She Thrifts

Thrift. Flip. Repeat.

BOLO: Puffalumps

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I know Puffalumps are on lots of BOLO lists, so they are probably old news. But then again … there are a lot of those nylon plush out there. How do you know if you’ve got a real Puffalump, or just a lookalike?

When I was listing this kitten Puffalump earlier in the week I discovered some great info on the website This Old Toy. It includes a Puffalump Index and you can even search by model number.

Also, it confirmed that this logo on the left foot does indicate the plush is a Puffalump:

I have added this website to my useful links page. It’s great information because there are so many knock-offs out there. Happy hunting!

P.S. Of course some sell better than others – check out completeds HERE.

Womp Womp. Yard Sale Fails.

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I thought it would be fun to start posting my weekly yard sale finds because I am always really interested to see what other people pick up. This weekend were my first yard sale outings of the year, and unfortunately – it was almost entirely a flop.

Yesterday morning I went to cheer my son on at his jogathon at school, and then gave myself two hours to hit some yard sales before heading home for lunch. It took me less than two hours to go to all of the yard sales on my side of town that I found listed online. And I found very little to show for it.

Three Bluray DVDs that we are keeping, three stuffed animals and one baby blanket. In almost two hours.

Today my youngest had a basketball game in the next town over, so I looked to see what kind of sales were going on in that area. Before his game we went to a church rummage sale. I generally love church rummage sales, but it was on its second day and was super picked over. I bought one pair of footie PJs. We had time to stop at one more yard sale before his game where I picked up a bunny plush and some Harry Potter pencils. And – that’s it. All of my finds for the entire weekend.

Good thing (kinda) that I still have a backlog of other goodies I can get listed this next week.

How are yard sales where you are? Find anything good this weekend?

Poshmark Progress

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I remember posting about joining Poshmark once upon a time … I just looked and it was all the way back in June! I am still listing and selling there, but it can be so slow. I just took a look at my stats, and since I started selling in June I have sold 92 things. Which isn’t nothing … but when you think about it, and how many days I have been active on PM … it really isn’t a lot.

Listing on PM takes almost no time because I cross-post from eBay. I usually need to square my photos (I use Pixlr, it works great) and from there it is just cut and paste. Lickety split.

Fun fact: almost 1/3 of the sales I have made on PM have been costumes. I bought a LOT after Halloween last year and immediately cross-posted them all, which has paid off.

I became a Posh Ambassador a few months back. I actually had all of the requirements in place to earn that status several months before with the exception of having actually made a PM purchase myself.

(Actually, randomly, I did make a PM purchase shortly after joining and the package was lost by the USPS! I never got it. I waited a couple weeks hoping to receive the package, but no dice. When I let PM know I had never received the package (as verified by the tracking) my money was promptly refunded.)

Fast forward several months I made a second purchase which did actually arrive, I left a love note, and voila! Posh Ambassador. I’m not sure if it actually affects my sales at all, but it definitely affects my number of followers. I get many, many more followers now than I did previously.

Since the beginning of the year I have been keeping track of my number of listings and followers, mostly as a curiosity to see how it progresses.

February 1, 2019 and March 1, 2019 stats

April 1, 2019 and May 1, 2019 stats

I try to be active on PM every day. Most days I create three new listings.

I share to parties as appropriate. I share my own listings and follow and share the listings of others. I try to do this every day, but I also try to only do this in chunks of time that I wouldn’t be doing anything else. (For example, my five minute walk from my car in to work, my breaks at work, riding in the car when my husband is driving.) I try not to let PM sharing invade my real life or online working hours because if I let it, it could TAKE OVER!

I would really like to get to the point where I could consistently have one PM sale every day. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask, does it? I would be happy to take any advice from those who also sell on PM. What have you done to help increase your own sales? Please share!

First Rummage Sale of the season!

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Today is an inservice day for my boys, so my youngest and I were out running errands first thing and drove by a sign for a rummage sale. I am glad we were out and about because this is a fundraiser for a local MOPS group and I make a point of going every year. In the past it has been in May though, so if I hadn’t stumbled across it I would have totally missed it.

As soon as I saw the sign I took the corner to head to the sale, then realized it was just after 8 a.m. and the sale didn’t start until 9 a.m. We finished our errands and got back to the sale just before the doors opened. We did a really quick in and out because I had groceries that needed to get home and into the fridge. So if you’ve ever wondered what it is I look for at a yard sale – this is it!

This is what I found ~

Plush:
Jellycat pink bunny lovey
Simply Lavender by Partylite lamb with scent pack
3 Caltoy plush bird puppets
NWT Taco Toons plush
Fine Toy brown bunny plush
Serta sheep
Carter’s brown musical dog
Packers plush lovey
Folkmanis Jack-in-the-Box puppet

Baby blankets:
NWT Disney Baby green Pooh blanket
NWT Mini Muffin sheep blanket

Costumes:
NWT Carter’s dinosaur costume (24 mo)
Flash costume + mask (toddler)
Old Navy lion costume (6-12 months)

Media:
NIV Audio Bible (on CD)
NEW Anatomy Flash Cards
Happiest Baby on the Block DVD
NEW Leap Frog Let’s Go to School DVD
NEW Best of Musikladen Classic Rock DVD
4 Beatles DVDs (2 still sealed)
NEW Paul McCartney Wingspan DVD

Clothes:
1 pair pajamas
2 sleep sacks

Because of the groceries in the car I didn’t spend any time looking up items, I just grabbed whatever caught my eye. There are a few duds (some of the DVDs specifically), but overall I think I did pretty well.

For the last few years they have run this rummage sale as “make an offer” which I really, really don’t like. I know it’s less work for them, but I’d rather just know what they want for things. As a result I always end up spending way more than I would at any other yard sale, but … whatever. It’s for a good cause. I offered them for $30 for everything above and they were super happy with that, they even threw in a couple extra things for my son. It’s more than I probably would have spent elsewhere, but I will have no problems making my money back and then some, so it’s all good.

This was my first rummage or yard sale of the season. The weather is finally starting to come around, I am looking forward to finding more treasures. Have yard sales started where you are? Any exciting finds yet this year?

weird eBay talents

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Who has a weird talent thanks to eBay?

I can’t be the only one.

For example, I am now pretty good at guessing the fabric contents of clothing without looking at the tags.

When shipping packages under one pound I can usually predict the weight within one ounce.

When I am at work and I see babies with their blankets in their strollers I sometimes think: Oooh! That’s a suchandsuch brand blanket, worth $xx. Nice!

None of these skills are particularly useful outside of eBay, I will admit. But there they are.

Who else has gained a weird eBay talent?

Favorite Flips Friday, 2/15/19

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Here are a few of my better or faster flips from the past couple weeks.

Shrek Happy Meal toys.
Sold: $17.95 (6 days after listed)
Anakin 3.75″ figure
Sold: $19.95 (1 day after listed)
  • Paid: $3 @ GW, Sold: $29.95
    (listed since Sept, 2018)
  • Paid $1.59 @ VV, Sold: $29.95
    (listed since March, 2018)
Paid: $1.50 @ ys, BO accepted: $35
(listed since July, 2018)
Donnybrook long wool coat
Paid: $2 @ VV, Sold: $44.95+ship
(listed since April, 2018)
TB Trading Bunny Plush
Paid: $0.50 @ ys, Sold: $29.95
(9 hours after listed)
Lock & Shock Disney Store Plush
Paid: $2 @ rummage sale, BO Accepted: $35
(listed since March, 2018)
Hidden Mickey Bear
Paid: $1.99 @ VV, Sold: $99.95 + shipping to Japan
(listed since Sept, 2018)
Sesame Street Little People lot
Paid: $12 @ consignment sale, Sold: $119.95 + shipping
(9 days after listed)

Who Am I? Disney Plush ID

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We had a bit of down time between my boys’ basketball games on Saturday, so we stopped by a Goodwill. The first time I have been thrifting this year! I checked out the plush first, of course. It was painfully overpriced (most of the plush I was interested in were priced at $6.99 each(!), too much for me). But, those plush that had run their course and had not sold appeared to be bagged up and sold as a lot for $2.99. That’s more my speed. It was kinda hard to see what all was included, but I went ahead and picked up a couple of those plush bag lots, figuring I could at least make my money back.

So, the following two plush both have Disney tags . . . and I don’t recognize either one! I spent a fair amount of time looking this afternoon to no avail. Does anyone recognize them?

Favorite Flips Friday, Costume Edition

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I just had the worst week of sales – probably the worst week I have had in years. Dismal. But instead of dwelling on it, I thought I would share with you something that has been selling. Costumes!

Seems random, right? Talking about costumes in January?

Costumes are one of my favorite things to sell. In September and October 2017, I sold a LOT of costumes, and those two months were some of my highest sales months ever.

Unfortunately I timed things wrong after Halloween that year and I missed out on all of the post-Halloween costume sales. I wait until stores have costumes at 90% off, and unfortunately I waited too long and missed out on the good sales. Which meant that when Halloween season 2018 rolled around my sales dropped dramatically from the year before because I had almost no costumes left to sell.

Fast forward to post-Halloween, 2018 and I was determined to stock up once again on costumes. And stock up I did. This year I timed it exactly right and shopped 90% off sales at three different stores, and purchased around $500 worth of costumes (making the retail cost around $5000!). Costumes are pretty easy to list, so I got them all up in a month or so. And guess what? They’re already selling. Below you will find images of costumes that I purchased in November, 2018 that have sold in the last month and a half or so. A handful of those shown have had multiple sales of the same costume.

The costumes above are mostly just bread and butter sales, nothing jaw dropping.

Yard sales are also a good place to pick up costumes, I have picked up some in years past selling for $$$! (Adult talking Eeyore/Pooh costumes have been my highest sellers!)

If you’re interested in past costume sales I have posted about them quite a bit in the past. You can find some of them HERE.

Have you had any costume related flips you were excited about? I would love to hear about them!