Lazy week--Nice weather!

I went to my Mom's last weekend- and spent some time listing more auctions because EBAY had a week long listing special.  I had over 150 auctions up at one point.  Now I have just been waiting for them to end and packaging the sold items.  Last night my ST JOHN suit went for $200.  I had previously had it at a fixed price of $199.99 for several months with lots of watchers but no purchasers, so I listed it at auction for $159.99 and two people battled it back up to $200.  Funny how people's minds work when it comes to auctions.  Another woman in California has bought 3 fixed price items for a total of $99.97 but won't be paying until she gets paid on the 3rd of March.  All in all I think the EBAY promotion has helped considerably.  I will be moving all unsold vintage items over to ETSY when they end.  I may list the current items in ETSY on EBAY this spring--especially the possible wedding dress.

Well, I am out of greek yogurt, so it is off to SAMS I go.

Woo Hoo! Big sale on EBAY!

I sold a set of 5 books, a science fiction series by George R. R. Martin, for $399 last night.  After Ebay and Paypal take their cuts, I made about $340.  Two of the books I picked up used, the other three I bought new, so I know there was at least a $250 profit.  This was my biggest sale so far.  The five books weighed in at over 14 pounds boxed up.  I also sent a 21 pound box of books to my brother Brian today.  Thats 35 pounds of books gone, several thousand left to go!

Vintage clothing and ETSY

I finally made the move to ETSY with my Vintage clothing.  I will put them up at auction on EBAY once, and if they don't go I am moving them to ETSY and raising the price.  It costs .20 for a 3 month listing.  Now to wait and see how much traffic I can generate.  They are already getting more hits than they did on Ebay.  There should be a gallery at the bottom of the page on the left that shows some of my listings.  If I did it right!

Road Construction

I had to get to SAMs today for cat food, litter and large padded envelopes.  They are widening the road from 4 lane to 6 lane and major construction right at the entrance, so you had to drive around and come in the back way.  Why do we need 6 lanes in little old Marion, IL?  Because the Mall is right there and there is no busier place around.  I get my hair cut at that mall, and I sometimes go into Target, but that is a real danger zone for me.  I can walk out of Wal-mart with only items on my shopping list, but Target nabs me everytime. Other than that, I have no use for a mall. Maybe I will walk there this winter, before it opens.
I went to see the Dr. today about my right knee and we are scheduling a MRI to see what's catching. 

Putting the trash out tonight, one barrel.  Got my first 6 auctions written up for next Sunday, 14 to go!  I made some sweet and sour chicken tonight, with rice.  Yum.  I think I am going to freeze it for later because I don't want any more this week.  I am going to make my fruited chicken salad and use up the greens before they go slimy.  I did finish all the potato salad and have a couple more hard boiled eggs to eat.  Need to boil my last two ears of corn and eat them up.  I think I will make some Salmon patties to round out the week.  I am trying to clean out the refrigerator and transition to fall foods--it was in the low 30's last night!

I am up too late.

Went to Karen's to watch Dancing with the Stars tonight.  I am ready for Mr. Situation to go home.  Had my massage and adjustment today and am going back tomorrow to see Dr. about my right knee, which continues to have a catch in it.  Had to check on my auctions and see what was happening on facebook, so thought I better pop in here and make a few notes.  I am tickled that this item has a bid, and hope it isn't going to be a costume of some sort!  I think I am going to go back to listing about 20 auctions on Sunday evening and letting the weekday ones go.  I just seem to get better bids on Sunday.  I am experimenting with free shipping on some of the auctions I put up last night.  I want to see if they really do get more bids.

What you find at Goodwill

I just listed a VALENTINO Boutique item on Ebay.  It's a wool suit from the late 80's or early 90's, but there are lots of people out there who love their vintage clothing.  I paid $7 and have it listed at $49.99.  We will see.  I also have a CHRISTIAN DIOR boys sports jacket listed.  It was hung up in with the women's jackets.  They both have watchers, but no bids yet.

ps..the Dior has a bid from someone in Australia!

They like their Balogh!

My 13 Balogh auctions ended this afternoon averaging $12.50 each.  Not too shabby.  This one went for over $27.

I had tuna salad on a whole grain thin and a banana for lunch, and I think I will finish off the rice krispies for dinner.  I am taking my last mini meatloaf and a spinach salad to work for lunch tomorrow.  I did buy some packaged Laura's lean hamburger today as it was marked down.  It went in the freezer.  Glad I had room to store it now!  I bought banana's also.  A week to go and I am still under my $50 budget.  There is still a heck of a lot of food around here.  I may be doing this next month also.

Snackin'

I basically just snacked all day on leftovers.  Got lots of books sorted, photographed and boxed.  Lots of action on my Balogh auctions.  Lots of kittified help, which is actually a hindrance, but don't tell them I said so.  I didn't get around to making the apple dumplings, but sometime this week I will!  The freezer door now closes comfortably.  I am making headway here.

Bookmooch

I eliminated my inventory on Bookmooch last month when I went to spend time with Mom. I just started listing books back on there this week, and I have already taken 41 of the 100 books I listed to the Post Office and still have 6 more to ship later this week. I have spent over $75 in postage. I think the reason they are going so fast is that I didn't list any that had a lot already in other peoples inventory, and most of them were on the wishlists of several people. I have books going to Australia, Japan, Bhutan, Canada and England. Now I just have to mooch the books that are going to translate into cash on Ebay. The only way that seems to work is if they complete sets that I have already got going. Those books are usually easy to find on Bookmooch. I have started listing on Ebay again, after about a 6 week break. That seems to be working out fairly well. I have been doing quite a bit of research during this week of break. Not reading much myself though!

Dental visits in my future

I got my new crown yesterday and then had a consultation to go over what other work needed to be done. $3307 worth. After my insurance pays. Yep. I went back in today and had two fillings done. Next week I get two more. Then we are looking at the expensive stuff. Two crowns on both sides of the top back, four in all, have to come off, teeth filled, and new crowns put back on. Hopefully none of them will need root canals, because only one of them has had one in the past. As you can guess, I am really looking forward to this. No trips to anywhere in my near future. Just another reason to jack up the EBAY sales for this shopping season. I did just send out two suits today, from the store, so it is time to get the auctions going. Wish me luck!

Forgotten Skills

I sold a Cashmere blend blazer today to someone in New York City. She had written offering me $5 less than what I was asking because she was going to have to pay some one at least $20 to hem up the sleeves for her because they were too long. When did we all forget how to sew? What things did your Mother do regularly that you would not have a clue how to do today?

I want to learn more about canning but I knit and crochet and my Mom never learned how. She did teach me to sew, and while I rarely whip out the machine these days, I can certainly hem or sew on a button! I look around at the world today and wonder what would happen if we did have to become more self-reliant for our day to day needs. I understand the economics of scale but the loss of independence is scary, since our dependence is not on one another in a community building sort of way, but on governments and monopolies who really don't care about our real needs.

We become convinced that these powers that be will always provide, but didn't we learn something from Katrina? Myanmar is taking very good care of their people, right? A little time now spent learning some forgotten skills might save us some trouble later.

Back on Ebay

I just listed 5 book auctions, after taking way too long a break. I do get burnt out on it, so all that has sold the last 3 weeks have been items out of my store, no auctions. Time to get back at it though. I have all the clothes on sale, 25% off. What ever doesn't sell by the end of the month is getting pulled and sent to the consignment shops. Wonder what they would think about this 70's baby? Flared legs and all. You can click on the image below to go to the auction.

Busy Boxing Books

Really. I have been very busy putting the books in plastic bags and packing them carefully into boxes and making sure the addresses are on the right boxes. I hate it when I send a box of books to the wrong person! Then I have to haul them out to the car one or two at a time and then haul them into the Post Office and hope there isn't a line. I think I hurt my back again. I am going to put one of the those menthol pain patches on it. I had one box of 19 Kenyon Dark Hunter books go for $152 and 4 ex-library D.E. Stevenson Mrs Tim books went for over $50. All in all it was a productive week. I need to keep it up, but I won't.



Howsomever, there is a big rummage sale this Friday-Saturday put on by the local C'dale churches and then the C'dale Library book sale on Saturday. More books, I betcha. I will certainly be scarfing up any Kenyon books I see. Or Horse stories. Or Mrs. Tim.

I had a good time at CVS on Sunday, and didn't even use any ECBS. I bought three gift bags at $1.49 each. They are a cvs brand Essence of Beauty product and the sale this month is buy 3 items get 5 ECB's. The RX essentials again, I had 2 $5 manufacturers coupons and a $5 cvs coupon for them that expired on Sunday. The special was buy one, get one free. They cost $14.99, minus my $15 in coupons. The Excederin is another special this week, $1.99 each with $2 manufacturers coupons floating around, and $1 ecb's each. With my $4 off of $20 purchase coupon, I paid less than a dollar and got back $8 in ECB's. So once again, they paid me $7.50 to take this stuff home. Do you see Mica in the upper corner, trying to eat some bag ties?

Harry is going to Canada.

My Harry Dresden books are going to Canada. They didn't do as well as I hoped, but I recouped my costs. Several of the others did better than expected. $126 worth tonight, the next bunch end on Sunday night. It is thundering again so I am shutting it down. Happy April everyone!

Harry Dresden- Wizard

I had just changed the bulbs, and the fan was running. Silly boy really wanted to catch a blade!
Mica was busy cleaning up her bald belly. No stitches, because they glue them back together these days!

This will be the auction to watch this week. I sold the first 8 books in paperback last month, and these are brand new hardback anthologies with the complete series up to this point. The 10th is coming out in hardback soon. Harry Dresden is a wizard in Chicago and had his own series on the Sci Fi channel. I put up 5 box lots tonight as 5 day auctions. I will get 5 more up tomorrow as 7 day auctions. Taking advantage of the .01 listing sale.

People love their horse stories!

My $7 investment in horse story paperbacks last week turned into $96 this week. Last summer I bought a set of 20 some hardback books with dustjackets from the 40's, 50's and 60's. They were horse stories, I think 10 were Black Stallion books by Walter Farley. There were Golden Stallion and some pony books. I paid $1 each and sold them all for over $200 when it was all said and done. Pick up those horse stories when you see them, if they are in good condition. No one wants a ratty old book!

Ebay and books

Last week on my way home from work I stopped at a little thrift shop. They usually have paperbacks for .25, or 5/1.00 so I like to browse regularlly. The little library next door also has .25 books in the back room, so I combine the stops. I found 22 books in a series for young adults about horses, 2 sets of 4 books each, again about horses, and a last set of 3. The 22 looked like they had been read, but the other 3 sets were pristine. I took them home for about $7 and photographed them and got them up on ebay on Sunday night. They are doing pretty good, 2 have bids and the other two have watchers, so hopefully they will all sell.

Sometimes I will find partial sets, and that is when I get on BookMooch and try and fill them in to sell.

It seems that things sell out of my ebay store in cycles. A week ago I had several sales, then none until last night. 3 weeks ago I had a bunch go at once, then a stall for 2 weeks. I don't get it, but enough moves that I am not tempted to shut it down. Yet.

I do need to spend some time prepping and photographing some clothing items tonight so I can have them listed tomorrow evening.

Ebay and bookmooch

It is raining again. I had to go out to the shed and hunt up two books that sold out of my EBAY store yesterday, and Jean-Claude has convinced himself that there is something really interesting OUTSIDE!!!! I finally just picked him up and carried him to the shed, and he explored while I rearranged and grabbed the two books I needed. When I called him to leave he came right up, so that worked out ok, I was afraid I would be chasing him down.



I also had 7 books to ship off of Bookmooch, which is a very good thing, because I had mooched so many myself in the last week and needed to get my numbers back up. Bookmooch allows me an opportunity to move books that aren't worth listing on EBAY by adding them to my inventory and if someone "mooches" it I get a point, which I can then search everyone else's inventory for a book I want. I pay the shipping for any book leaving my house, and the other person pays to ship a book I want to me! If you mooch a book from any other country, it costs you two points, but they get three points for shipping internationally.



Now I have to make a run out to SAMs Club for some more padded envelopes. I really go through those and Sams has the best price around.

I am just throwing this picture of the room I slept in in Scotland, because, you know, there is a book thing going on in this post!





I am working on some sort of weekly format for the bloggy thing. There are so many things you can participate in on a weekly basis, and some of them are right up my alley, so you may be seeing some changes as this developes.