By Julie Bort From Business Insider

The ‘Garage Sale Millionaire’ who made his fortune selling people’s cast-offs says you can’t skip this step before listing anything for sale

In the 11 years since economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner wrote their first book, “Freakonomics,” their partnership has become an empire with four best-selling books that have sold millions of copies as well as a popular podcast, a movie, countless speaking gigs, and other commercial opportunities.

It’s a dream come true for Dubner, who is often depicted as Levitt’s sidekick in the whole Freakonomics thing.

While Levitt is unquestionably the number-crunching data analyst of the pair, Dubner has in the past decade become more than just Levitt’s scribe. Depending on the project, he does everything from the research to setting up experiments, with Levitt always in charge of crunching numbers.

Dubner tells Business Insider that this Freakonomics journey has changed his outlook (he’s both more cynical and more hopeful), his view of humanity (he has learned to understand people better rather than blaming them), and his life.

It hasn’t made him private-jet wealthy, but it has given him financial security.

He grew up in a farm in upstate New York where his family grew their own food, and he has described his childhood as “happy but poor” while he was the youngest of eight children.

He was working as a journalist at The New York Times Magazine when he first met Levitt. He wasn’t exactly starving, but he couldn’t afford to live in Manhattan.

He says these are the three biggest things he’s grateful for:

1. Food security. “I like to eat,” he told us. “I marvel almost daily that something we have to do for sustenance is also fun to do.” Growing up in a big family with very little money, he says, “all of your decisions on what to eat were based on cost.” Now he can eat whatever he wants. If he wants the macadamia nuts, he can have them.

“I know that sounds silly, but almost every time I buy food, whether it’s a restaurant meal for my family or clicking online grocery shopping, I really appreciate that,” he says. “The stresses of not having enough money are huge.”

2. Living in New York. “I love New York. For me it’s a great luxury to have a family there. I like the intensity, I like the variety, the propinquity, the fact that there’s all of these ideas rolling around.”

3. Self-funding his projects. “I like that I have the resources to fund the work I want to do,” Dubner says. “I’m building a little production company. Today at this event, we’re trying out a new event that’s going to be like a game show.”

“It’s true with a new podcast you can try and make a deal with a media company, but it’s nice to have the latitude to also fund it myself,” he says, adding that he has a research and production team that lets him do the show the way he envisions, because “as soon as you start collaborating” your partners want to shape your ideas and shows to fit their own needs and goals.

IMAGE: Stephen DubnerYouTube/Charlie Rose

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