Steve cleared a lot of shelf space this week. Marantz stereos, money in the bank.
Scavenger Life Episode 284: Where did you learn about money?
James Collins is a good friend of ours. He’s also one of the well-known bloggers who focuses on Financial Independence aka “early retirement”. (If you haven’t read his series on the stock market, do so now). In our first conversation, Jim helped us understand how scavengers can leverage even small amounts of extra money selling old shoes into real negotiation power. Being able to tell your boss you might want to leave can push your boss to value you more and get you a raise. Or because we sell enough old shoes, scavenging has let us lead completely independent lives.
Jim had an idea for our second conversation: Where did you learn about money? Did someone teach you, or did you just learn the good/bad money habits of the people you grew up with? Do you have good habits with money now? If so, how did you learn these new habits? If not, how do you change?
I know I had to unlearn a lot of poor habits of how to deal with money. Even though I was thrifty in many ways, I also lacked a lot of the knowledge of what to do with money once I had it saved…so I would eventually just spend it. Until I learned to see money as a tool, I was always stuck in a hamster wheel. We can sell all the old shoes on eBay we want, but it won’t make a real difference in our lives till we know how to use that money wisely.
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What Sells On eBay: Post Election Edition
Vintage playing cards are some of my favorite sales!
Scavenger Life Episode 283: Running Our Businesses Without A Safety Net
This week we’ve experienced the full craziness of being self-employed. Because we’ve decided to invest in our eBay and rental businesses, we’re spending all the money we saved up over the past year (plus some). And we can’t even be sure if we’re making the right choices.
Is it smart to build a huge storage building for our eBay inventory? What if we get bored and don’t want to sell anymore? There will be a huge warehouse in our backyard. Is it smart to renovate an old house to turn into vacation rental? Why not just slap some paint on it and be done? What if no one wants to rent it? That’s a mortgage we don’t need.
Our mental health through all this is determined by how we handle these questions. I’d say we were pretty good this week. Only had a couple arguments when the pressure was on and decisions had to be made. The good news is that we always respect each other regardless of our differences of opinion. Then we ultimately agree on a plan of action. Plus, we never go to bed angry.
We have loved scavenging for the past eight years and see no decline in our interest. We’re even more excited to use our eBay profits to invest in rental property. So investing in these passions is smart for us even if we get stressed writing big checks. It’s scary to live without a safety net, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.
eBay was steady for us this week. All bread and butter sales (average selling price was about $35). all we can do is keep listing. This election will soon be over and holiday season is upon us!
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Our Store Week Oct 30-Nov 5, 2016
- Store #1
- Total Items in Store: 4377
- Items Sold: 41
- Cost of Items Sold: $65
- Total Sales: $1,333.33
- Highest Price Sold: $135 (Art Poster)
- Average Price Sold: $35.52
- Returns: 1
- Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $60
- Number of items listed this week: 190
- ———-Bonanza:
- Sold ? items for $?
- ———-
- Store #2
- Total Items in Store: 1029
- Items Sold: 7
- Cost of Items Sold: $10
- Total Sales: $171.36
- Highest Price Sold: $40 (Wooden box)
- Average Price Sold: $24.48
- Returns: 0
- Number of items listed this week: 0
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What Sells On eBay: Grumbacher Paint Set, Vintage Panasonic Tape Player, Neon Hunting Vest
You might think that box of old oil paints looks like trash, but people love them. Some just want to display it as decor, some will use the paint (oil paint can last a long time), so keep an eye out!
Scavenger Life Episode 282: Always Evolving
Several pieces of big news in Scavenger Life Land.
The photo above shows the almost 1000 square foot concrete slab we had poured this week. That’s the foundation for our future storage building that will hold all our eBay inventory WITH plenty of room to grow. The slab is a $5500 investment. That’s a lot of old shoes we had to sell. There will soon be a building the size of a house there.
You probably notice that the blog looks different. It is! After a lot of work by Ryanne and Eric of Narrow Bridge Media, the old blog has been transferred over. It needs some design work but the big feature is the new forum. Many of you have asked for a better way to have conversations and search old information. We hope this is a good beginning and can only improve from here. Just let us know your suggestions.
And lastly, we hired someone this week to help us photograph on eBay. It’s an experiment and who knows if it’s long term, but a series of events happened where we think we found the right person. Jay found the person locally and Ryanne has been the trainer. If she’s interested, we have big plans to train her to eventually list and maybe even pack for us. Maybe even run out store while we travel the globe. (We’re taking it slowly.) Listen to the details on today’s podcast.
eBay’s been steady for us. Paying the bills. Hope things are good for you.
Check out the video of our dudes pouring the concrete slab–
Our Store Week Oct 23-29, 2016
- Store #1
- Total Items in Store: 4202
- Items Sold: 43
- Cost of Items Sold: $163
- Total Sales: $1,406.42
- Highest Price Sold: $110 (Ferragamo shoes)
- Average Price Sold: $32.70
- Returns: 0
- Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $25
- Number of items listed this week: 206
- Store #2
- Total Items in Store: 1036
- Items Sold: 8
- Cost of Items Sold: $15
- Total Sales: $251.93
- Highest Price Sold: $75 (Starbucks bag)
- Average Price Sold: $31.49
- Returns: 0
- Number of items listed this week: 0
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What Sells on eBay: Free antlers and they sold the same day
https://youtube.com/watch?v=9evKxkxnu4o%3Fshowinfo%3D0
Believe it or not, antlers do sell on eBay! We’ve sold a couple ourselves too.
What Sells On eBay: Mountaineering Boots (and boots and boots), More Buffalo Prints, Distressed Stetson Hat
As you heard Steve say, he bought those mountaineering style hiking boots for $5 and sold them for $100. They are very stylish and trendy right now (and probably forever, they’re great boots). So keep an eye out for ’em!
What Sells On eBay: GE Flip Number Clock, VCR TV Combo, Vintage Club Pans
As Steve found out, people collect that Vintage Club cookware in great retro colors (even though he had a typo in the title, someone still bought them!).
What Sells On eBay: Born Leather Boots, Vintage Batgirl Costume, Westclox Big Ben
It’s almost Halloween, so you know the hipsters want those vintage costumes!
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