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Hiya – I’ve not been on the forums for a while and I’m just getting back into the swing of things. My mom died about a week ago and we traveled up to Chicago for that. She had a massive stroke and only lasted 5 days in the hospital afterwards. We were on our way up when she died. She left me the entire contents of her house. I think she did that because she always got a huge kick out of seeing the stuff we sold and for how much. Not that I have the heart to sell many of her things! My brother owns the house though, so we need to get it empty, but we live 12 hours away. The plan is to put the store on extended handling time about 3 days before Christmas and go up there, get a uhaul, and bring back whatever we can. No room for more furniture here though, so there will have to be craigslist/estate sale at some point.
Anyway, she was 93 and I’m nearly 59 so I’ve been thinking about retiring for a while anyway and this precipitated it. She also left us some money since she was a saver and always frugal. I had to laugh because the funeral home offered to *rent* us a casket for $2200, but mom wanted to be cremated! She would have scoffed so loudly at the idea of renting a casket for a short while for such an astronomical sum.
We put the store on extended handling time while we were in Chicago and had 7 low-priced things to ship when we got back. We have over 1100 items listed and have been doing this for 3 years so there has been some wisdom gained. We probably have some older duds listed and in general we’re not super pleased with our sales. But now I’ll have tons of time to devote to revamping and overhauling the store. Sometimes I wonder if we are pricing too high. If anyone has advice to offer, our store is here:
https://www.ebay.com/str/ravenswoodtreasuresI’m thankful for this community of like-minded scavs and big huge thanks for Jay and Ryanne for everything they do!
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Sorry to hear about your mom. Sounds like she lived a good life. 93!!!!! I only wish I could stick around that long.
It’s been slow for us the last several weeks. I wouldn’t start slashing prices quite yet. You can always put on a short term sale on all your items as an experiment.
What do you currently do fora living? What steps do you need to take to “retire”?
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Thanks Jay. I’ve been a computer programmer for 30 years. I enjoy the work but it takes all my time and it’s a long commute and it’s all sitting which kills my butt.😃
Don’t have to do much at this point because I can start withdrawing money from my 401 K’s when I turn 59 and a half which is only in about seven months. We’ve got FU money, ebay income, a vintage airstream rental coming online next spring, and I plan to draw social security when I turn 62.
Mom was a world traveler and did a lot of fun things so she did have a pretty good life.
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Sorry for your loss. If not too awkward, you can offer to sell things to your family members before you liquidate. I’m in the estate business and sometimes the lesser value “things” get in the way of relationships, especially if the expectation is not unequal division. Congratulations on your early retirement! I hear it’s good to look at the numbers in waiting until after age 62 to pull social security.
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Hi P
I’m sorry you lost your Mom..no fun at any age. She sounds like a cool lady- about retirement, everyones is different! thats the best part – I think someone said “alternate retirement” or the like here somewhere recently- I like that.
stay well and take care of you -
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So sorry about your mom. That’s difficult indeed.
Don’t forget when you draw SS at 62 you can only make – -$17,xxxx on side jobs Something to look into or take countermeasures for that. I had planned to collect SS at 64 but make too much money on side jobs, which might be a blessing to force me to wait a couple more years.
My other thought is why is your banner so big in your ebay store. I thought max size was 1200 x 270 ? Am I in error or is your store banner giant!
Your photos are awesome – really nice job with that
Best of Luck
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That decorated mannequin is Awesome! It looks like an estate sale find but I really want it to have been a free pile find.
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