Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
I just messaged him to say no thanks to the $50. Didn’t block him. If he comes back and reoffers the $60 I’ll check the feedback he leaves others before accepting it. I’ve had several buyers come back to me begging to buy after they pulled some lame negotiation maneuver and I cut them off.
I’m always open to fair negotiations if the person comes to their senses and acts like an adult.
03/15/2018 at 1:37 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 351: Being Frugal Is Not A Secret Club #35253I sold two Polo Ralph Lauren duffle bags to a Canadian buyer once. He complained about the GSP costs so I let him kick it out of GSP so I could ship them together. The Combined international shipping from me was MORE than two separate GSP shipping amounts.
03/14/2018 at 11:24 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 351: Being Frugal Is Not A Secret Club #35160Regarding College, I do not plan on blindly sending any of my children to college. Far too many people go to college “just because”. Sending my kids to college “just because”? Nope. Colleges pump out faaarrrr too many “educated idiots” for my liking these days. I’m not contributing to that problem. As a society we’re working on convincing the SECOND generation in a row that they are a failure in life if they don’t go to college straight out of high school. That is insanity!
My parents told me I better go to college. Of course they weren’t willing to spend any money for me to go though. Ironic huh? Luckily for me, I had a sound head on my shoulders and told myself in 8th grade I’d make straight A’s in high school and get a free ride to college. I did exactly as I said I would. I had several scholarships throughout college, worked a job, and later landed a co-op job at the corp of engineers which also paid my tuition. I literally got paid to go to college because I had more scholarships than tuition cost. I worked my way through college and finished my degree in Mechanical Engineering. Most people from my high school that went with me dropped out of college.
Now even though I have that coveted Engineering degree, Everywhere I have worked I have been out-earned by the skilled tradesmen that perform the work I oversee or specify. They also generaly have higher job satisfaction than I do. Granted it is their overtime that allows that, but I have worked plenty of overtime myself over the years without pay as a salary employee.
Back in the early 00’s, in-state college tuition was affordable. My first year in 99/00 it was $2440 per School year (1220 per semester). By the time I graduated in early 2005 it was $3932 a year (1966 per semester). Current in-state tuition at that same college is $8128 per year!
That’s just tuition. No books or room & board. Why would I encourage my kids to burden themselves with that kind of debt for jobs that likely aren’t even available when they get out?? Why would I burden myself with that kind of debt if my kid doesn’t even have the drive to earn scholarships to go for free or greatly reduced rates?
We homeschool and I encourage my kids to explore their interests. I tell them everyday that they don’t have to wait until they are an adult or a have piece of paper to make their mark on the world. I’d rather spend $50k investing in my child’s business than spend $50k on a college degree.
My measurement for success for my children is that they have at least one marketable skill or trade by the time they leave my care as well as knowing how to be self reliant and manage their affairs.
Now if my kids find themselves on a path that leads them to college after they gain some practical skills and knowledge, then I’ll be all for it and will help them if they need it.If something sounds too easy, I get skeptical.
Grab a pair of dirty shoes, don’t even clean off all the dirt, photograph, and sell for $50?See what I did there? 😉
I absolutely believe you can do the box lots. Why would you be skeptical after the literal thousands of pieces of junk you’ve sold?
03/13/2018 at 9:33 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 351: Being Frugal Is Not A Secret Club #35020I about died when I found the Coogi sweater – I couldn’t imagine finding a whole tub of them! I am soooo looking forward to yardsale season this year. Can’t wait to see what treasures I happen across. Thrift store scavenging is feeling kinda stale right now.
03/13/2018 at 8:35 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 351: Being Frugal Is Not A Secret Club #35016I literally change the bin location of items.
It is easy to condense bins in ebay. You just search items by custom label. That will pull up every item in a specific bin. With the edit slider on, you can change the custom label for each item.I don’t use sixbit, but I assume you should be able to sort on bin # and change individually as well.
Say Bin# A11 is getting low. I’ll pull it, search “custom label” field for A11 to pull up all the items in bin A11. I’ll then pull each item and drop them in another bin that has a bit of room and edit the custom label in ebay as I go. This also allows me to do a periodic inventory check to make sure everything is listed in the bin since I am completely emptying the bin.
This weekend I emptied 6 bins. I bring the empty bins back to my office to be loaded with fresh new listed inventory. The bin # will stay the same.
03/12/2018 at 1:58 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 351: Being Frugal Is Not A Secret Club #34905I have cut my wife’s hair multiple times. I HATE doing it because I’m afraid I’m gonna butcher it, but she says I do a good job. She prefers me over the salon because they do usually butcher it. Luckily she only gets a haircut once a year or so.
She cuts mine and all of the kids hair. She’s very good.
03/12/2018 at 1:28 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 351: Being Frugal Is Not A Secret Club #34903Items in Store 963
Items Sold 18
Total Sales $729.00
COGS $48.02
Total Profit $680.98
Average profit $37.83
Average sales price $40.50
Highest sale: Coogi Sweater for $250. Paid $4 at Goodwill for it.Man it was so fun to find and sell a Coogi sweater. I probably could have held out for more, but I’m happy with that amount.
Saturday the weather was better so I spent some time in my storage shed cleaning, organizing, and condensing listed bins. Does anyone else enjoy condensing bins? I love doing it! There’s just something satisfying about emptying a bin, making a stack of empty bins, and seeing nothing but full bins on the shelf. It is invigorating and makes me want to go list stuff!
Speaking of listing, I haven’t listed for almost 3 weeks. My pipeline keeps chugging out money to my pocket, which is quite nice.
Have a great week everyone.
03/12/2018 at 1:22 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 351: Being Frugal Is Not A Secret Club #34901We homeschool, my wife had our last two children at home with a midwife, and we run an ebay business selling dirty old used shoes. The “Oh I could never do that” attitude comes about with anything out of the social norm. We get that kind of reaction all the time. Most people are lazy, non-committal, and don’t want to take personal responsibility for their lives plain and simple. We’re more than willing to accept the responsibility and potential outcomes for our decisions. As they say, freedom ain’t free.
If we don’t have enough money we find a way to make more. If we can’t afford something we find a way to get it cheaper, find a suitable alternative, or do without. That’s life.
We share our story with anyone who asks with complete honesty. I don’t think most people know how to process pure honesty in this day & age of get rich quick and lose weight fast schemes. If they don’t want to listen that’s fine with me. That just leaves more opportunities for us!
Items in Store 977
Items Sold 22
Total Sales $518.50
COGS $62.70
Total Profit $455.80
Average profit $20.72
Average sales price $23.57Had a couple of days with no sales this week. Not much to report really. Just another week. I’m excited for warmer weather and more daylight in the evening. I did start cleaning/organizing my storage shed this weekend. I have big plans for optimizing my storage and finally organizing my main work space in the garage.
I feel like I have seen one or two of these over time at goodwill. Doh!
Incorrect. I have a premium store and I get neither of those because I am not TRS. $100 insurance is 100% TRS only. Not TRS+, just TRS.
02/27/2018 at 3:34 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 349: Having A Huge Inventory Is Not The Goal, It’s The Strategy #34018One tub at a time. And then whenever you add things to that tub you already did, you just add the SKU to that item. I did mine one tub at a time. Eventually it was all done and implementing the system did not affect my old system as I went.
I really would love to see a video of you all finding your items. I gotta see this process, even if in a fast forward style video. I remember what it was like to find my items when I had a tub of brown shoes, black shoes, or womens shoes, etc. It was crap even when I only had a couple tubs of shoes. I couldn’t imagine doing that with 7000 items. My mind can’t even process it.
02/26/2018 at 1:05 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 349: Having A Huge Inventory Is Not The Goal, It’s The Strategy #33903J&R, you went through all of that effort to organize into bins your totes & bags…take the extra step to label the bins and throw a bin tag in the custom SKU of each item. You’ve already done the hard work, finish the last step!
This past Tuesday I was really sick lying on the cold floor of the bathroom for comfort. I was able to hand my phone to my wife with my ship list pulled up. She was able to go out into my storage shed and pull all of my items to ship easily. Keep in mind that I think my wife has only stepped foot in my shed maybe 3 times in 2.5 years. She had no idea what she was doing, and yet she was able to pull everything easily and within mere minutes.
02/26/2018 at 12:56 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 349: Having A Huge Inventory Is Not The Goal, It’s The Strategy #33901We have CNC mills where I work that still use floppy disks. Mechanically the machines are great – built like tanks.
We actually just bought two new CNC machines and they are between $200-400k each. That isn’t even with all the available options. So yeah, keep those floppy disks flowing as long as possible.
Eventually we’ll mothball and sell 1-2 of the older machines. A small mom & pop machine shop will HAPPILY buy them from us and then they will need to find parts and floppy disks for them for years.
-
AuthorPosts