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Stay strong, OMGFUG. Resist buying clothing! Think of all the returns!
I can’t think of anything that would compel me to go out on Black Friday.
I used to trash pick when I lived in an apartment in Birmingham, Al. It was in a “nice” neighborhood, so people threw away nice things. I kept most of it; I was just starting out and needed “stuff” for my place.
I got a set of ceramic cooking pots that were made in France, bolts of designer fabric, liquor (!!!), and a solid mahogany Victorian vanity table. The table wasn’t politely set next to the dumpster, either. It was *in* the dumpster, and I totally climbed in and pulled it out. The table wouldn’t fit in my car, so I dragged it across the apartment complex and up 3 flights of stairs. I eventually brought it to a furniture restorer to have a new mirror cut for it, and the receptionist offered me $1000 for it on the spot. I declined; I liked it too much. I’ve had it almost 20 years now, and I’ve moved it twice across the country. 🙂
This was 2 weeks ago, but I picked up a vintage Bucilla felt “jeweled” advent calendar kit for 50 cents, and sold it a few days ago for $100.
I went to an auction yesterday, and got a $5 box lot with some old pyrex, glasbake, etc bowls in it. Everything in the box was really dirty and sticky, so no one else dug into it. Two of the bowls are rare-ish promotional Fire King bowls from the 50s, and each sells for $60-80.
The only conversation my parents ever had with me about money was to tell me that just because I still have checks left in the book, it doesn’t mean I have money in the bank to back them up. That was it!
Needless to say, I discovered the hard way how insufficient that limited education turned out to be. While I have only bounced 2 checks in 26 years, I wish they would have answered my questions about money, budgets, and personal finance. I never knew how much money my parents made, how much rent/mortgage was, how much groceries cost. They would periodically yell that the phone bill was too high, so I needed to stop making so many calls, but refuse to let me see the bill. So how much is “too much”? What is a normal amount for a bill? What can we afford? How much do I need to cut back to make it affordable? 10%? 50%? 75? I never had any idea.
To this day, I have no idea what my mother’s financial situation is. She is 65. Does she have retirement savings? How much? Any long term care insurance? Is she getting anything from social security? No clue. She says it’s none of my business, which is what she told me as a teen when I asked. *shrug* Then I suppose you are on your own to sort it out in your “golden years”. In case it wasn’t obvious, my mother and I do not have a good relationship, for many reasons.
I have had to learn about money as an adult. There were many expensive mistakes made along the way. I try to do better for my son than what my parents did for me: I told him how much I make on ebay, how much daddy makes at his job. He will tell you that if we waste money, it’s like daddy having to work hard for nothing, and that’s not fair to daddy. He knows how much the mortgage is each month, and what a mortgage is. I give him the receipts at the grocery store and have him read it, and tell me what the items cost, and what our total is. We talk about credit cards and debit cards and how they work. When it’s time to buy things like first cars and pay for college, there will be many conversations about loans and interest rates, and cost vs benefit.
I hope that he will go out into the world with a better understanding than what I had. He is only 8, so we have some time. 🙂
Total Items in Store: 332
Items Sold: 20
Total Sales: $527.84
Cost of Items Sold: About $58
Average Price Sold: $26.35
Highest Price Item Sold: $100 (vintage Bucilla Felt Nativity Kit)
Number of items listed this week: 26I’ll be heading to one tomorrow. Fingers crossed it’s a good one, because I’m starting to make progress with my death piles. I’d like to get out for awhile, too. This election cycle has really left me feeling drained, (and that’s all that needs to be said about that).
I think it is the nature of certain homeschoolers. They are a little wary of “establishment”, plus they have heard all the stories of bad ebay sellers just waiting to rip them off. Some of them prefer supporting other moms, so they would rather “keep it in the family”.
Some selling groups are closed or private groups, and you have to ask to join. The admin might send you a brief message outlining the rules of the group, (posting frequency, deleting old posts, no general conversations, etc), and verifying you homeschool. Most want to avoid the group being spammed with sales pitches for essential oils, Shakeology shakes, LulaRoe Leggings, and all the other things that have become this generation’s Tupperware Parties. They try to keep it focused on items that are of interest to that community. So books and educational toys your kid no longer uses? Yes. Selling your toddler’s old winter coat or an old set of golf clubs? No.
There are reselling groups, mostly local groups that function kind of like Craigslist. Some people prefer them to Craigslist, because problem members can be easily blocked and booted from the group.
Some individuals also set up personal reselling groups, and invite people to join. I briefly set up a personal group to resell kids books, but abandoned it, because it required a lot of work for a low amount of profit.
There is no way for a buyer to select 10 books, (for example), and put them in a virtual shopping cart, and then check out. What the buyer sees is an album of photos, and they comment on each photo, saying “I want the Winnie the Pooh book, and the Thomas the Train book”. They have to do that for each picture, and comment on what they want. The group owner gets a notification, stating there was a comment on a photo. The owner then has to go to each comment, add up what the buyer wants, then message the buyer to ask for an email address, then send an invoice via Paypal. There’s all this back and forth, and usually for a low amount of money. You can spend several days chasing down $15. Not worth it, IMO.
I don’t think you should feel bad. You are running a business, not a charity. The market will currently support $140 for that game system. You earned it.
I didn’t feel bad this past summer when I bought a bunch of talking Chewbacca masks for $30 each, and flipped them for $75 a piece. The profit paid for my dog’s surgery!
It is very helpful. Now I have some specific things to try!
We have some lamps in the garage that sound like they could work, (they have a clip on the bottom and a gooseneck). I think we also have a dimmer switch, so I can play around with that, a bit.
Thank you!
I have used facebook to sell books and used homeschool curriculum. I accept payment via paypal, and ship via usps. I avoid local pick up, because most people flake out, and no sale results.
Pro:
No ebay fees, just paypal, which means more profit for meI often get higher prices for curriculum and educational toys than what I would get on ebay. This particular market is often wary of ebay, and is willing to pay a premium to buy from a mom like them, rather than an ebay seller.
Cons:
I have to actively promote my listings. Each forum has it’s own rules for how often you can refresh a listing, how many listings you can have, how many posts in a week, etc. Resellers are often forbidden.
There is a lot of back and forth between seller and potential buyers. It is not a streamlined process at all.
No decent search function in the groups makes it hard for buyers to find your items.
Skycam, most rooms in my house only have one window, plus an overhead light. I have some lamps I can bring in for “spot” lighting, but then I’m dealing with odd shadows being cast.
We REALLY need to paint our master bedroom, because the current color casts a really ugly hue onto everything. The carpet is brown and the walls are this really hideous blue-green. We just haven’t gotten around to painting it yet. :/ The rest of the house has white tile for flooring, which doesn’t look great for pictures if you are trying to take a picture of a white tablecloth or lace curtains. 🙂
I usually take pictures outside, and since I am in south Texas, I can do that year round and not freeze my butt off!
Ew.
The weirdest request I got was from a bona fide crazy cat lady. I sold her a mug with a cat on it. The cat on the mug had yellow eyes, and she did not like that.
She repeatedly wrote me rambling messages about the eyes being wrong, and her cat was dead, and she wanted the mug because it looked like her dead cat, but the eyes were wrong, so she painted the eyes, because they were wrong!, but the paint job looked bad, so she threw away the mug, and oh-by-the-way, can I please acquire a new mug for her, with eyes that are not wrong.
Because her cat died, and it had green eyes, and the cat on the mug has yellow eyes, and….
She was the only buyer that I actually worried might show up at my door, because her mailing address was only an hour away from my home. Refund, block, report.
I only do this with things that require uniquely-sized boxes, or would take a long time to pack, because I don’t want to do a last minute scramble. The rug loom I recently sold comes to mind. I don’t seal the box, though.
