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03/04/2019 at 3:58 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 401: You Don’t Have To Quit Your Job To Sell On eBay #58099
They don’t know what happened. The theory is that a virus lowered his seizure threshold. This is the second time he has has a neurological episode after a virus (the first time he was 3 and presented painful neuropathy in hands and feet). Hopefully he grows out of it. In the meantime we’ll keep living on edge waiting for the other shoe to drop just like we have since he was 3. Otherwise he is a perfectly healthy guy. We just hope it stays that way.
03/04/2019 at 11:26 am in reply to: Holy sticker shock Batman! 14oz 1st class package cost buyer $7.85! #58055This was posted farther up the thread:
USPS 2019 Shipping Rate Changes: Flat Rate, Priority, First Class, w/Tables
When I dropped my packages off at the post office I had a conversation with the post master and they checked their system.
03/04/2019 at 10:51 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 401: You Don’t Have To Quit Your Job To Sell On eBay #58052Items in Store 1056
Items Sold 19
Total Sales $577.00
COGS $58.00
Total Profit $519.00
Average profit $27.32
Average sales price $30.37
New Listings 11Ebay has been taking a back seat the last couple weeks for me. I’m doing the bare minimum at home, and doing all my drafts during breaks and lunch at work. Family life is really busy right now, especially with new baby due in April.
Normally I wake up on Saturday mornings and work for 2-3 hours. Since January we’ve had basketball games at 8am every Saturday. Ugh….who thought it would be a good idea to have 5 year olds play basketball at 8am on a Saturday…Anyways, this past weekend was the last of it so next weekend I should be able to go back to my old schedule.
03/04/2019 at 10:25 am in reply to: Holy sticker shock Batman! 14oz 1st class package cost buyer $7.85! #58050That’s not the issue here. Ebay is supposed to charge the normal walk-up rates and then we get the discount difference. Here, ebay is overcharging customers above and beyond the retail rates for 1st class shipping.
On the classic shipping screen you get three numbers: What the buyer paid, what undiscounted shipping is, and what your discounted rate is. If you do not change the weight or size from what the calculated shipping was based on, the 1st two numbers should be the same. That is not the case here.
03/04/2019 at 7:50 am in reply to: Holy sticker shock Batman! 14oz 1st class package cost buyer $7.85! #58034I talked to the post master at my local post office about this issue and had them check their system what the price should be. They confirmed that 5.53 price as well.
03/03/2019 at 8:26 pm in reply to: Holy sticker shock Batman! 14oz 1st class package cost buyer $7.85! #58032It is really starting to bother me that my eBay customers are in many cases paying $20 for shipping when the same item would be under $7 on Poshmark. Why hasn’t ebay negotiated a good deal with a carrier…or have they and they are pocketing the savings.
03/03/2019 at 5:23 pm in reply to: Holy sticker shock Batman! 14oz 1st class package cost buyer $7.85! #58030There is something wrong with eBay. 1st class does NOT actually cost this much even with the new zoning rates.
Rawlings was the official supplier of MLB from 87-91. Those are the years of your jersey.
I often get offers on items with the “ending soon” tag. A lot of buyers don’t realize that the clock will just reset once it ticks down.
This may be the best update ebay has had.
-Defaulting to GTC is good in my opinion
-They are adding the ability to edit on the fly in active listings.
-They FIXED the new shipping page!!! Fed Ex AND drop down menus for choosing your option. When I saw the drop down menu last night, I swear the lights got brighter and I heard angels singing “Hallelujah”.Maybe there is hope for ebay after all…
This to me resembles Vaporwave art.
I would definitely include vaporwave as a keyword and put a $50+ price tag on it.02/27/2019 at 1:32 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 400: Tax Season Advice for Newbies from Strangers On The Internet #57790You can get battery banks for portable devices dirt cheap now. I also have 3 laptops in the house that I can use to charge my phones. I battery backup can keep a laptop powered for quite a while as well. There are plenty of options if you suffer from power outages.
At our old house we had a lot so I installed a transfer switch so my generator could be seamlessly integrated with our house.
I have that switch still (pulled it before moving), but I’ve never installed it here because we very rarely have outages.02/27/2019 at 11:57 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 400: Tax Season Advice for Newbies from Strangers On The Internet #57786I don’t recall what brand- I’ll have to look at home. I just buy an 8oz bottle from the local health foods store for like $20. Eventually I’ll start making my own from dried berries.
02/27/2019 at 10:45 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 400: Tax Season Advice for Newbies from Strangers On The Internet #57782This is a good time to have a mobile hot spot. You can add hot spot to your existing phone with many service providers. You could also just buy a straight talk hot spot device and keep a $10 hot spot service card for an emergency. That way you always have internet even if your service goes out.
02/27/2019 at 8:53 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 400: Tax Season Advice for Newbies from Strangers On The Internet #57777Strikes me that a big drawback of ebay is the lousy tax implications of ostensibly HUGE profit margins on paper without commensurate expenses. Your expenses are primarily your time – which is not deductible! This is one reason why hiring employees is appealing – suddenly all that labour cost becomes deductible. J&R, were the tax implications of hiring a helper a significant part of what attracted you to that path? Myself, I would if I could but listing and shipping is not a big bottleneck for me so it makes little sense.
I think you meant “asset” instead of “drawback”. 😉
Let’s reframe the conversation: I’m offering you a business proposal. This business will be incredibly low risk. You will average 10 to 1 profit margins on each item. You will sell 1000 items at a VERY conservative average time investment of 30 minutes per item for a total time investment of 500 hours (10 hours per week).You have ZERO overhead and can run the entire business out of your garage. You will make $25000 net profit at the end of the year. The only thing is that you have no expenses so you will pay 25% tax on this. You’ll net $18750.
Framed such as this, would anyone turn this deal down. No!!!! Who gives a crap about that 25% in taxes – that is nothing. You’re still making almost $40 an hour. This is similar to the “get rich quick from your couch” schemes except it is REAL. And the best part, it isn’t even accurate because there ARE expenses.
As a small home business we have the opportunity to deduct our everyday lives by integrating work and personal business. I have yearly sales around $25k and my expenses are usually right at $25k as well. Did I REALLY have 25k in expenses? Not really. Because I merge business with personal though, practically everything I would be spending/doing anyway becomes deductible at some level. My home, my car, my phone, my computer,my trips to Wal-Mart, etc.
BUT…spending money frivolously with the sole purpose of reducing my tax burden? That is silly. That is like burning a dollar to collect a quarter.
Seriously though, there is such a fundamental misunderstanding of taxes in this country. From the counter intuitive theory of “spend more to pay less tax” to the incredible fallacy of thinking a tax return is free money. Taxes are not the scary enemy many folks make them out to be. I LOVE doing taxes – it is fun!
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