A former finance worker who ditched her job and bought a vending machine on eBay now makes more than £7,000 a month from her fleet of machines while working three days a week.
Megan Healey, 26, from Manchester, has always had a knack for selling snacks and broke school rules to sell cookies and energy drinks as a teenager.
Now she owns 27 vending machines in 18 locations across Manchester, Liverpool and Rochester.
It was not an easy start, with her first machine making just £30 a month, but after some careful research, she was able to grow the business to what it is today.
“I was working in finance but my manager was just awful and I’ve always wanted to make my own money,” Megan told PA Real Life.
“Then I broke up with an ex and I think that’s what drove me to change my life and buy a vending machine.”
Megan hopes to start hiring people soon and believes “that the sky is the limit.”
Megan grew up in Tameside, Greater Manchester, and after leaving Wright Robinson College, initially began a career as a photographer in 2017, working with local Manchester fashion brands and model agencies.
After four years, she fell out of love with it, feeling the industry was toxic and realising that she was more interested in the business side.
“I think I just preferred making money,” she said.
This prompted her to take a job in finance in 2021 where she earned £27,000 a year.
“I really hated it though,” Megan said. “My manager there was awful, and I think I’ve always wanted to make my own money.”
Determined to find a way to become her own boss, she spent her free time researching vending machines.
She said: “I thought (it) would be a semi-passive income which would make me money while I worked another job.
“It also took me back to selling snacks and drinks at school. It was a full circle moment, but more professional, advanced and didn’t require me operating every single sale.”
Megan didn’t enter it blindly, however, saying she completed nine months of research in preparation, including watching videos about vending machine repairs as well as the business aspect.
She said: “There was no one in the UK doing it online, so it was difficult to find any information but I stumbled across an American YouTuber and fell into a bit of a rabbit hole.”
It was a break-up with an ex that eventually prompted her to take the leap.
She said: “I think that’s what drove me to change my life and buy a vending machine.”
Megan bought her first machine on eBay for £700, an outdated Necta model which could hold 40 drinks and 250 snacks, in June 2022.
She filled it with Pepsi, Aeros and Polos, admitting she had “no idea what to do” and didn’t even have a location.
However, several weeks after putting some adverts on Facebook, she found a card shop owner in Barnsley who was happy to host the machine. Megan placed it outside the shop on the high street.
“It was so bad,” she recalled. “I didn’t have the experience I have now — I definitely wouldn’t put it there though.”
The machine made only £30 a month, but Megan was not deterred.
“I don’t know how that didn’t put me off, to be honest. But I was so driven to do more and make more money, I just carried on,” she said.
She sold the machine for a £300 profit which helped her buy a new machine in a better location – inside a small care home in Manchester – which made £300 per month.
“I did some sales analysis from the card reader and I was able to work out what people actually wanted. They were just drinking so much Coke, so I then bought another machine exclusively for Coca-Cola,” she said.
The care home is still her best location, and in the summer it can make £1,500 a month.
“It took me a while to get to that; don’t get me wrong,” Megan said.
“But I like to think it’s a once-in-a-lifetime location because despite it being so small, it makes so much money, which just makes no sense.”
Megan said Coca-Cola is the single best seller across all her machines and that it has the highest profit margin too. Bottles cost 80p from a local wholesaler, and she sells them for £2.
Other popular products vary depending on location, but she said drinks are better trade than snacks. Her machines in warehouses and factories tend to sell more energy drinks for example as she thinks people are tired on their shifts.
Currently, she spends two or three days a week restocking the machines, which gives her enough free time to run a separate business selling trainers.
She is also in the process of setting up a course to impart her skills and help others set up vending machine businesses.
In the future she would also like to hire someone to do the restocking.
“I’m only small, so it can be quite tiring,” she said.
“I’d like to grow so I can focus on the logistics side. If I could do that, then the sky’s the limit.”
You can follow Megan’s TikTok account at: www.tiktok.com/@meganhealeey.
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