She Thrifts

Thrift. Flip. Repeat.

Value Village Monday, 3/19/12

by 3 Comments

I made my weekly Value Village trek this morning with my boys.  
Of course I picked up some more plush:
This is almost 3 feet tall.
Hopefully someone wants her for Easter.
Monopoly car. 
I think this is super cute.
And a fun baby toy.
I can’t find another one on eBay.
 I spotted a Thomas bag up on a high shelf. 
 I pulled it down and was surprised when it was really heavy.
 It had all of this in it:
My oldest got more goodies than usual today.
And as we were walking out the door, we spotted this:
I decided we would splurge on it.  Here’s hoping the weather improves and my oldest can enjoy it.  It was snowing (!) again when we got up this morning.  For where I live in Oregon, in March, that’s just craziness!
P.S.  I got all of my above eBay purchases already listed.  Yay, me!  And yay for the return of DWTS, to keep me company.  (Don’t judge.)  🙂 

Isn’t it nice?

by 5 Comments

When you go to a thrift store, yard sale, (etc.) and buy a bunch of stuff, isn’t it nice to make that first sale that pays for everything else you bought?
I bought this at a rummage sale for 50 cents a couple weeks ago, 
and sold it recently for $17.99.

Not a huge sale, but it did pay for everything else I bought there that day.  Which means anything else I sell from that trip will be pure profit.  For that I say:  Hooray!

Make A Rule . . . . Break A Rule

by 6 Comments

Am I the only one who makes up eBaying “rules” for themselves, only to turn around and break them almost immediately?  Usually mine have something to do with justifying my desire to go thrifting again, even though I still have a ton of stuff at home that I have yet to get listed.
My most current “rule” that I came up for myself is this:
Only buy new items that are super easy to list. 
Translated from:   
Stop buying stuff and then letting it hang around, taking up space, indefinitely, procrastinating getting it listed because it actually takes work. 
Thus, my recent foray into buying a lot of plush.  Easy to photograph-list-store-ship.
Of course, I break every rule I make.  I bought a set of hot rollers at a church rummage sale a couple weekends ago.  $3, looked brand new.  I’ve read they sell well.  I have no idea if it’s a good brand, or even if it’s a complete set.  It looks like it is to me, but do I really know what I’m looking for?  Nope.  Not in the least.  So, it’s pretty much guaranteed that the set of hot rollers will still be sitting on my to-list shelf in six months. 
I make these kind of rules in other areas of my life too.  My most recent “eat healthier!” rule is that I will  not buy anything at the grocery store that I will be tempted to start eating before I get home.  Cuz ya know it’s gotta be junk food.  Like a donut.  Or a grab bag of chips. 
Anywho, I made my Monday trek to Value Village yesterday.  I bought some more plush:
Disney – a princess?  Belle, maybe?

Smurfette I picked up a couple weeks ago,
the other two I found yesterday.
This seahorse was in a bag with one of the smurfs.
And a few mugs.  I’m thinking this might be another good thing to get comfortable selling, because they are fairly easy to find inexpensively.  I’ll have to figure out the storing and shipping aspects though.
Disney Imagineering

McDonald’s 1984 Olympics mug.
Appears to be worthless.

Fun spring color.
I’m hoping for a Mother’s Day sale.
And here’s a flood of photos –
things I found on my spending spree a couple weekends ago.
Stuff I bought for a quarter:



Stuff I bought for 50 cents:
Jonas Bros Build a Bear Dog
CPK pony
Aren’t these fabulously huge and hideous?
Superman body pillow

Stuff I bought for around $1:

Paid 10 cents/ea for the cassette tapes
Paid $2?  He talks.

$1.  Also talks, and moves.

74 cents.  Not sure if I should recognize
him, or if he’s just a cute blue dog.

74 cents.  I’m going to see if I can
get him into an Easter basket somewhere.

$1

$1.50 for the pair. 
Oddly, they sound like baby rattles when shaken.
This is another one of those items I shouldn’t have bought. 
It’s a McD’s something?  I will need to do research.  So on my shelf it will sit.

Still working on my typing project and neglecting eBay.
Still can’t wait to be done.  
Have a great week, all!

Week in Review . . . so to speak

by 1 Comment

I’ve sold 5 items in the last week or so.  I took on another marathon typing project which is once again absorbing a lot of my time.  It’s the last one the gal needs to have done.  It is pretty easy money all things considered, and much much more than I would make eBaying so I felt I couldn’t pass it up.  Can’t wait to be done, though.  Again.
Here’s what I’ve sold recently:
Elmer Fudd sold within 3 hours of listing!  To a gal in Canada, so she pays shipping.  I promptly got a notice that she had paid by e-check and I would receive notification when the check cleared.  I’m still waiting on it to clear.  It’s been almost a week.  
Elmer Fudd plush: 
$13.49 + shipping
This sold in just a couple days.
Smee plush: 
$11.99 – shipping
These are Mickey Mouse ears for a Mr. Potato Head.  I think they’re adorable!  They say “Mr. Potato Head” on the back, just like you would get your name stitched on if you bought a hat at one of the parks.  I was tempted to keep them – but knew every time I picked them up off my son’s floor I would feel like I was looking at a $10 bill.
Mr. Potato Head Mickey Ears: 
$9.49 – shipping
This took a few months and a lower price to finally sell.  I was very happy to see it go.  It was pretty big, and I can use the extra storage space!
Scuba Grumpy Care Bear: 
$39.99 – shipping
This was my one auction (vs. BIN) sale for the week.  I am definitely putting this guy on my BOLO list from now on.  He had quite a few watchers and more than one bid.
Chester Cheetos Cheetah: 
$16.49 – shipping (not yet paid)

I’ve done quite a bit of thrifting recently.  Over the weekend I went to two church rummage sales, a yard sale, and I returned to the $1 clothing estate sale that has apparently been running every weekend since I went at the beginning of Feb.  I also made my Monday visit to Value Village this morning.  I took a bunch of pictures of items throughout the afternoon.  I’ll try to share some of my finds soon . . . and heck, maybe I’ll even try to get some of them listed on eBay!

Plush!

by 5 Comments

So . . . blah.  That’s been my last week.  
Last Monday I finally finished typing this:

550 pages worth!

It took me an average of 5 hours per day, every day, for over a month.  I kind of let it take over my life.  Of course I was thrilled to be finished.  While I was in the midst of working on the typing project I longed to be eBaying instead, which seemed like it would be soooo much more fun.  But once the typing was complete I did . . . nothing.  I had zero items listed for almost a week.

This morning we trekked over to Value Village to see if we could find anything.  I wanted to find something new and interesting to list.  It worked.  Immediately upon returning home I started taking pictures of my new treasures, and getting the items ready to list.

I’ve decided plush may be my favorite thing to buy and list.  It takes up a lot of room, but it is so easy to list and pretty stress-free to ship.  It is kind of funny to come to this realization because in years past, stuffed animals have always been something I have completely steered clear of at yard sales.  Ick factor.  Now I am already dreamily thinking of the cheap yard sale prices that go along with plush.

Here are some of the items I picked up this morning:

Value Village likes to mess with me. 
These were all bagged separately and scattered throughout the toy section.

These Aussies, the M&M, and monkey were “bonus plush” – just happened to be in the bags I purchased because I wanted whatever was in the bag with them.

Thank goodness for 4-year-olds.  I bought Smee below, who I for some reason 
thought was a dwarf.  But, no.  Thankfully my oldest was able to set me straight.

 Elmer Fudd sold about 3 hours after I listed him, to a gal in Canada.

And here are some items I picked up a 
couple weeks ago that I finally got listed today:

I ♥ plush!

200!

by 3 Comments

I soooo wish that 200! meant that I hit 200! items listed.  But no.  Not even close.
Instead, it means I surpassed 200! eBay feedbacks this week.  For some reason this feels like a milestone to me.

( 201Teal star icon for feedback score in between 100 to 499) 

My eBay profile tells me I joined way back in 1999.  There was a period of a couple months in college when I was receiving almost daily packages in the mail from all of my eBay purchases.  What was I buying?  Many hard-to-find movies.  On VHS.  And I remember buying a complete set of NKOTB (baseball-like) cards.  I mailed checks to pay for my purchases.  Old school eBay.  To the max.
After completing grad school in 2006 I rediscovered eBay via half.com as a way to unload all of my textbooks and make decent money doing it.  I’ve sold books on half.com very (VERY) sporadically ever since.
And last August I started dabbling with selling items on eBay.  In the last seven months I’ve added the 138 feedbacks that pushed me over the 200 mark.  I know I’ve had many more sales than that though, over those seven months.  And it makes me wonder – how does everyone else handle feedback?  Right now I play the waiting game . . . if someone leaves me positive feedback I immediately do the same.  If I don’t ever get feedback from a transaction, I never leave feedback for them.  

Please share – what’s your SOP in regards to feedback?

Note To Self

by 4 Comments

SER-I-OUS-LY.  Weigh your items before you list them.  That thing you think you can send first class?  You can’t.  It weighs a pound and a half!

Two of the items I packaged up this afternoon I had listed with free first class shipping.  And were not able to be shipped via first class.  A small profit turned into no profit.  Gee, I love working for free!  Even better when I do it to myself.  <Gripe over.>

Weeks in Review (Jan 20 – Feb 10)

by 1 Comment

Wow, I haven’t done one of these posts in 3 weeks!  I think one of those was a “dead” week when I didn’t have anything listed.  Last week I sold 7 items, this week it was 8.  Pretty slow.  Here are a few of my favorite sales from the past couple weeks:
I picked this up at a yard sale last summer, and it’s been hanging around ever since.  Finally listed it, and it sold pretty quickly.  I would guess I paid around a quarter for it.

NWT Coppertone Sport:
$16.99 – shipping
I bought this laptop from a post-Christmas clearance for $10.07 a year or two ago.  I held on to it for awhile and planned to give it to my oldest as a gift when little brother was born.  But in the meantime he was given a Buzz Lightyear computer last Christmas, and an orange vtech laptop at a yard sale this last summer.  He likes and plays with both of them, but really, he doesn’t need a third.
NIB Lightning McQueen vtech laptop:
$39.99-shipping
This is a gift we got when my oldest was a baby.  We used it a handful of times for him, but mostly it’s just been a doorstop.  Finally decided it was time to pass it on.
Fisher Price Crib Projector:
$24.99 – shipping
Okay, so this is probably a big eBay sellers no-no.  But . . . on January 31st I was trying to use up the last of my 50 free listings for the month.  I have had a stack of Dr. Seuss books sitting next to my computer desk for a couple months waiting to be listed.  It was 11:30 p.m. and I had one free listing left.  So I listed “lot of 15 hardback Dr. Seuss books” – uploaded the picture – and put in the description “will list titles soon”.  And I went to bed.  I was really tired, I knew it would take awhile to type all the titles and include the conditions of the books, and I figured I would just update the listing in the morning.  But of course I didn’t.  At the end of the week I had several watchers and I *still* hadn’t updated the listing.  It was scheduled to end on a free listing day, so I thought when I re-listed it I would actually go ahead and get it updated.  To my surprise, it sold about half an hour before the listing ended.  When I packaged them up I was happy to see that the books were all in very good condition – hopefully the buyer will be pleasantly surprised, since I feel like they kind of took a gamble on that listing.
Dr. Seuss book lot:
$39.99 – shipping
I bought my first Starbucks mug a month or so ago at a Goodwill.  Paid $4.99 – was not at all sure if it was worth it when I did it.  This was my first mug to mail, and I took forever in getting it packaged up.  I felt good about it when I was finally done, but I do hope that it has arrived safely.
Starbucks Desk Mug:
$29.99 – shipping
You may recall that an eBay seller I don’t know e-mailed me recently to let me know that I had BAMM BAMM spelled incorrectly in my listing (I had it spelled BAM BAM) and that I should double my asking price.  I took his/her advice, and it was good!
NWT Bamm Bamm Plush:
$39.99 – shipping
It seems like this was one of the first things I purchased months ago specifically with reselling in mind.  I didn’t recognize the bird, but it was NWT, from the Disney Store, and only cost 50 cents.  A sure thing, right?  Well, it took me awhile to figure out who he was.  Tip, from The Little Mermaid 2.  Of course.  Not in high demand, but he did finally sell this week (after I dropped the price a bit).
Tip Plush:
$27.99 – shipping

I’d love to see sales pick up, but I don’t think that will happen until I get some fun new things listed, which won’t happen until the typing project is over.  The good news is that I only have 15 more pages left to type!!  The bad news is that I then have 550 to proofread.  Should be completely done by the end of the week.  Hooray.

Updates

by Leave a Comment

Just a quick update.  Last week was super s-l-o-w on the eBay front, and I even had more items listed than ever before.  I sold seven items total all week.  
After some of my auctions ended I had two people e-mail me about two different items, asking if I was going to relist them, and if I would, they would buy them right away.  So I did.  And, happily, both followed through and purchased their items yesterday.  I had two other sales as well yesterday, so this week is already looking about as good as last week, and we’re only half way through it.
I’m still slowly but surely working on my typing project.  I have myself on a set schedule, typing and proofreading 25 pages per day.  It takes hours out of my day, every day (haven’t taken a single day off from this project since I started), but I am determined to be done with the typing next Tuesday.  Happy Valentine’s Day to me.  It will take me a few more days to do a final proof of the entire manuscript, and then I will soooo happily hand it off.

We found out this week that my BIL’s wedding will now be sometime in June, which clears the way for our Orlando trip in May!  Super excited, and it makes me happy that I took on the ridiculous typing project, because my income from it will pay for most of the trip (as well as the laptop I purchased when I started working on it).  Although . . . if any of my friends were to ring my doorbell right now, and see the state I’ve let my home deteriorate into while focusing all my time and energy on this typing project . . . I would probably cry.  Yup, it’s that bad.  One more week, and then I’m free!