Busy Busy Busy....

So its been over a week since my last post and everyday I was planning on doing it, but then something else got in the way. I have been so busy lately with school, thrifting, appointments, oil changes you name it! Sometimes I wish my life wasn't so busy all the time so I could enjoy sitting around the house instead of stressing about what needs to get done. Oh well, maybe someday. So I sold 9 items last week! I'm pretty happy with that. The beginning of last week was so slow and I was feeling discouraged, but once all my listings got close to ending is when things started to turn around. I had my first "bidding war" on one of my items this week too. Well it wasn't anything crazy, but it was more than one person bidding and the price went from $7.99 to $12.50. I was so excited! This has never happened to me before. All of my items only ever have one bid on them and ALWAYS sell at the starting price so this just about made my day! I ended up selling the Levi's baby denim jacket, an Eddie Bauer long denim skirt, a Carter's girl skirt (my daughter wore it on her first day of Kindergarten and its so cute, kinda sad to see it go), Starbucks mug, U.S. Polo toddler jeans, Baby Gap girl shirt, 3 Vintage Pyrex mugs and this miche bag and shells that I sold for my mom. The miche bags were in great condition because my mom never used them so I listed the bag with four shells and it sold in about 2 hours for Buy it now price for $69.99! I was super excited! It was the first item I had to buy insurance on. I don't know about how some people feel about selling on eBay, but I am loving it! What a great way to make some money working from home. I really hope I can continue to find great finds at thrift stores and sell for a profit. I went thrifting the other day and found a toddler boys hurley shirt new with tags for $4. I also found my very first Pyrex snowflake dish! I about fell on the floor when I spotted it! It is black and marked down for $4.25! I scooped it up and wouldn't let it go. I also found a Butterfly Gold lid for $2.35...Score! Its in great shape too! Ahh, thrifitng is so fun! I wish I could do it more, but then I might be broke haha! I have been printing out all of my labels from home and using my new scale and it has been awesome! Its so easy and I love not having to wait in line at the Post office. My packing slip/business cards that I ordered came in the mail the other day..thank you Vista Print! I love them, they are so cute and so professional looking. Selling on eBay is so much fun!

Sales this week!!

So I would say this was another good sales week for me. I have only been selling on eBay since the end of January and I just checked my Paypal account and there is over $200 in there! I think that is pretty cool! This week I sold 7 items which is awesome! I sold my Pyrex Cornflower Carafe I listed last week, but the buyer hasn't paid yet and I have a feeling they won't :( I also sold BOTH pairs of the SAS sandals I bought at a thrift store for $2 each! I decided to list them on the lower end at $14.99 each and they sold pretty fast. I am defintely the type of person who would rather make a little less money if it means it sells quicker. I sold a pair of Banana Republic shorts, a toddler Juicy Couture skirt I bought for $1, a Leapfrog toy that was new in box (I bought it during after Christmas sale) and some baby boy clothes that I am selling for my friend. All in all, I would say a good week. I finally broke down and bought a postal scale! Yay! The main reason I did it was because I was sick of listening to my six year old complain about going to the post office again...and again...and again! I don't blame her, I was sick of going and waiting in line too. I think I went five times this week which is a little crazy. I can't wait to make a sale so I can use my scale and print out my shipping label. It will also be really nice to save my .85 cents on delivery confirmation! Woo-hoo! I'm excited...can't you tell? I did do some thrifting this week, but didn't find too much. I went to the Salvation Army and all the kids clothes were 50% off! I love shopping for name brand kids clothes! I was there for over an hour going through every rack. It was fun, but also exhausting. I spent $22 and found two Gymboree dresses, a Levi's denim jacket, a Levi's denim skirt, some Gymobree shorts and Old navy shorts, a few things for my daughter and my son and the best find was a pair of Christian Audigier leggings NEW WITH TAGS! Oh yeah! This made my day for sure. They retail for $83 and were in the kids section because they are an xsmall so I got them for $2! This find totally made me smile! I already have them listed! I will let you know if I get any bids. I also found a Pyrex Old Orchard mixing bowl, the smallest size. I'm not a huge fan of this pattern, but I need more bowls of that size because they are great for cereal and soup. Well, its Sunday aka Laundry Day and the huge pile in my hallway isn't going to wash itself!

A few of my finds this week!

My thrifting finds this week!

                                        My Pyrex Juice Jug Cornflower that is listed for $19.99

                                              My Teeny Shamrock carafe listed for $5.99

                                  I found this little guy today, but I'm keeping it. I collect this pattern

                                               Cute Gymboree Jeans I bought for $2 each

                                                             My first pair of SAS shoes!

So this week was a fun week full of thrifting. I think I went thrifting a lot...but I found some neat stuff. I was really on the hunt for clothes with tags that were dirt cheap, sadly I didn't find any NWT clothing for cheap. I was hoping to find some great half off deals at my local Goodwill, but boy was I wrong! I swear it seems like Goodwill just continues to raise their prices higher and higher. I did find two pairs of cute toddler girl shorts that I think I will wait to list until the weather warms up a bit. I found two pairs of Gymboree jeans that are so cute for $2 each. I did find one pair of Polo toddler Jeans with tags on it for $4. Hopefully those will sell and I can actually make some money on them. What I did find that made me super happy was my favorite thng of all...P-Y-R-E-X! Oh yeah, I love me some Pyrex. I just started collecting it maybe six or seven months ago and I am in LOVE! I love it all! I found my first Juice Carafe, it is so cute. A part of me wants to keep it but I put it on ebay anyways. I paid $4 for it and listed it for $19.99. I also found this teeny tiny Pyrex carafe with gold shamrocks on it. I have never seen one so small before. I paid $1 for it and listed it for $6. Not a huge profit, oh well. I was so excited to find my favorite Amish Butterprint little cinderella bowl for $3 at a local thrift store. I love this pattern so much! When my great grandmother died, I was given a set of her white pyrex mixing bowls and two Amish Butterprint casserole dishes with lids. I fell in love with this pattern and it reminds me of my grandma so I buy it whenever I find it. One exciting thing did happen this week...I found my first pair of SAS shoes! I found not only one pair, but two pairs!! I probably looked insane when I found them because I let out a weird squeal of some sort, but I was just so excited! I paid $2 each for them at my favorite cheap thrift store and listed them already. I am attempting to post a few pics of some of my finds, but not sure how its going to look, so forgive me if it looks a little out of whack. This week has been pretty darn good so far regarding sales. I surpassed my one item a week for sure. So far I have sold 8 items, but 3 still haven't paid which is a bummer. One is from a buyer in Brazil! Ahh, my first international sell...how scary! I originally said I wasn't going to ship internationally because it scares me, but the buyer emailed me asking if I would make an exception and I said that I would. So I went to the post office today and the lady was so nice who worked there. She explained it all to me and how everything works and it doesn't seem so scary anymore. Now if the buyer can just pay for it then I can go ahead and ship it to her. One of my other items that sold is going to Guam. I hope the shipping isn't too much. The item is pretty light, so hopefully it will all workout.  My sister and I went to this HUGE Salvation Army today that is about 40 minutes away because today everything was half off in the store and we always find Pyrex there. Well, the Pyrex Gods were good to us once again and we found three great pieces I will post pics soon if I can figure it out :) Tomorrow my daughter has an appointment in a city about 30 minutes away from my town and I usually make the rounds of two or three thrift stores, so I will let you know if I find anything good! Well, I guess thats all for now. I hope everyone enjoys the weekend!

Snooze!

Okay, I am so bored! No exciting sales at all the past few days! I think I have to started to think that the stuff I'm selling is awesome stuff so of course it's going to sell and sell fast, right? WRONG! I have had watchers on a lot of stuff but no bids! I was hoping that I would get some bids right before the auctions end but that hasn't really happened either. Yesterday I did get a bid on a pair of women's GAP jeans I was selling for starting the auction at $5 buck a Roos. Well someone bid then the auction ended so they got a great deal (not so good for me). What stinks is that they still haven't paid so I'm starting to worry a bit. How long do you give a buyer to pay? If they never do, should I just relist the item? I'm so new to eBay and I'm still unsure about a lot of things. Another thing I'm confused about. I went over my 50 free listings a month so I have been paying to list more stuff, but do I have to pay an insertion fee every single week that I list the item? If that's the case then that is really going to add up. Also a bunch of my 50 free listings have ended and I want to relist them but when I do it says it's going to charge me an insertion fee. I thought these were still free? Am I wrong? I really need some clarity on this. So I haven't been listing too much because I don't want to pay an arm and a leg. Gosh this was easier when I had under 50 listings and it was free. Not sure how I should continue. I went to one thrift store today and found some cute stuff to list. An adorable toddler Juicy Couture skirt for a buck! Two pairs of baby gap jeans for 2 bucks each, a pair of guess jeans for my little guy for 4 bucks (I don't usually spend that much on jeans but they are in great condition and he needed another pair) 2 Roxy skirts for my daughter for 3 bucks each and a pair of Carter's jeans for baby that are so cute and look new! I hope I an get these listed and someone will want them. I don't know, I'm just feeling a little confused and unsure about this whole eBay thing. I think I could really love doing it but I'm worried I'm going to spend more money than I am actually going to make you know? Any thoughts? Well it's been a long day and I'm going to bed super early. Nighty night!

So last week was definitely crazy with all the pie plates and Pyrex that had to be packed and shipped, so glad that's over with. I have already gotten positive feedback for two of the pie plates. They arrived safely thank goodness, but I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for the rest of it. So a few days ago I went over to my best friends house because she wanted to clean out her closet and have me list some stuff for her on eBay. I was all over that because my friend, well she really likes to shop and I knew I was going to find some great stuff. Boy was I right! Tons of brand name clothes new still with tags on them! I swear I was like a kid in a candy store! Juicy couture, free people, volcom, coach, Hurley just to name a very small few. I wish we wore the same size because I would have bought it all for myself! She also had a ton of new with tags toddler boys clothes that her son never got a chance to wear. I took a ton of pictures over the weekend and started listing, but soon went over my 50 free listings. I really don't want to have to pay to list stuff, so I'm not sure what I should do. I still have a ton of stuff to list for her but if it costs me 35cents to list each thing that is definitely going to add up. I might just wait until some of my crappy listings end and not relist them so I can list some of her stuff. Idk, we will see. I was super excited about listing it all, but now I'm a little bummed. Oh well. On the flip side jut a few hours after listing some of her stuff I sold a pair of Robeez baby shoes at buy it now price of 19.99! That made me super happy :) I also have a bunch of watchers on a lot of the stuff including a super cue pair of silver glitter toms which I love! Again, what a shame we don't wear the same size lol. Well my kids are still asleep which is glorious because I love drinking my coffee in peace. Have to get off this couch soon and get ready. My son has a doctor appointment this morning which is a bummer because it's cold and rainy outside and I just want to stay in my warm house. Oh yes and I have to go to the post office and drop off those baby shoes. I really need to break down and buy a scale so I can start printing postage at home. That would save me many trips to the post office for sure. I'm just not sure how to go about printing postage from home. I'm kinda scared I might mess it up. Maybe one day I will get to it.

Help! I'm in pie plate hell!

Okay, so I might be a tad dramatic, but seriously the last 24 hours have been crazy! A few days ago I reposted these pie plates that I found at a thrift store a few weeks ago. They caught my eye because they looked kind of cool and each plate has a recipe for a specific kind of pie. I found an apple pie, cheesecake, strawberry and two pumpkin pie plates. They were $2 each and so I bought them hoping I would be able to make a buck or two off of them. That same week I took some really god awful pictures of them and posted them on eBay. All the pictures were dark and sad so needless to say no bids on any of them or even watchers for that matter. The auction ended so I decided to try to take some better pictures of them before I relisted them. Well I don't know if it was because of the better pictures or adding a buy it now option on them, but I started getting a few watchers so I got excited! I sold my first one Sunday night which was so exciting! After my initial excitement wore off, I realized I was going to have to pack it and ship it and that scared me! I have no clue how to pack fragile items so they don't shatter during transit...how the heck was I going to do this? Looking back I didn't even realize when I bought all these pie plates that I would have to pack and ship them all and that it might be challenging. I'm honestly considering staying away from selling fragile stuff which includes my favorite thing to thrift for...Pyrex of course! So Monday morning I wrapped the heck out of this plate with bubble wrap and filled the box with a ton of newspaper and some more bubble wrap. Fingers crossed it makes it to its destination safely! It would really be terrible if it broke because I'm such a newbie seller. So back to my pie plate situation. Last night my cell phone started making that dinging noise it makes when I make a sale on eBay. I got super excited and ran to my phone only to realize that it was a sale for another stupid pie plate! Crap! I didnt want to wrap another one, oh well guess I don't have a choice. Then a minute later my phone dinged again, what the heck? That never happens. It was for another pie plate!!! Holy moly, are you kidding me? Is someone trying to play a mean joke on me? Nope, just a man who bought the cheesecake and a pumpkin pie plate and now I had to figure out how to pack these bad boys. So this morning after I finished volunteering in my daughters classroom I went out hunting for a box that I could ship these plates in. No luck whatsoever! I started to panic and ended up at the ups store looking at boxes. I ended up buying two boxes that would fit the plates perfectly. Ready to hear how much I paid for him? Gasp....$5.35 EACH! I think that is outrageous! I am somewhat a frugal gal and that was just way too much money for cardboard. Oh well, lesson learned. I need to have a good variety of boxes available to me at all time that are preferably free or close to it. So I took my overpriced boxes home and went to work on packing those darn plates. I had a bunch of bubble wrap and newspaper and wrapped both plates so well you could probably drop them off a two story building without a scratch on them (but hopefully USPS won't try that). I dropped them off at the post office and felt good about how I packed them. Fingers crossed they arrive safely! So this afternoon me and my daughter were outside while my son was napping and she was helping me take some pictures of some of the things I need to get listed. Ding ding goes my phone so I get a little excited. I told myself "Please not another pie plate, please!" Well it wasn't another pie plate...it was worse! It was a set of Pyrex Old Orchard casseroles WITH matching lids! Oh dear God I thought to myself! You have got to be kidding me. This is going to be a huge pain in the butt, way worse than the stupid pie plates! I'm actually selling this set for my sister so I called her and she is going to help me pack it tomorrow morning thank goodness. So that wasn't the end of my crazy day. About an hour after selling the Pyrex set someone bought another pie plate! By this point I just rolled into a ball on my bed while both my kids looked at me like I was a nut job. I can't believe I have to go searching for a box to pack this in tomorrow because there is no way I'm spending $5 on another box! Don't get me wrong, I'm super excited about getting this much business but I just wish it wasn't all breakable stuff that I have to pack so carefully. Oh I also sold a baby outfit today which was the highlight of my day to pack. Just slid it in the envelope and ta da! Done! Maybe kids clothes should become my niche because they sure are easy to pack and ship. So as of today I have sold six items so far this week which is way more than my goal of selling one thing a week. I'm super excited about this and hope this continues just not with all the fragile stuff I have listed. Seriously, cut this girl some slack. I still need to go buy more bubble wrap and find some more newspaper to I can pack the Pyrex and the pie plate tomorrow. Boy, I'm exhausted! But it is fun. It's a great feeling when you can make money by doing something fun like thrifting. Well I'm off to bed because I have another busy day ahead of me tomorrow. Nighty night!

Here I go!

Okay, I have never attempted to blog before, so here goes nothing. I am a single mom of two awesome kids and I just recently started selling on eBay in hopes to make some extra cash so I can continue to stay at home with my kiddos. And when I say recent I mean like I just started maybe two weeks ago. I would love to hear any tips or tricks of the trade when it comes to selling on eBay. I'm super excited about starting this venture and hope I will actually be able to make some money. I am obsessed with reading all blogs related to selling on eBay, I read them every morning while drinking my morning coffee before my kiddos wake up. My favorite ones so far are The eBay Thrifter, The Clueless Thrifter, I can sell this and The Thrifty Picker. I love them all. It's so nice to read about all the amazing deals these people got from yard sales or thrift stores and then making good money from selling them on eBay. I want to be one of those people! I love to go to yard sales and thrift stores, I am borderline OCD about it, but I can't help it. I love finding a bargain whether it comes to finding a great pair of Volcom jeans for my son for a buck or couponing and getting free shampoo and razors and all those goodies. Since I am so new at selling on eBay, I am setting super achievable goals for myself when it comes to my sales. My goal is to sell one item a week. I know, I know it sounds pathetic but I don't want to set unreal expectations for myself plus if I stick with only one item a week I will be pleasantly surprised if I sell more than just one thing, ya know? My first week I sold a pair of my daughter crocs that she never, ever wore. They were super cute, but my daughter likes everything she wears to be super girly and sparkle and these crocs weren't fancy enough for her. Lucky for me! I snapped some pics, took a deep breathe and listed them on eBay. Someone bid on them right away and I was so giddy and excited thinking "Wow, maybe I can do this." So here I am trying to figure all this eBay stuff out like how to take great pictures because mine are pretty bad and trying to figure out if it's better to do the auction style or just do Buy it now. I don't know which attracts more buyers, so any advice is welcome. Well, I think that's enough of me going on and on for tonight. The Real Housewives of Orange County starts tonight and I can't miss that now can I?