Home › Forums › Buying and Selling › Selling on eBay › Building a Life, not a business
- This topic has 19 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 8 months ago by
T-Satt.
-
AuthorPosts
-
-
12/14/2018 at 2:09 pm #53364
I’ve said before on the podcast that I’m probably a bad businessman. We make all kinds of illogical decisions that make us less money (aka list and forget). We could probably be more efficient and squeeze out $500 extra a month by doing five minutes of clicking each day. We could list on other platforms and make more money. We could start selling wholesale. We could monetize our podcast better by selling courses and books. We could source much more and compete for the best stuff.
But as we explained back in 2013, we see ourselves not as CEO’s of a growing business, but as mom & pop operators of a small store: https://www.scavengerlife.com/2013/11/ebay-scavengers-episode-68-our-mom-and/
Our interest in numbers is only in service to what kind of life it buys us. This is why the hair stands up on the back of my head when people talk about how much they “pay themselves”. I know this is an important concept to running a business: Paying yourself first, etc. I just hate to put a price on what we’re worth.
The hour of packing each day is definitely work. But is it work when we have a date night and go to an auction? Is it work when we stop by a thrift store on our way home from the discount super market? is it work when we take long walks on the NYC streets and find treasures in the trash? Is it work when we excitedly clean and research the items we find? Thankfully we now pay someone to photo and list, so that work is now off our hands.
I guess in true business sense, the answer is Yes: all this is work. But I see it as just our lives. We wouldn’t do any of these things it felt like a job. In the past, if any activity felt stressful or boring, we changed our business to suit our life, not the other way around. Activity X will make us more money even if we hate it? Don’t do Activity X.
Maybe scavengers who still have full-time jobs and photo/list in their free time still see eBay as extension of “work”. You put time in at the office and then you put time in on your eBay business. But as full-time scavengers, I think you learn that you’ve exchanged a job for a lifestyle. It’s not all fun and games, but you have the opportunity to make it all fun and games if you’re creative. Activity Y is fun? Then do Activity Y and it’ll most likely end up making you money.
So when I talk about eBay numbers, it’s really from the point of view of an artist who needed to find a way to make money to live. Since 2010, we’ve run our business on a text document. Money in and money out. As long as “money in” is more than “money out”, we’re good to go. It hasnt needed to be complicated for us. Most important thing is we enjoy our lives as much as possible. And surprise to us: we’ve been able to make a significant amount of money, I think BECAUSE we enjoy our lifestyle. I bet a lot of luck has been involved, but I truly believe that we each make our own luck.
-
This topic was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by
Jay.
-
This topic was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by
-
12/14/2018 at 2:22 pm #53369
Jay,
The way I see it, you bought yourself a lifestyle? What is the value of that? Priceless! You are rich beyond compare.
But you also have to understand that you are in a different place than most people on the blog. We don’t live in cheap places and some of us have a lot of people that depend on us. We are still trying to build our businesses and some are probably just scraping by. Also, some were just brought up to think in business terms.
Don’t take it too personally, some people just think differently. All good people, they just have a different perspective.
Mark
-
12/14/2018 at 2:41 pm #53370
Absolutely. Not trying to preach a “one size fits all”. I just know that my head starts to spin when people start stressing business rules that we never (consciously at least) followed. I wanted to write a different POV in case there are other Scavengers out there who don’t necessarily follow modern corporate business principles. I’m aware my POV makes me look naive, but it’s just the truth of who we are.
Moving to a cheaper, rural area was one of our strategies to start the lifestyle we wanted. Choices may not be easy, but we all have choices. If our choice was to live in San Francisco, we’d run a much different business.
-
-
12/14/2018 at 4:00 pm #53379
I love our outlook on this business – it is so refreshing! You and Ryanne convey an authenticity on here and in your podcast, which is why it has grown the way it has. I was hooked the first time I listened.
I concure that I debate with myself about many aspects of this business as to what is work and not work. This is not just a business to me – it is my hobby, my passion, my relaxing exercises, etc. It is soooo much more than “work”.
I am going to track my hours now, and I will count the times even when I’m “having fun” doing work. Why? Because I want to quantify the true time I put into what I do as research for doing this full-time.Will I make this exercise a game and make it fun? Absolutely! Do I like logging my time at my day job? Absolutely not. Do I look forward to keeping an ultra accurate account of my time doing ebay and will even make a sweet spreadsheet with line graphs that only I will ever look at? ABSOLUTELY!
-
12/14/2018 at 4:53 pm #53386
I’ll be interested to hear what your hours will be. I know if I ever feel like “I know this is work”, then my mind immediately goes to “how do I make this not feel like work”.
-
12/15/2018 at 11:59 am #53423
I’ve been turning chores and work into fun since I was a kid. Work is just a state of mind.
-
-
-
12/14/2018 at 4:04 pm #53380
-
12/14/2018 at 4:46 pm #53383
I like this concept of building a life or a lifestyle. I remember you and Ryanne bringing this up a long while ago, when I first started listening to SL. I have a vague memory of someone trying to compare hourly wage when reselling to some other job, and you kept repeating “but with reselling you own your time.” And at first I didn’t get it. I was like – why does he keep repeating that when we’re trying to compare wages!?!? But when it finally clicked, I realized that it’s like comparing any two ways of making money without taking into account all aspects. So one job has lower pay than another, but amazing health benefits. Or a 5 minute commute vs. a 60 minute commute. Or having to deal with people all day long or not (which is a pro or con depends on the person).
I also used to complain to a good friend “yeah, I can sell this thingy for $30 but after everything the hourly wage may be below minimum wage. Sigh.” And this friend kept saying “But what would you do instead?” And that annoyed me until I realized it was true. In my current situation, I need almost complete flexibility in terms of when I work and how much I work. And I pretty much have that now, especially after I copied RetroWV and set handling time to 3 days. So this flexibility, together with enjoying the work, makes me much much happier every day than I was in my previous job where I made $150k + 20+% bonus + plenty of stock options.
-
12/14/2018 at 5:08 pm #53388
Yes!
I think if we try to distill what we’re all doing to a $/hr, then it can all seem trivial and economically dumb. The $/hr is too constricted of a lens.
Ryanne and I are taking the Amtrak to NYC tomorrow for two weeks. We can only do this because eBay allows us the flexibility of our time. We’re lucky to have a friend who asked us to cat sit in exchange for a free apartment. We’re taking two big bags of groceries because food is expensive. We plan to ship home all the treasures we find inevitably on the street. And of course our eBay store will have extended handing time so sales will keep happening.
When we tell our local friends about this trip, they think we’re it seems like we’re living like millionaires. But we just sell old shoes on the internet 🙂
-
-
12/14/2018 at 4:48 pm #53384
I don’t know if it’s really healthy to count your hourly numbers if you’re doing this full time, especially if you have other projects you’re working on simultaneously lol. I find the segue from one effort into another just sort of goes together. An initial burst of energy from work in one endeavor leads easily straight into what other project you want to work on. Being able to do this full time allows you to just stop what you’re doing at a moment’s notice – just go straight into whatever you want to be doing next, or nothing at all.
Some weeks could consist of 40-50 hours of work straight on reselling. The following week could be 20. I think it goes along with the peaks and valleys of numbers – the waning and flowing of effort.
I think asking questions on the nature of work itself is as confounding as being frugal and questioning the way normal consumerism works to the majority of people. However, they are all tied together, and only by being able to observe the mechanics of how it works by being even slightly outside of the way society normally is is the way to really see it.
-
12/14/2018 at 5:12 pm #53389
Good point. I know we get a lot done most days, but the effort is spread across multiple projects (including eBay).
I’m a big believer in lists and love to breakdown complex projects into tiny pieces. Some things we do wont pay off for several months or more. Everyday I think what list we want to tackle that day. Or not. It all gets done eventually.
-
12/15/2018 at 12:10 pm #53424
I agree it is pointless unless you have a reason to track your data.
I want to know what my process capabilities are. Tracking my hours is a key piece of data for that.
-
12/17/2018 at 8:50 am #53485
almasty: It is very hard to truly track your $/hr, since the hours you put in today won’t result in $ until it sells. I know that right now a lot of folks look at the net profit this week compared to the hours worked this week. But the timing is wrong. The hours you put in this week are invested in future sales (except for shipping).
So for me, I like to periodically track time on each task, and Veronica and I do that a lot, but it is only to get a good average for how long tasks take to see what they are generating. So, I know that I can find an item in a thrift store about every 5 minutes (including drive time). So, if I need to list 125 items each week, then I know that sourcing will take me over 10 hours each week (or 5 hours for Veronica and I together). It helps me plan. Shipping is similar. I know that shipping shoes is about 2-3 minutes each, shirts about a minute, etc. So I see how much time it would take, and what the cost would be for an employee to do that.
-
-
12/14/2018 at 8:47 pm #53403
Great perspective! And the truth is also you have amassed so much with this mentality as well which is so healthy to remember. You have multiple properties and (I assume) savings and enough money to have a nice out of town treat dinner or an overnight when scavenging. You don’t have to churn baby churn like so many “gurus” preach for what looks like a great lifestyle!
And being authentic is the pathway to happiness anyway – so.. good job. -
12/16/2018 at 3:58 pm #53452
Jay, I share your thought process. I do keep an annual record book for my sales and that’s about as fancy as I get. I know that I can spend X a month and that I need to make Y per month. I don’t keep an inventory database because I’m just not that organized. My sole goal is to finish paying for my son’s college and he graduates next year. After that I think I will sell off the clothing aspect of my business and concentrate on things that are more interesting to sell. I will say, I have Go Daddy Bookkeeping which has been a Godsend.
-
12/16/2018 at 4:57 pm #53456
AtomicStar,
If you don’t keep an inventory database, how do you figure out COGS for tax purposes? I would love not keep keep track of inventory either, just never knew there was a way around that unless one has a cash-only business like the flea market guys Jay always mentions :). -
12/16/2018 at 5:40 pm #53457
Sonia,
Our accountant goes by cost of goods, not total inventory. He tells me what info to track and what numbers to bring in. The rest I don’t worry about. I have an LLC and file as SCorp, but that’s about all I know when it comes to the tax side of things.
-
12/16/2018 at 5:49 pm #53458
I see, so you do keep track of what you paid for each item. You’re right – that’s all that’s needed in the end for the tax return. For me, keeping track of what I paid for each item turns out to be the same thing as keeping an inventory list, so there’s no extra work other than a simple addition operation at the end of every year.
-
12/16/2018 at 9:11 pm #53461
Jay & Ryanne, I’ll say this much, I like your approach to life/selling/balance/business enough that we’ve put plans in motion to mirror our futures after what you’ve done. I’ve listened to each episode at least three times, some more, and appreciate the calm sensibility that you two present.
Your perspective is/was refreshing to my ears, and hit me at the perfect time in my life/career. Mid-30’s and beginning to tire of the rat race. Old enough to realize that I didn’t/don’t care a whole lot what others think about us, our possessions (or lack thereof), or what makes us happy.
I started listing semi-regularly on eBay in January of 2016 (started out with a goal of one listing per day, and quickly listed more). Three years later, and we’re making big preparations to move across the country, buy a cheaper house with more land, and set ourselves up for a future of selling old junk on the internet. We even hope to one day follow your model and have one or two small airbnb cottages to diversify income streams.
Most of all, we want our time/freedom. I’m nearing 40 now, and I don’t want to be 60, finally “free” of work, but not healthy enough to enjoy that freedom. We can live with a little less “stuff” if it means not having “Sunday dread” anymore. I have no doubt that I’ll likely work right up until I die, but as you said, if you enjoy doing it, is it really work?
-
12/17/2018 at 8:53 am #53487
Winchester: Amen brother! I was in a similar mindset in 2015 when I took the plunge. Funny, I really go the motivation after binge listening to Jay and Ryanne (back in the eBay Scavengers days).
It is like their podcast can change you… 🙂
-
-
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.