Scavenger Life

Trash to Cash. A podcast about making a living on eBay.

Scavenger Life Episode 315: Okay, you’re making money. Now what?


A couple weeks ago, we were talking about our backup plan to eBay. But many commenters on the forum were discussing that eBay IS their backup plan to their current job, which makes a lot of sense since so many eBay sellers sell part time on top of their W-2 jobs and families.

I guess a more accurate question we’re always asking ourselves is “what do we really want to be doing”? Scavenging bought us our freedom from having to work for other people. But once we realized we had created a steady pipeline of money on eBay that consistently paid our bills, was this enough? Did we want to just sell online for the rest of our lives? What did we really want to be doing?

The honest answer is that we don’t really know. I think a lot of us are unsure about what we want to be when we grow up if backed into a corner. Sure, we all want/deserve some leisure. A little freedom from worry. Keep a roof over your head. Be able to send your kids to college. Fix the car if it breaks down. But once you’ve figured out those things, what do you REALLY want to do with your time? What challenges do you want to take on? When you’re on your death bed, what’s going to make you feel at peace?

Our strategy is just to evolve step by step. We learned that we like using our extra eBay profits to renovate houses for rent. We love the challenge of taking a house in bad shape and making it awesome. Design is fun. Scavenging and re-using old materials is so satisfying. And then these rentals are earning us more money to evolve further. Every day isn’t glamorous, but it sure is an adventure of our making.

We talked about buying a new-to-us, used iPhone 5c on eBay (it’s pink!) and hooking it up on Ting. We love Ting, you should use Ting. Digital scavenging is fun!

Hope you had a good week.

Join the conversation in the forum>>

Our Store Week June 11-17, 2017

Store #1
Total Items in Store: 5,771
Items Sold: 59
Cost of Items Sold: $99
Total Sales: $1,857.20
Highest Price Sold: $110 (vintage brooch)
Average Price Sold: $31.47
Returns: 2
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $12
Number of items listed this week: 75
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Bonanza/Trugether:
Sold 0 items for $0
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Store #2
Total Items in Store: 1239
Items Sold: 9
Cost of Items Sold: $50
Total Sales: $366.68
Highest Price Sold: $90 (vintage record player)
Average Price Sold: $40.74
Returns: 0
Number of items listed this week: 0

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Scavenger Life Episode 314: Selling on eBay while in the Military

Every so often, we record conversations with other sellers. You can find them all here. How do we pick who we speak with? It’s always sellers who are scavenging and selling a little differently than we are or living a different lifestyle. It’s fun for us to learn new things or just help celebrate how scavenging can take different forms. We also look for people who know what they’re doing is unique and are proud of their accomplishments.

This recording is with Flavio, who is an active member of the US military. On top of his daily duties of safeguarding our country, he also scavenges and sells on eBay. Since he lives on base, he has to really manage his inventory in order to pass inspections. He’s frugal and has a strong vision for how he wants to spend his money to build his future. What’s most interesting is hearing how he tries to share this perspective with the men under his leadership, usually young recruits who blow all their cash on short-lived luxuries.

Flavio was fun to speak with and I wish I was as together as he was at his age. He’ll be here in the comments if you have any questions. Are any of you active military? Could you have imagined selling on eBay while serving?

Hope you had a good week.

Join the conversation on the forum>>

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Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS

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