll want is a decent scale. USPS gives discounts for printing your own postage, and you'll save time and gas money on top of that. I use the American Weigh Scales Table Top Postal Scale which has a capacity of 55lbs, more than enough for most anything. In addition, you'll want an efficient printer to print your postage on, and some adhesive labels to save time and tape. I've currently using an old office printer with these labels but I'm going to be switching over to a compact thermal printer that won't take up as much space in my RV. Once you have everything you need to print your own postage, you can schedule pickups during your normal mail deliveries on the USPS website and have it all taken care of for you.

While not as essential as a good scale and printer, anyone looking to flip DVDs, CDs or any other media should absolutely pick up a barcode scanner. The CT-20 bluetooth scanner is the cheapest on the market and works perfectly. I use it in conjunction with a prepaid Android Tracfone which costs a minimum of $20 every 3 months (though the best value for your dollar is the $10/mo plan) while the phone itself can easily be found for less than $30. The barcode scanner has already paid for itself many times over. Without it, I wouldn't be able to look up the prices of the hundreds of CDs at thrift stores. The Savers I frequent is a little stingy at $2 per CD so I don't pick them up unless they're going for more than $10. I've found many that go for $20+, and even a signed copy of Bobby Rock's "Out of Body." The money in CDs is usually in foreign, classical, or any type of spiritual/religious stuff, but there's plenty of money to be made outside of those genres, so the sooner you get a scanner, the better. 

Believe it or not, there are even VHS tapes worth money. Anything that wasn't transferred to a later medium will hold its value. Exercise and wrestling videos often fall into this category. My best find in the VHS section, which I wouldn't have bothered to look in without a scanner, wasn't a movie but a VHS to VHS-C adapter which I paid $1 for and sold for $30.