Positive Thinking.

Well, the pipe's fixed. There is a hole in my kitchen ceiling from where they had to cut it out to get to the toilet drain, but I can live with that until we fix it next week. Addy's still yucky, but she hasn't thrown up since this morning and she's managed to keep down two bottles. Tyler took the day off and took her to the doctor and he thinks it's just a virus and should be good in day or two. The good news is her ears are better and her nose looks good, so that's something.

I've had about $40.00 worth of sales today, some romance books (BIN), Hello Kitty slippers and a Starbucks mug, both auction. That takes me to $170-ish for this week. I'm at 91 listings, most of those are from going back through July and August and relisting some stuff I'd given up on. We'll see how that goes. I'm trying SO HARD to be positive about this stuff and just remember that it's not personal and I just have to hope that every day will be more successful than the last! I don't think I'm yard sale-ing tomorrow, considering the baby being sick, but I'm sure I'll get out to a thrift store or two.

If you're going to yard sales tomorrow, good luck! And dress warm!

Yuck.

So this whole leaky pipe thing is starting to kill me. Our persnickety landlord was here all day with two plumbers who were apparently trying to swindle him by wanting to do the job properly. After they left, we were dealing with a puking baby and went to clean her off and, lo! No water. They forgot to turn it back on. Tyler called the plumber over an hour ago and they're apparently sending someone out, but they haven't shown yet. We tried to turn it back on ourselves, but the sinks still won't run.

Addy has thrown up twice tonight. Not just spit-up, but full on puke. I had a minor breakdown, but the doctor finally called us back and said to keep an eye on her and give her Pedialyte for the next 12 hours. She's not mad about it, and she's not running a fever, but it's pretty disconcerting. She's asleep right now, thank goodness.

And not that I've really had time to mess with eBay, but I know nothing has sold today. These have been the worst two weeks ever resale-wise for me, so I'm pretty discouraged. Also all this stuff makes me feel a little crazy inside.

Good times.

Goal update

85 listings.

We've had a setback. While hunting for some espresso cups Tyler bought at the GW a couple weeks ago, we realized our upstairs bathroom drain pipe that runs through our dining room closet (why?) has a giant crack in it. No inventory got wet, but most of Tyler's tools did and some of our winter coats. So now our dining room is in more disarray than usual, and our landlord (who is decidedly NOT a plumber) is probably going to come to town to stick Mighty Putty in it so he doesn't have to pay someone to fix it properly.

We didn't find the cups.

New Goals

Ok, rethinking this goal thing. Decided I do not want to be questioning my worth as a human being just because of low eBay sales. So I'm going to go with: get 100 things listed by the end of the week. I'm not really even sure if I have 30 more things to list, but I'll try. I guess my goal should actually be: list a crap ton of stuff by Friday. It'll be mostly books, but I do have some stuff that was up in July and August that I gave up on and has just been chilling in inconvenient places.

Total listed now: 74

Yard Sale Tales: 9/24/2011 edition.

Wow, I haven't written much this week. I wish I could say it's because I've been so busy making money. I wish I could say that I've been so swamped with items to ship, I just haven't had the time. Unfortunately, I can't say that. This week has been depressingly slow for me, especially considering the fact that I went into it with such high goals. I've just been busy licking my wounds.

I've kept an average of 70 items listed in my store in a wide range of categories. I also feel like this is the best quality stuff I've ever had listed. I've got good books, NWT clothes (in plus sizes, too!), nice vintage housewares and some great shoes. Where are my buyers?

Today I got an offer on some Allen Edmonds shoes Tyler picked up for $3.00 a few weeks ago at a yard sale. I had them at $62.99 OBO and accepted an offer of $46.00. I also sold a book today. Other than that, this week's sales total about $40.00. *sigh*.

I took yesterday off work to take Addy to the doctor for a breakout she has on her legs. After having him basically tell me "I don't know what this is." I figured out that it's the cleaner I use on her Bumbo seat. I felt like a genius. After the doctor's appointment, I took her to my parent's and went to Goodwill. Our two local GW's were basically cleaned out! I got a few things, but nothing big. Hopefully some rich people decide to donate some stuff soon.

We went to five yard sales this morning with baby. She did great! The first one we went to was kind of a bust. I got two Christmas Tervis mugs for $2.00 total. Haven't gotten them out of the car yet.

The next one was a neighborhood yard sale in an unofficial retirement community. Really nice duplexes out in the county. All the people were super nice and totally in love with the baby. I decided we need to move to a place like that. We basically behave like 80 year olds, anyway. Being surrounded by doting elderly people sounds kind of nice. Especially considering we currently live near crackheads. Not kidding. Real crackheads. We found a few things there:

There was one lady with a ton of quilting stuff. Fabric's been treating me well lately, so I grabbed three yards of this. I loved the pattern and figure someone can do some cool Christmas craft (alliteration, anyone?) with it.

I also got some McCall's American Girl doll sewing patterns for clothes and accessories.

Completeds show that these will sell. I have about five more. They all appear to be uncut except for the one I was really excited about, which was Disney princess costumes. It's cut to pieces. I'm putting a couple of them in lots and doing a couple more separately.

At the same house, there was a bunch of doll clothes accessories, like snaps, zippers and stuff like that. I grabbed some up (they were only .10) and I'll put them as a lot.

I also found Alf! I was so excited to find him! I found this 18" plush by Alien Productions and a smaller version that does not have a tag. I knew the big guy was a good find from eBay underground, but since he had a buddy, I couldn't pass up the smaller one, too. I'll do them separately.

The other yard sales weren't too fruitful, so that's about it. We got a few more things, but I haven't had time to take pictures of them yet. My only goal for next week is to overcome this terrible slump!

Linking up with Coupon Tipster!

Goooooaaaaals!!!

So I decided to actually set an income goal for this week. We've saved up pretty much all we need to cover Addy's daycare until January when she can be switched to Tyler's insurance and I'll start getting a normal paycheck again (her insurance is $400! Crazy). So I've decided that we need to get out of town. We're planning a Christmas shopping trip to Pigeon Forge and the outlets there with money out of our Christmas Club account, but I would like to get away for a long weekend where we don't have to worry about what to buy my nieces and nephews.

I want to make $400-500.00 this week. Now, how do I go about doing it? I've read some blogs where people set a goal and almost willed it to happen and it happened! How does one do that? Sacrificing 1980's stuffed animals to the eBay Gods? Doing a "please bid on my stuff" dance? I understand that one must have lots of stuff listed, and I do. I'm at 68 listings right now, which is the most ever and a bit overwhelming. I think my prices are fair and I've embraced free shipping for most BIN items and even a few auctions. I've got lots of Best Offers listings, too. So...now what?

Let me just say that the ultimate goal is still to have a bookstore. I'm selling books like a maniac on eBay, which makes me happy, because they're so easy to ship. The more ultimate goal is for me to not have to teach. After our vacation, we plan on putting all eBay profits into our down payment account. We are currently renting a very nice house, but the rent is CUH-RAZY and a mortgage payment on a no-frills 3 bedroom house in our area would actually save us upwards of $300 a month. This would put us many steps closer to me not having to work.

It's not that I don't like my job (although some days I hate it, but who doesn't?), it's that I just wasn't made to do it. I get along with middle-schoolers well, but effective discipline has always escaped me and I just don't have the organizational skills needed to keep up with mountains of papers. The education major was simply out of necessity when I realized I didn't have a clue as to what to do with a Biology major by itself. The hours are sweet, the summers off are great and I really like my co-workers. But I can't do it much longer. This is my 5th year and I would be thrilled if I didn't have to have a 7th. If I could pull in around $400 a week, we would be good. $500 a week and we'd be set.

If I could come close to my goal this week, I would be so excited! Fingers crossed!

Yard Sale Tales: 9/17/2011 edition.

So I went it alone yesterday. We have a festival here called Rhythm and Roots and Tyler always volunteers for a few hours and his shift was 8-1 yesterday. I dropped the baby off at my parent's and headed out with the route he had planned for me.

I am really bad with directions. I went to the ones I felt like trying to find, which was three and while I thought I had found some great stuff, once I checked the completeds, most of it turned out to be a bust. They were pretty much all run by the elderly. The first one was two 80 year old ladies under a tarp (it was raining), where I got a Cabbage Patch doll and a charging station by Stafford, a brand that makes gift items sold by Belk. I thought "oh, a Cabbage Patch doll! An original one! What a find!" Until I got home and realized that if they do sell, it's for about $5.00. Boo. I haven't even lugged the charging station out of the car. It's a dark wood color with lots of little compartments, so we might hang on to it. Spent $5.00

The next one was a very busy estate sale. Normally, I assume that when kids are having an estate sale, their parents are dead. Not so here. They were talking about how she's in an assisted living home and "won't be coming back". Later, I told Adelaide that if she did that to me, I'd haunt her. Selling all her stuff while she's still kicking? As Stephanie Tanner would say, how rude!

I still bought stuff there, though.

The lady was a quilter and had TONS of fabric. It would have taken all day just to go through it and this big, sweaty guy who I assumed was her son decided to stand over me the whole time I was there. I loved this penguin fabric, though and there's over 3 yards worth of it. If I were crafty, I'd keep it.

There was 2 yards worth of this teddy bear fabric. I figure it'd be cute for a baby blanket or something...you know, for someone who does that sort of thing.

There were a ton of mugs. No cool ones, except for some from Walt Disney World. I grabbed this one and some footed milk glass mugs that said "Mom" and "Dad" and had the Cinderella castle on them. For some reason I haven't uploaded pics of those yet.

I can't tell you how much stuff was in this house. A lot. I also got a Pyrex baking dish, some old cookie cutters (come to think of it, I haven't looked those up yet) and about 5 books, some of them large print. I hope her kids use the money they made to do something nice for their mother. They won't, though. I spent $17.00 total

Feeling slightly dirty and sad, I left the estate sale and went to one out in the county. It was on a street with no street sign in a cinder block shed and it was run by an old woman and her Papillion dog. She must have had a flea market stall at one time because there was A TON of stuff, all covered in cobwebs. Again, it would take days to properly assess all of her things, and there were lots of Barbies still in their boxes, but she wouldn't take less than $20 for any of the good ones.

Something about me must have screamed "I'm going to buy your things and sell them on eBay", because she was quick to point me towards these beauties, sitting on a shelf in a corner, saying "those sell for a lot. I've looked them up.":
They're the 12 days of Christmas, made by the Indiana Glass Company in the 1980's. They're all here and they're all in wonderful shape. These are very cool items and although the completeds aren't too promising, the one that sold for $49.99 is giving me hope. They were only $7.00, so it's not like I'm in too deep with them. I also found a Pyrex butter dish that was the same pattern as the dish I bought at the estate sale!

As I was leaving, I spotted a Barbie box sticking out of a cardboard box that said "The Carol Burnett Show Went With The Wind". I rushed over to it and saw this:
It's from the episode where they make fun of Gone With The Wind and she wears the curtain dress. I was a TV Land addict when I was little and I remember watching this and laughing hysterically at it with my mother. I guess I was still feeling bad for mothers everywhere from that estate sale, so I got it for my mom for $10.00 she was thrilled.

Total spent for the day: $40.00. That's actually the smallest amount I've spent at yard sales in a while!

Today I went to Goodwill and got a few things, but I'll post about those later! Linking up with Amy at Coupon Tipster. Have a good week, ya'll.

What it sold for

This week has been my best BIN week. I figure this could either be because of the store or because of the fact I have triple the BIN stuff I usually have because of my books. Either way, I'm happy!

After reading some other blogs and the eBay magazine I got in the mail this week I decided to go through my listings and make all BIN with free shipping.

Did anyone else get this in the mail? Pretty much every page said "offer free shipping or else no one will buy from you EVERRRR." Or something like that.

I don't know if this jump-started my sales, either, but I'm sure it didn't hurt! Sure, I've got some of my books very cheap and since I'm paying for shipping, I'm not making too much, but I am making something and that makes me happy. Here's some numbers:

*Storm Trooper costume from my last post: Paid $8.99, sold for $19.99 plus shipping

*Game of Thrones Hardback book: Paid $1.00, sold for $15.99 free shipping

*Water for Elephants paperback: Paid $.50, sold for $3.45 free shipping

*Gymboree Strawberry Fairy costume: Paid $6.00, sold for $17.99 free shipping

*Sopranos Cookbook: we already owned this, sold for $6.45 free shipping

*Clairol quick lift heated pins: Paid $2.97, sold for $9.99 free shipping (not much profit here)

*Clairol hot rollers: Paid $1.00, sold for $13.99 free shipping

*Paula Deen cookbook: already owned this, sold for $7.99 free shipping

*Harry Potter History of Quidditch: Paid $1.00, sold for $10.99 free shipping

*Brown Stromberg-Carlson rotary phone: Paid $2.00, sold for $29.99 free shipping

*Lot of The Clique books: Paid approx $2.00 for 11 books, sold for $9.99 plus shipping

And there's actually others, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head and I'm too lazy to go get my records book, plus my computer is about to die. Hope you all had a good sales week, too and good luck at the yard sales tomorrow!

PS- Since Yard Sale Mommy is MIA, does anyone know any other good link-ups for yard sale finds? Thanks!

Too much.

There is simply too much stuff to do. Between working and being a mommy, listing (and especially shipping) has started to pile up on me. It's been a really stressful couple of days. I do have 61 things listed, which is something, I suppose. I imagined that once I opened a store, my views would skyrocket, if not my actual sales, but I feel like they really haven't. I'm kind of left wondering why I opened one in the first place. I guess I'll just give it time.

I felt sort of lost without my usual "stuff" this weekend, so I took the baby to Goodwill on Sunday and was excited to find some Star Wars stuff. eBay is promoting the release of the whole Star Wars series on Blu Ray, so I thought I'd capitalize on that. I also made sure to pick up Star Wars books at the book sales this weekend, no takers so far.

This pretty much sold immediately. I paid $8.99 for it, and it sold overnight for $19.99.

Star Wars curtains. I listed them as either curtains or crafting fabric, starting the bid at what I paid for them which was $7.97. They've been bid on with three watchers so far.

I got a few other things, for a whopping total of $34.99, which is the most I've ever spent at Goodwill before. We'll see if I can make it back!

What am I supposed to do with all this?

What...I'm supposed to sell this stuff? All of this stuff? And I have to take pictures of it individually? Hm. You think I could just post this picture for all of my books and say "Oh, it's the third one down in that middle pile. You can't see it, but it's in real good shape." The two flat boxes are harlequin romances. They were $5.00 a box and sell relatively well (people really like the Blaze series, which is apparently raunchy. Of course, I didn't grab one of those boxes because my intuition is crappy). Upon looking up completeds for my other books, I realize I should have just bought a few more flats of romances. Except the old man who was checking me out when I bought these kept cracking jokes about them.

I've done about 10 new books listings since I opened my store last night. When I'm not trying to figure out the nicest way to say "this book is old", I'm dealing with a teething baby.

Since she's been so fussy and can't seem to tell me why, I took her for a walk this morning and went to my parent's house (they're like five blocks from us, a blessing and a curse). Mom's trying to pawn her Mary Higgins Clark books off on me.

I know. You're thinking, this child is adorable and looks so happy. How could it be that she's been fussy for about 14 hours straight? Well, it's true.

So there.

eBay Store

Image by Cool Text: Free Graphics Generator - Edit Image

I have opened one! So far, I hate it. Pictures of our ludicrous amount of books tomorrow! So far, it would seem our "book intuition" sucks.

Don't hate on the store. I know it's ghetto. I'm working on it.

Book Sale

So tomorrow Tyler and I are going to Roanoke two hours away for a big book sale. Actually, two big book sales. One's at the Roanoke mall and one's in Salem, which is basically the next town over. I really have no idea how much money to take to these things. I don't know what to expect, either. The one in Roanoke says it has over 20,000 books...amazing...but will I have to dig through boxes of these bad boys? We'll see.

My books have been doing well this week! Here's what I sold:
*On the Road by Jack Kerouac Original Scroll 1st edition - $16.99 (I tried to read this but just couldn't)
* The Long Run by Matt Long - $10.92
* New Nancy Drew books #'s 1-6 - $18.99
* Fun Funky Things to Draw - $10.99
* Hello Cupcake decorating book - $5.99
And I have a Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows first edition that's being bid on right now. I tried to examine these and see a pattern but I didn't see squat. A mix of non-fiction, cook books and fiction kid's books? Hm.

I've read a lot of stuff that says at first, selling books on eBay is intuition. I have that about some things, but with old books I have no clue. I saw an old Poster Art book for sale at our local library a few weeks ago. It was from the '60s and I thought it was pretty cool, something that would go for maybe $20-ish, but I got home and checked completeds and, nada. Luckily I didn't buy it.

My boy's Remington hunting coat sold for $24.00 today, too! Hurray!

I'll be sure to rant/rave about the book sale tomorrow!

WHAT IS THIS?

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Nevermind.
Ok, so I uploaded a picture onto here, pasted the address, wrote the description and it gave me some crazy preview page then I clicked "add listing" and it said there was an error, so I went back through it and everything was normal again. Whew. I had a minor freak out moment. The whole listing page was CRAZY. I hope that's not some new thing. Anyone else seen this?

Why didn't that sell??

Have you ever had an item where, when you picked it up, you thought "this is it! This is going to do so well!" And then it doesn't? And you have relist it umpteen times and even then you just want to put "PLEASE BUY THIS I WANT IT GONE" in the title?

Yeah, I have like five of those right now.

1) My collection of Clique books. I had a ton of views and a couple of watchers. I started the auction at $11.99 and then I actually lowered it to $9.99 and all my watchers left. What?

2) A great skating package I found at Goodwill. It's by Chicago, which is apparently a good brand. It's got some trainer inline skates and all the guards and helmet. I think my BIN price is reasonable at $22.99 so why doesn't anyone want it?


3) My boy's Remington hunting coat. It's in amazing shape, it's reversible and hunting season is upon us. I am really surprised at this one.
4) My NWT Gymboree Halloween costumes I discussed here. The Strawberry Fairy had 7 watchers when it ended, so I'm clueless. They were up for 30 days and I relisted them for another 30.

5) A few books that have sold well when I checked completeds, but for me, they're doing nada. My prices are right on with the completed listings, so I guess the buyers just don't like me.

What are some things you've got gathering dust that you thought would be flying right out of your house? Isn't it so frustrating?

eBay math

I guess it's just bugging me because it's so ridiculously rainy here, I've checked eBay more than I ever need to, but nothing has happened today. I don't think anyone new has even looked at my stuff. Which might not be true because I have 47 things listed and could not even tell you what half of them are.

Holiday+eBay= Forget about it.

Holiday+non-payers = Another excuse to not pay me.

(Cost of bubble wrap + shipping) - Cost I charged to ship some glass canisters = No profit for me!

On the bright side, I haven't done the final math yet, but I know I made at least $200 this week, so I think I'm out of the sales slump, but we'll see what this week holds!

Yard Sale Tales: 9/3/11 edition

So yesterday was OK. No toys to be had, but I did find lots of clothes, a few books and the cool mugs I was after. Behold:
This is a Stromberg Carlson rotary phone. It's sold for as much as $49.99! I figure it was a good investment for $2.00
Ceramic mugs made in Japan. Buddy, if you ever find tiki mugs like this (ugly, right?) you'd be crazy not to get them. Listed auction style for $9.99, paid about $.75 cents for them.

1970's Adlib game. I guess it was Scrabble's predecessor. No completeds on this, and I haven't listed it yet, but all the pieces are there and the box is in great condition. I'm taking suggestions on how to list it, so holla at me if you have any clue.

I picked up some men's Polo shirts, a few primitive style posters and Tyler got a sweet Timex vintage kitchen clock, a pair of Allen Edmonds shoes and some Fire King mugs. We'll see how these things do!

Selling books is boring.

So I have more BIN on my eBay selling page than I've ever had before and most of them are books. Usually when I have lots of kid's books, I do them as an auction, but with single books I figure it's better to just give them a reasonable BIN price based on their condition.

Now I love the feeling you get when you wake up and check your eBay and someone's bought one of your BIN items. It's a good adrenaline rush. I also like waking up to see that my auctions have had a bunch of bidders and I'm making good money. This morning I had none of that. My auctions haven't budged and no one's bought squat. Of the books I put up yesterday afternoon, no one's even looked at them. I know, I know...patience. Well, I have none of this.

I even went ahead and re-listed three of my books from last week and did them as 30 days instead of my usual 7. Ugh. It's torture.

I did sell another used, nonfiction book yesterday for a whopping $7.99, so whoooo.

Tyler's sick now and I'm still hacking like crazy, but we're going to try to get four yard sales in today. For some reason I'm feeling like buying some cool mugs.

Starting the day off with a nice dose of crazy.

I hate days where I go back to school after having a sub. You never know what kind of notes they'll leave you about how awful your kids were (and boy were mine RIDICULOUS). Before I even rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, though, I got on my email and saw this regarding a Gevalia coffeemaker I sold a couple weeks ago:

"There is a problem with your auction listing. You "forgot" to mention that the pot was defective.

The pot was listed as new and the claim was that it had never been used. I have very good close up vision, so I noticed right away that there was very light coffee staining in the cone (apparently used only a time or two, just enought times to realize that the pot was defective) but I really wasn't concerned about a few uses.

I wasn't concerned about the missing lid either as I had a lid from another pot that I could use. However, it does concern me that the reason the lid was missing is that the pot is defective--the drip spout is offset, thus water cannot drip into the cone through the lid properly.

I found this out this morning when I tried to use the pot and water was sizzling all over the heating plate. NOT WHAT I PAID FOR!

Being of a logical mind, I am left to conclude that the lid was "missing" in the hopes that the buyer would use the pot as sold, with the assumption that the buyer wouldn't have a lid to put on the pot.

This is totally unacceptable. I do expect a full refund including all shipping cost."

I had to read this a few times to understand what they were raving about, and although I'm still fuzzy on the details, I finally realized she seemed mildly unhappy with her purchase. I had gotten the coffeemaker from a coworker three years ago. She said she'd never used it, and I took her at her word and after it sat on my shelf for three years, I decided to list it. I listed it as new and didn't bother to check it's working order. I know nothing of Gevalia coffeemakers, but the first time I listed it, someone told me the cone lid was missing. So I ended the auction and re-listed stating the cone lid was missing. This person bought it and away it went. Hindsight is 20/20 and I realize I should have been more thorough in my investigation of this "never used" coffeemaker.

However. I was slightly flattered at all the malicious scheming the buyer had thought I put into this swindle. Look at me! I'm hoodwinking all the people out of their money with my clever no-cone-lid plan! I emailed her back and assured her this was not the case. I told her my story and immediately refunded her money. I also told her she could keep the thing or trash it, I don't care. She did apologize for immediately assuming the worst of me and I assume all is right in the world of cone lids and offset water dripper thingys.

Tonight's lesson: Check to see if your stuff works. No matter what.