My nephew (12) did about the closest thing I've ever seen to the "paperclip to yacht" economic path. Some relative gave him $100 as a holiday gift a few years ago. He used it on some silly collectible monkey T-Shirts, and sold some of them to a classmate at a profit. The idea stuck, and he leveraged that to buy some shoes (not limited release, just relatively rare/desirable), and learned how to eBay them. Nowadays he has just under $10k US, and spends a lot of time chasing weird hypebeast-esque fashion drops for immediate resale.

I'd be judgemental and go all "kids these days" on him if only it wasn't so lucrative for him. Sure, it's not that much money relative to an adult's earnings over a couple of years, but he's 12. My sister (his mom) worries he won't learn to appreciate savings and frugality as he never had an allowance before doing this. Me, I think he'll do just fine.

Yeah, my son was kind of getting into this stuff a couple of years ago, he's 17 now. When it first came on my radar and I started to ask him about it I had the same thought... kids these days.

Ironically, when I asked him some more questions about how the sales worked and he explained things I then told him he should write a bot.

That's an insanely good skill to have. Not a full time gig but a dependable side gig you can do from pretty much anywhere.

Your nephew sounds like an incredibly cool young man. Good work to your whole family!!