Happy new year's! And a chart!

I figured things would be slow this weekend, and so far, I have not been disappointed.  That's just as well, though, since I have several things to ship out on Monday and I hate packing stuff up.  I do hold out hope that some drunk people will get online at like 3 in the morning and decide to buy some of my stuff...and pay immediately, of course.

Here's some stuff I've sold recently:

100% Cashmere sweater by J. Crew, men's large.  Picked up for $1.75 at Salvation Army sold in under 12 hours for $24.99.

 Men's red and white gingham Ralph Lauren Polo shirt, men's size 15 (smallish), Salvation Army for $1.75 sold overnight for $17.99.

Men's Ralph Lauren "big shirt", size XL, another Salvation Army find for $1.75, sold overnight for $19.99.

Do you see a pattern?  People think women are doing a lot of the shopping on eBay, and maybe they are, but it's not always for themselves.  I know some sellers shy away from clothes, but I've never understood why.  These have been some of the fastest selling items I've had up in a while.  I know this isn't common knowledge, but did you know men hate to shop in stores?  They hate to try stuff on?  They would rather push a button and be done with it already!  I've always thought I should do a tutorial on men's clothing, since it seems to be one of the few things I have a good handle on.  So I made a chart.

I'm not going to lie to you, I'm pretty proud of this. Please note, there is no "NO" leading from the "does it have a pony?" box because if it's Polo and doesn't have a pony, you might as well forget it.

I went to the flea market today.  I will post pics of that stuff tomorrow.  Here's to lots of money in 2012!

There is a disturbance in the Force.

Something is going on with my new eBay listings.  Usually, the minute I post, there is 1 view for every new item.  I always assumed it was some eBay droid checking to make sure I didn't break any laws or whatever.  Last night and tonight that hasn't happened.  Stuff that should get views gets no views.  Then, if I end the listing and do a "sell similar", that 1 view shows up immediately.  This is weird.  I swear, if I've fallen into the black hole I was in during the fall, I will be really upset.

I've got stuff to talk about, but I'm going to bed.  I'll talk about it tomorrow.  Good night!

Sick and tired

I'm sick. I don't know what it is, but I feel like crap. Also, baby has decided not to sleep in her crib. I guess it's from where she was sick and we let her sleep with us when she wouldn't go back to sleep last week. We don't have what it takes to let her cry it out, but it's easy to get frustrated. She slept with us for about three hours last night.

She has no problem sleeping in her crib during naps, so it's weird that she freaks out at night.

Anyway. I have several things to pack, but my ribs and back are so sore from coughing that just the thought of it makes me tired. The person who bought my Wii on Sunday finally paid.  So here's some other stuff I sold:

 I actually bought this cardigan for me for $1.00 at a rich people yard sale.  It was 100% shetland wool and I couldn't wear it for longer than 2 minutes without wanting to tear my skin off.  So I put it up $40.00 OBO and it sold within 12 hours for $30.00.  Not bad.

Good Lord, this is a dreadful picture.  I take better pictures than this now.  This is from August.  They finally sold for $29.99.  They're Allen Edmond's.

This is one of those sales that reminds me that I'm an idiot sometimes.  I really liked this coat and it fit me and so I kind of wanted to keep it.  It's Ralph Lauren and I paid $1.00 for it.  I figured people would really want this, so I did an auction at $.99 with the option to BIN for $29.99.  Well, it sold it for a lousy $2.00.  I should have just kept it.

Mom donated some Fenton cats to me yesterday, so I have those up for varying prices.  I'll talk about them later....getting weak...urgh...

Business magnets!

Lookit at what I ordered!  I am excited.  I only ordered 25.  It's a magnet!  I mean, I know I throw away business cards, but if I got a nice magnet, I would stick that junk on the fridge.  Maybe one day, someone will look at their fridge and think "oh, I really liked that whatever I bought from her.  I should see what else she has.  I wonder if the milk's still good."

I got them from www.vistaprint.com (they take paypal, which is important) after an hour of agonizing over the designs. 

Christmas Hangover, sales and a BOLO

Ugh.  Baby's still sick.  Having a child be sick on their first Christmas is the definition of mommy torture.  You've planned this day since last Christmas, imagining the way her eyes will light up with every present, how she'll play with the boxes, the way she'll squeal with delight when she realizes mommy and daddy don't have anywhere to put her new toys.  You don't picture her throwing up the night before or having to take a break during present-opening to take a nap or her trying to play but then just plopping down resignedly and yelling for her mama.  It's heart-breaking.

Our Christmas was good, though.  We seriously have approximately 20 toys too many and I must buy a cube storage thing at Target today.  I'm going with my mother-and-sister-in-law at 8:30 to fight people for leftover wrapping paper.  I also need to get some Tupperware containers for my eBay crap.  Between that stuff and her toys, we're totally drowning over here. 

You know, I had some auctions ending yesterday and I was nervous about them.  They were potentially high-dollar items and I wanted to get everything out of them that I could, and I think I did!  Here's what I sold:

 All of this stuff was stuff we already owned.  Tyler bought these P90X DVDs a couple years ago, and we used them, just not very much.  None of them are scratched and somehow I managed not to lose any of them.  I didn't think they'd go very high without the guidebooks, but they ended at $102 + free shipping and the buyer's already paid!  Also, if you just find one of the DVDs, some of them can go alone for a very good price.  Check out the Ab Ripper X disc by itself!

Ever since baby was born, we've not even turned the Wii on.  It's taking up space and the cords hang down off the mantel where the TV is and Addy just tries to play with them.  $118 + $51 shipping to Brazil.  Buyer hasn't paid yet, but it just ended last night around 9.

I really didn't think these would be so popular.  They've been opened, but we bought them while I was preggo and have only watched the first season.  Between Once Upon a Time and Dexter, we simply don't have time for this, even though Bryan Cranston is basically brilliant.  $26.00 + free shipping.

BoLo: So baby's currently sleeping and I was thinking of ways to make room for all her new stuff.  I realized our bookshelf upstairs has a ton of books on it that she'll probably never get into (mainly mine and Tyler's old books), so I started looking up highest selling single Golden Books.  While we do not have this one, it's definitely something you should keep an eye out for!  I was also looking up Sega Genesis games, which Tyler has a few of from back in the day and while we don't have this one, either...holy cow!  Keep your eyes peeled for Musha!

The Great Strawberry Shortcake mug screw-up

So, Tuesday baby wouldn't take a nap.  Now I know she was working on getting some heinous virus that put us in the ER last night when she woke up with a fever of 105.  She's much better now, although no one could really tell us what it was.  They thought maybe it was a urinary tract infection, but they didn't want to cath her (thank God), so they sent us home with instructions to alternate Tylenol and Motrin every 3 hours and start her on Amoxocillin if it didn't get better in 24 hours.  That was our Wednesday night.

But I digress.

On Tuesday I decided "you know what would be fun?  If I took her around some of the antique stores downtown.  Maybe I'll find some Christmas gifts and she can look at stuff."  She loves to look at stuff. 

We went into one that has a TON of cool stuff, old toys, McCoy mugs, old books...just full of stuff.  Most of it is priced at what I would sell it for, so it's not anything I could make much money off of.  But, lo!  One thing made me stop in my tracks.  A Fire King Strawberry Shortcake mug from 1983.  It was $8.50, but I've read so much about Fire King advertising mugs selling for a ton, so I scooped it up, thinking "oh, boy!  I'm going to make some money!"  Baby was getting fussy, so I paid and we came home.  While she was asleep, I checked completeds.  I was extremely dissapointed.

So now I'm drinking my coffee out of it exclusively, just to get my money's worth.  I didn't even LIKE Strawberry Shortcake growing up. 

Weird thing?  The coffee from it has a faint aftertaste of failure.

Moral: Get a smartphone.  I just got a new one today from Virgin.  It's an LG Optimus V and the first thing I put on there was the Droid eBay app.

Moral dillema and recents.

Do you know what is weird?  When you have something listed and it's had no interest at all, and then BOOM major interest.  I had this Thumper doll up for a couple of weeks, no watchers, nothing.  Then last night I got a message asking if I'd take $10.50 for it.  I didn't have it OBO, but I changed the price and was getting ready to message the buyer back when it sold before I was done writing to them and the buyer paid immediately.  I figured it was the people who had contacted me, so I didn't think anything of it.  THEN I get a message an hour later saying "did you accept our offer?"  and I was like "crap".  I told them I thought they had been the ones that bought it and apologized for the mix-up, thinking that was that.  THEN they messaged me back saying "oh could you tell the other buyer you lowered the price for us and send us the invoice?"

Um.

No?

I messaged them back and explained that the buyer had already paid and I didn't want to cancel the transaction.  I was expecting an angry message when I got up this morning, but there was nothing.  Whew.  I'm really bad at confrontation, even online.  I'm pretty sure I did the right thing.

Anywhooo...I sold my ugly Golf postage stamp shirt I talked about in yesterday's post and it went to Italy today for $24.99 + $28.00 shipping.  People be crazy.

I also shipped out Thumper and a pair of Michael Kors plus sized pants I thought were a "sure thing" that took up closet space for over a month.  Today's been uneventful.  I have some auctions up that are doing well, though.  I'll talk about them next week, once they end.  Because I'm a genius and have them ending on Christmas.

Today I had to go to the mall and buy my sister in law a birthday present.  There's a newer thrift shop across from the mall called "Lend A Paw", henceforth known as LAP that I've only been in once.  My mom was watching my feverish baby (sad face), so I went in and got this stuff:

This was one of those "interesting factor" items for me.  My instinct sucks, folks, as I will explain in tomorrow's post "The Great Strawberry Shortcake Mug Screw-up".  Sometimes, however, I am very good at picking out weird stuff (see Golf postage stamp sweater).  I actually bought three of these little boxes, but I haven't taken a pic of the third one.  They are what those who lead alternative lifestyles would refer to as "stash boxes", or what us on the straight-and-narrow would call "places to hide your pot".  They're about 3" long and 1/2" deep, ceramic, very vintage looking.  I'm doing them separately BIN for $9.99.  The guy sold them to me for $.75 each instead of the $1.00 marked on them.

This was in a torn plastic wrapper.  I flipped through the pages to see if they had been written in, because I thought it was like an exercise book and journal or something.  They were brand new, so I got them for $2.00.  I got home and looked through them again, and it's about living with cancer and it's got worksheets to write down your appointments and treatments and stuff.  It made me sad.  It also made me wonder how to write a title and description.  I thought "LIVESTRONG GUIDEBOOK AND JOURNAL, INFORMATION ON CANCER NEW!" would be a bit off-putting, so I didn't do my usual all-caps title and left all of the "awesomes" and "!!" out of my description.  BIN $13.99

Salvation Army Love and WTH is this, blogger?

So I made the huge mistake of clicking on the "new blogger interface" button and now it sucks more than normal.  Anyway.

So I had $20.00 burning a hole in my pocket yesterday and decided to visit the Salvation Army, which I haven't been to in a long time.  Ours is pretty much crammed full of stuff and it's really depressing, so I avoid it.  Also they only take cash or local checks and who carries cash and checks around anymore?  But, I'm glad I didn't avoid it yesterday!  Apparently the rich folk in our town take their unwanted stuff to the SA and not the GW.  No housewares or books to speak of, but I got lots of neat stuff.  Observe:

These were in "Santa's Workshop", a small closet outside of the store where they put stuff that was NIP or still had tags.  I paid $3.00 each and come home to find that they individually sell for about $5.00 a pop.  Lame.  I put them up together at auction starting at $10.00.  It was one of those things where, if I hadn't gotten them, I would've always been wondering (well, at least until I checked completeds).

 Boy's snow boots by Cabela's in a size 1.  They have a removable liner.  Also, shoes at my SA are only like $1.75 and they look great.  I put them as BIN for $14.99 I think.

Women's Laredo leather lace-up boots.  They're the dreaded size 6.5, which I can't unload for the life of me, but they look really nice, so I couldn't pass them up.

This is so ugly, I really couldn't NOT get it.  It's by Cotton Traders and it's an XLT.  I put it up for BIN $24.99

Polo Golf sweater size XXL.  It's actually in pretty good shape.  It's already got a bid for $12.99.

I also got an XXL Polo shirt for men.  It's weird, but I love buying XL and up men's clothes.  I especially love finding Polo "big shirts".  I got one of those, too, but it had some weird stain so I Oxycleaned it and I need to takes pics of it today.  I have women's plus size stuff that sits around forever, but I've had pretty good luck with my larger men's items.  Go figure.  I'll definitely be going back to my SA soon!

Christmas Spirit

So, apparently I've missed out on all of the things people actually want for Christmas. Unfortunately, you don't find many XBox Kinects and iPads at the GW. Oh well. Here's what I have sold:
While looking for this picture, I realized it was in a folder from AUGUST. That's like forever ago. I was an idiot and paid $15.00 for it. It's a set of Elvis cassettes and a stamp book. Accepted a best offer yesterday of $14.50 just to be rid of it.

I just got this fellow at the GW on Friday and he sold for my full asking price of $18.99 to Canada. He's a Disney store exclusive Lumpy the Heffalump. You know, some people swear by certain brands of shoes...some people swear by certain kinds of figurines...I swear by anything Pooh. If you see something and it's Pooh-related. Just buy it. I actually passed up a Pooh crib bumper set and crib skirt at the same GW and I'm kicking myself over it. Paid $1.85.

This was an 18" Garfield from 1981 I picked up at my friend's mom's yard sale a couple weeks ago. He's the only plush I bought there that's sold. He went to the UK for $18.99, paid $.50.

These also left my house this week after being here TOO LONG. I have a "mom" one and a "dad" one. I didn't put the "dad" pic up because I didn't feel like rotating it. I thought these would be speedy sellers, but I've had them since September. I was always suspicious they were Fire King but they had no mark. When I relisted them the last time I put "FIRE KING?" in the title and made sure to specify in the listing that I was not certain they were Fire King and they had no mark on the bottom. I had them listed separately and they finally sold to a buyer in Japan for $5.99 each.

I also sold a few books and a lot of Addy's 3 month clothes for $17.99. The clothes selling isn't really for the money. It's because I'm too lazy to do consignment and I need room for the RIDICULOUS amount of clothes she's getting for Christmas.

On average I am hitting my goal of $33.00 a day. I'm not super pumped about anything I have up right now, but hopefully someone will be. I did find some SAS shoes at GW last weekend and was excited, as eBay Underground says they are great sellers, but I haven't had many views on my two pairs, so we'll see what happens.

Finals and stuff.

This week's been OK and so far, I've managed to meet my goal of $33.00/day. This doesn't mean I've consistently sold that much every day, but it averages out to about that. This week I've unloaded:

*An Old Navy plus size jacket I've had FOREVER - paid $4.50, sold for $9.99. Bleh.

*A map of DC from 1957 that was in my parent's house when we moved in - paid 0, sold for $27.99

*Russ piggy bank we got at a shower - paid 0, sold for $17.99

*Denim jacket I've owned forever - paid ?, sold for $6.99

*Footprints by Birkenstock shoes - paid $4.50, sold for $30.79

*Large print Mere Christianity book - paid probably $1.00, sold for $10.99

*True Religion mini skirt - paid $3.00, I think, sold for $27.99

*Garfield plush from last week's yard sale - paid $.50, sold for $24.99

And some other stuff.

I currently have 103 things listed, none of which are very exciting. I've got a Stromberg Carlsson rotary phone that I'm surprised hasn't been snatched up yet and TWO Revere Ware tea kettles. One's been sitting around for a couple of months have the other's been up for three weeks. They sell well when I look at completeds, so I don't know why mine are gathering dust.

Tyler got me an excellent new camera since ours died due to an unfortunate pudding incident involving our offspring. It's a Panasonic Lumix and it's apparently "smart" which is good because I am totally dumb when it comes to taking pictures. The only bad thing? I have no new stock to take pictures of! We're going to Sears for family Christmas pics and I figure I'll sneak out to Goodwill afterwards or maybe we'll make it a family affair since one of our GW's is right next to the mall...it depends on how happy the baby is.

I've also got to do some shopping for another baby...not ours but there's a family of three kids, one of which goes to the middle school, who are being raised by their grandma and she doesn't have enough to give them a good Christmas. When I heard that she had a 3-month-old girl, I told our guidance counselor that I would just do all of the baby stuff. Addy's got piles of presents and the thought of a little baby having a bad first Christmas makes me want to punch a hole in the wall (unexpected reaction? yes, but justified). So I've got to get thee to a TJMaxx and get her some clothes and toys! This also gives me an excuse to buy those Huggies Santa diapers Tyler won't let me get for Addy (we subscribe to Amazon diaper delivery and don't need any but COME ON). Haha!

Realistic goals.

So I've gone through a lot of goals while doing this eBay thing, but I think I've stumbled upon a very realistic one. $33.00 a day. I've been doing this for a couple of weeks now (although that might just be the Christmas rush) and it brings in an amount that I'm very happy with. I mean, $33.00 x 7 = $231.00/week. It's no great shakes, but that's fine with me.

I sold my Coach shoes I talked about last week and a few other pairs. My lot of Build a Bear clothes is being bid on by several eager buyers and some stupid Disney mugs I bought forever ago that may or may not be Fire King also FINALLY have bids.

You know what's weird? When you list something and it has several watchers but doesn't sell, and so you list it again and hardly anyone even LOOKS at it. This has continued to perplex me time and again. I have a lot of baby clothes up for the second week and the first time, it had 3 watchers, but I had it ending on the middle of a week day. So I've relisted it and only about six people have even looked at it and it's due to end tomorrow. There really seems to be no rhyme or reason to shopper's habits. I know some people have this down to a science, but it continues to elude me.

Also, re: my stuffed animal haul from this weekend...nothing. That is all.

Blogger, I'm going to punch you in the face.

This is my 997th time trying to post this stupid thing. I would have given up but Tyler's watching the Hokies game and I'm not tired enough to go to bed yet. The pictures keep doing crazy things. Hopefully this works because I will not restart this post.

SO I went to the yard sale down the street today, run by a mom of some friends of ours (I also teach her second youngest...she's had a lot of kids). I knew there would be toys. I did not know they would be covered in frost from being left out overnight and I did not grasp how cold it was before I left the house. Here's what I bought before my hands went completely numb:

Thumper has some special Disney store badge sewn onto his leg, making me think he was special. One sold for $16.99 so that's what I listed mine for. Paid $.50. Please ignore the stupid time stamp. My camera broke last weekend so I've had to borrow one from my parents, who never bothered to set it and I'm too lazy. Hopefully people don't really think I took these pics four years ago.

Care Bears checkers. Completeds aren't too impressive, but I threw in a Cozy Heart penguin to sweeten the deal. Listed as BIN OBO for $19.99, paid $1.00 total.

This is Rudolph from the movie. When you wring his neck his nose lights up and he plays a nightmarish version of "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer". BIN $19.99. Paid $.50

1981 18" Garfield plush. If he had on an "I hate Mondays" shirt, I'd be good, but he doesn't, so we'll have to see how he does at $24.99 and free shipping. Paid $.50.

My first Build A Bear clothes lot! I was pretty pumped about this. I put this as an auction starting at $9.99.

Also picked up a couple of nice blazers. Went to our other GW later and got some dreadful men's wool pants by Christian Dior and some more Allen Edmond's loafers. I will list the Christian Dior pretty cheap just to bring in customers who search for the high-end stuff. If you see something that's a big name brand in presentable condition, buy it simply for the traffic the name will generate. Hopefully, these high-rollers will look through your store for more stuff and buy some of your crap awesome stuff!

Weekly stuff and GW hunting.

Ok, back to the posting grind. This week was great. Most of my expensive stuff has sold and mom volunteered her American Girl Samantha doll, which I sold for $85.00 (should have asked way more) in about three minutes. Here's what else I sold:

Mary Englebreit Disney pin picture that I talked about here: paid $1, sold for $55.00

American Girl Doll: paid 0, sold for $85.00

Croc wedge shoes: paid $5.00, sold for $19.99

Merrell shoes: paid $4.50, sold for $24.99, I think...something like that.

Lot of 19 VC Andrews books mom picked up at a book sale, paid $3.00, sold for $25.99 FAST.

Fenton glass shoe someone gave me at a baby shower for some reason, paid 0, sold for $9.99

Set of Indiana Glass 12 days of Christmas glasses (FINALLY), paid $7.00, sold for $22.99

Lot of 4 Adrinana Trigniani books: paid 0, sold for $8.99

Martha Stewart craft book: Paid $1.00, sold for $8.99

And some other small things I can't remember. It's really a mixed bag. I always try to look at my stuff and see if there's any rhyme or reason to what people are buying from one week to the next and there's not.

I went to GW on Thursday night and found some pretty good stuff. Tyler's decided to start reading the "Wheel of Time" books by Robert Jordan and has been ordering used ones off Amazon for about $3.00 each paperback. They're always in rough shape, but guess what I saw in a cart of stuff ready to be put away? Five of the books! 4-8, all looking pretty good! I scooped them up. Then I got this for resale:

Coach shoes! I was very excited and the guy checking me out was like "whaaaat?". We were both equally nonplussed that people would just give up expensive shoes. I have them BIN for $27.99 because, to my dismay, Coach shoes really don't actually sell for much used and the insoles show show some wear.

Hartstrings crafty sweater. Ok, for one thing, it's pretty freakin cute (thimble buttons!) and I know it would appeal to a very limited number of buyers, but SOMEONE would def. want it and it's Hartstrings! BIN for $21.99, size 3T

These are just Nine West, but they're new and I thought they were super cute! They're a size 6, which usually does well resale wise. If they were my freakish size 11, I would totally keep them! BIN for $22.99.

There's a yard sale up the road today at a friend's mom's house. She's had about 80 kids, so I'm hoping to find some good toys finally! We'll see.