Woman, 22, who ditched minimum-wage job now earns £55,000 a month by reselling clothes online – and reveals the ‘costly’ mistake to avoid

A former care worker who left her ‘terrible’ minimum wage job has revealed how she now earns a staggering £55,000 a month reselling clothes online.

Madi Donohoe, 22, was finding her 9-5 job incredibly difficult due to health issues including chronic pain and fibromyalgia, and felt she was so ‘underpaid’ for the work she did, earning just £9 an hour.

So in December 2022, just six months after starting work in the private care sector, Madi, from Essex, decided to hand in her notice without any back-up plan.

But when she managed to sell a pair of ‘ugly’ sneakers on Vinted for double the price she paid for them, Madi decided to see if she could make reselling the items a full-time job.

Using live auction app Tilt, Madi earned £800 in her first month and £5,400 in her second month. By the end of his first year he had earned £356,000.

Madi made £513,000 from resale from November 2025 to June 2026; this averaged around £55,000 per month. Given his staggering profits, he can now pay someone else to mail his packages for him.

‘Reselling gave me a lot of freedom,’ he said. ‘At my old job I often had to call in sick, which I never wanted to do, and I don’t have to worry about that anymore.

‘It gave me the chance to have the best quality of life I could ever have.’

Madi Donohoe, 22, was finding her 9-to-5 job incredibly difficult due to health issues including chronic pain and fibromyalgia, and felt she was so “underpaid” for the work she did, earning just £9 an hour

Madi explained that she believes the key to her incredible success is ‘taking things slow and steady and not pushing myself’.

‘Some people get really money hungry and rush into things, which can end up being costly, whereas I’m laid back and go with the flow,’ he said.

After leaving school at 18, Madi started working as a care worker in a residential care home for people with severe special needs, where she earned £9 an hour.

But the job came with numerous personal and financial challenges, and he soon handed in his notice in an attempt to put himself first.

‘It was very bad; “We were understaffed and underpaid,” he said.

Shortly after quitting her job, Madi went to her local Nike store and bought the ‘ugliest trainers imaginable’ for £25.

But as soon as he got home he regretted his purchase and threw the trainers into Vinted for £50; which was twice the price he paid them.

‘I don’t know why I did it, but they sold out, so I thought, ‘I’m missing a trick here,” he said.

As her confidence grew, Madi discovered there was a gap in the Stone Island clothing market and now focuses on the Italian brand’s products as a key selling point

Selling everything from £15 badges to £2,000 prototype jackets, Madi’s live auctions can attract up to 1,000 viewers at a time and send out around 200 parcels a week

Inspired by the phenomenal success of her first sale, Madi then bought a load of Jibbitz for Crocs from Temu in bulk for £2 each and then sold them on Vinted for £4 each.

As her sales continued to grow, Madi began going to the Nike store several times a week and reselling clothes for twice the price.

In late 2023, about a year after she started selling, Madi discovered Tilt, a resale platform where sellers host live auctions and buyers make purchases in real time.

He spent his days scouring charity shops, market stalls and discount shops and was making a profit of £800 in his first month.

‘It wasn’t much, but I could see there was something there,’ he said.

Now Madi does about two livestreams a week, which is he takes three to five hours at a time and spends the rest of his time sourcing clothes for resale.

Their products appear on the screen one by one, with a countdown (usually around 10 seconds), and the person with the highest bid at the end of the countdown wins.

Given the success of his sales, he now even has the budget to pay someone to package his packages for him.

As her confidence grew, Madi discovered there was a gap in the Stone Island clothing market and now focuses on the Italian brand’s products as a key selling point.

‘I always loved Stone Island but I could never afford it,’ he said.

‘Even if I had no intention of buying, I would go to the shops to try it.’

She bought loads of Stone Island clothing from vintage stores and marketplaces and devoted herself to “going to the extreme” to make as much profit as possible from resale.

Selling everything from £15 badges to £2,000 prototype jackets, Madi’s live auctions can attract up to 1,000 viewers at a time and send out around 200 parcels a week.