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03/11/2019 at 2:34 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 402: Can You Build An eBay Business On Repeat Buyers? #58477
One of the things we’re trying to figure out is how to ride out the rough patches by saving the extra income from the good periods. Personally, I think I’m going to need to set up a separate “float” account at the bank to put money in from the good weeks to cover off the bad ones, and if it goes over a certain amount, invest or use that as “fun money”.
The other thought we have is doing some casual labor that we like to do for a couple days a week. For example, our local Post Office has a 12-hour a week job on Wednesday and Thursday – pays well, and still would give free time if we took on something like that. They are struggling to find someone, but would be perfect to guarantee a bit of consistent money every week if we wanted to do something like that.
Just thoughts we have to sort out – we’re not full time yet, but constantly coming up with our refined game plan when it comes.
03/11/2019 at 11:37 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 402: Can You Build An eBay Business On Repeat Buyers? #58453Your numbers sound about right when compared to the numbers we ran.
Our bare minimum is just over $800/month after taxes (that is for my wife and I) with no mortgage or health insurance.
Our upper end budget With “luxuries” – which we defined in our budget as really more premium food (fresh meats mostly), some treats, vacation fund for a week resort vacation, and basic cable TV (we are moving from an area with about 100 channels on antenna to 1!) was $1250 a month.
Our accounting didn’t include car replacement/maintenance (included gas and insurance), or any property maintenance (roof, furnace, appliances, etc go bad). We’re putting together a slush fund for that now while we are still working to help with the unexpected. We figure about $10k in a high-interest savings account will save us – but we don’t know.
We think the luxury budget is easily achievable – but we’ll see when we’re in it full time.
03/11/2019 at 10:56 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 402: Can You Build An eBay Business On Repeat Buyers? #58444If you want to see the full article, and you have a library card and your local library gives you access to PressReader, you can get the full newspapers it was in for free with your library card number.
PressReader is a good money saver – gives you free access to all the newspapers (and even magazines) that you usually have to pay for online, and you can read the newspaper they same way the printed copy is presented. It’s a completely free service from my local library – saves me a lot of money as I enjoy reading newspapers and magazines in the traditional format, and can get lots of international papers for free.
1/3 of the way through March…and hit our fist milestone of the year – finally hit 500 items last night!
Doing the math, we’re still having the debate of moving up our subscription at about 750 listings, or go into maintenance mode at that level…we’ll make our decision when we get there.
We’re also starting to see the profits coming in (already over $500!) with us slowing down on scavenging and focusing on listing what we have – we’ve really knocked down our piles and still have a good weekend of items to go. It’s been a very good start so far to this month – the hard work and investment in January and February is starting to pay off…
03/11/2019 at 10:21 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 402: Can You Build An eBay Business On Repeat Buyers? #58438Ryanne – how did the UK media treat you? Saw some quick blurbs in the London Telegraph and Independent on Sunday.
We use the Nikon 1 J2 – we actually have three of them as my wife and I take pictures at the same time, and have different photo areas for small items and our mannequins.
It has a lot of settings to play with (which 99% I don’t understand) but it takes really good photos.
We’re not even close to being camera experts – we just happened to get one (because it was pink and my wife wanted a pink camera, and it had good reviews 5 years or so when it came out), we liked it, and bought another for me to use.
There are newer models of this camera, but the J2 is good enough for what we do. We picked up our third one at a garage sale last summer with 3 different lenses for $20 – but they are much more on eBay. I think we are committed to the Nikon 1 camera series as we have a box of lenses, a bunch of battery chargers, a stack of spare batteries – and we will keep buying back-ups as we find them. But I’m sure there are other good models from other makes – you just need to find one that is cheap, does the job you want, and start collecting parts/lenses/batteries/accessories for it as you find them.
I had this issue – for years…
I did a few things that have completely made things almost perfect:
-switched to daylight LED bulbs. I currently have 4 x 100w equivalents going in my photo area. 3 are fixed, one I can hold by hand to move around to prevent glare or get light where I need it. This was the best change I made.
-bought a camera with a white balance setting (you have to adjust it occasionally)
-switched to a non-reflective surface for my background (I read that some light may bounce back to the camera on glossy surfaces and that would adjust the brightness)My photos are turning out great now – almost if I pulled them from a retail website.
I pre-bag, as it allows me to label and store. I do not seal the bag – the bags I use are 1mil bags with no sealing mechanism that are about 1/4″ smaller then the polymailers I use.
I place a small label on the bag to note what item it is as I have several similar items at once (items that look identical, but maybe different sizes, maybe slight condition variations, etc).
The item is folded, and the bins I use are just the right size to store them upright – it is like a filing cabinet of clothing.
Each bin is labeled for the type of item – Hockey Jerseys, Football Jerseys, Concert T-Shirts, Jeans, etc. If a bin gets full, I’ve been splitting them (for example, my Hockey jerseys are split into NHL, minor leagues, international teams, etc).
I recently saw a Louis Theroux BBC documentary on open marriages in the U.S., it was called “Love Without Limits”. The one couple where the wife had a husband and multiple boyfriends fascinated me – not there story, but the amount of clothing racks they had all over their house (I mean everywhere you could force a clothing rack, there was shirts hanging up – mostly Hawaiian ones). Looked like the husband was selling lots clothing online, while the wife was looking for men online. Thought it was strange watching the guy list with the kids while the wife was in the bedroom with some random guy…
I enjoy those who complain about shipping, when the shipping cost is the actual cost to me on the listings.
I had a guy this weekend who wanted a coat sent to him (I’m in Canada, they were in Mississippi) and complained that my US$12.10 shipping was too high and I should be able to do it for under $5. He said he has never paid over $5 for shipping in his life…must not have bought anything through the mail since the 1980’s.
Not sure where people get their postage rate ideas from, when it costs almost $2 these days just to send a letter from Canada to the U.S.
I also like the people who think you can send a small, but yet large by postal standards item by regular mail for letter postage rates.
I just ignore them all.
eBay needs to build some sort of message filter to get rid of certain messages…
I always find the strategies different stores take to “refresh” or purge old inventory.
Everyone seems to use color-coded tags – the difference is what they do with them.
Most of the bigger chains stores (Goodwill, Value Village, Savers) just pull old inventory off the shelf and get rid of it. Must be a reason why they don’t want to sell it off at a cheaper price.
I like the stores that offer a discount – some 50%, some 75% on different colored tags. It’s always exciting to find something overlooked, or originally overpriced, for a better price. It also lets the customer clean out the stale items, instead of paying staff to do it.
There is a thrift store I go to occasionally that is independent, but has lots of items with Value Village tags on them. They just charge what the tag says.
There was an episode of a TV show in Canada called “Marketplace” on CBC that showed what happens to all the “stale” merchandise at Value Village and Goodwill – they just bundle it up in bails or bins and sell it bulk – usually to third world countries. I just assumed this store was buying it that way and keeping it local, with no need to price.
I’ve gone in the hole on my PayPal account in the past, no issues as it would be made a positive balance in a couple days through sales. They didn’t bother to withdraw money from my bank account (I do not have anything else linked to it).
PayPal recently changed my account (supposedly due to my reputation and history) in that they no longer debit my account and put the funds on “hold” if a buyer has an issue until the issue is resolved.
03/05/2019 at 1:57 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 401: You Don’t Have To Quit Your Job To Sell On eBay #58169As someone who lives on the border and crosses into the U.S. often, it’s always an interesting experience at customs.
The random inspections are always interesting. I’ve had dogs go through my car, I’ve had my car gone through by multiple customs agents, and been questioned about my intentions numerous times. I’ve been questioned in a room with a nice couch and ESPN on, all the way to what essentially was a jail cell on the American side. All just random routine stuff when you are a regular and they want to make sure you are honest. Even with Nexus I still get pulled over to the side for further inspection 1 out of 20 trips. Everyone is friendly as long as you are honest with them – but I do enjoy seeing what happens to dishonest people while waiting…
The Canadian side is all about taxes and weapons – bring back whatever you want as long as it isn’t a gun, stun gun, pepper spray, or weird knives, and they’ll tax you on the rest…
I always thrifted or bought second-hand from places like pawn shops as a teen in the early 90s – why pay full retail when you can get some clothes, CD’s, video games, etc. for a lot cheaper?
I remember when I was in my early 20’s having a woman approach me and making comments on my outfit. She said I looked really good and not like the other guys at the bar/club that all had Walmart clothes on. Little did she realize that the clothes were from the thrift store!
There is some stigma people have – they feel like thrifting is below them for some reason, and I’ve been mocked repeatedly in my life for my thrifty ways. I always think those that thrift are smart, resourceful, and more successful than those who mock it.
Like the articles posted here, the Toronto Star had one today and one of the comments was that the person shops thrift, but is embarrassed to be seen with bags from the thrift store. Be proud of it! All of us Scavengers will have the last laugh at those with luxury cars, huge mortgages, and consumer debt one day…
I’m curious in the psychology of some people coming up with these stories…I don’t understand it. Why not be succinct as a buyer and just straight up state “Will you take $XX” and leave it at that?
I don’t trust anyone (ebay or in the world) that has a story that goes along with a totally unrelated request.
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