Friday, September 28, 2007

Reason #1, why I justify...

About 6 years ago, I got into the habit of shopping around at garage sales and thrift stores, then reselling the stuff I'd buy, on ebay. Back then, ebay was still pretty new so it was a fairly decent way for a stay-at-home-mom to make a little extra income. Besides it being so new, the listing fees were a lot more reasonable than they are today, so when things didn't sell, it wasn't quite as big a deal.

After I got into it, I was going strong with it for about 3 or so years, before I either had too many kids making it too difficult to take stuff to the P.O. Or just decided my ratio of stuff not selling to selling and the fees, was just too much. So I slowly got out of it.

For a while...

...I took a break.

Then about 2 years ago I jumped feet first back into it. I did really well...selling almost everything I listed. The only downfall was.....you see when you sell stuff on ebay, most people pay through paypal and all the paypal fees are taken out right away. Ebay fees however, are basically racked up over a month and then billed to you and usually pulled right out of your checking account. This is all good and fine, until you've gone and racked up nearly $200 worth of fees from stuff you've sold, but not set the money aside to be pulled out at a later time. Which is what happened to me 2 years ago after I'd gone all gung-ho about listing stuff. Anyway, I pretty much was afraid to list again on ebay after that because I feared something like that would happen again and I just can't handle that sort of nonsense.

From time to time though, I'll either find a really good deal on something that I just know will sell for enough to cover my cost to purchase +fees, AND leave me a little cash to blow on something I most likely don't need, or my kids will grow out of some clothes that are still in decent shape, so I'll list them.

Last year for Halloween, Trenton was Woody from the movie Toy Story. This is an example of my "justifying" spending $40.00 on a Halloween costume. I knew I'd be able to resell it for almost as much, if not more, than I purchased it for, on ebay the next year. (Which in case you weren't keeping up on the math, next = this year.) To help prove my point...

(ugh....why can't I get links to work?!....here's the url.... copy/paste never lets me down, unlike this "insert link" nonsense!...)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=80913&item=330166830558

Anyway, after that sold, I sorta got all motivated to list some other stuff so I headed to Savers on Monday for their .99 sale. I only found a few things but I figure that is probably better than going overboard and getting overwhelmed and opting to not list anything. Plus, after the Woody costume sold, I went right into my ebay account and paid the fees. That way, I figure they won't be haunting me in a month.

So...there you have it.......in a sort-of-nutshell........why I like to justify.....

2 comments:

idahohubers said...

I've always thought it was cool that you sold stuff on ebay. That is one beast I am overwhelmed to tackle. Sounds like you have a good game plan now sell, sell, sell I don't see the need to justify.

About the comment you left on my blog... I can't even imagine how you felt on those instances with your kids being hurt or sick. Those examples are way worse than mine! You go, strong Mamma!

Jenna said...

Great work, Sarah! You have a good eye for what will sell well. I've sold lots on ebay too, but I get SO SICK of the trips to the post office! Watching the bids accumulate is super fun though, so I can understand your obsession. Good luck!