simplifying my life

[Guest guest]

I've been selling on eBay for upwards of 8 years now. Started out selling an occasional spare beanie baby to pay for my stash of them. Then I got into selling toys, as I had 3 kids age 6 or younger back then and I seemed to spend ALOT of time in toy stores. Not that I bought alot of toy for them by any means, but it got us out of the house and it was a fun activity for them to go and 'try out' toys.lol So I got to know toys from being around toys alot. And then I saw that parents of kids and adult collectors would pay sometimes obscene amounts on eBay for toys that were out of production. After toys, my toy buying/selling grew to include collectibles.....then housewares.....and on and on.

Pretty soon, I was a full blown eBay seller. Back then, before we moved here, I was also very unhappy. We lived in a very isolated place in PA. We lived there for almost 15 yrs. It was beautiful but lonely once I stopped working to stay home & have babies, and all the people I had gotten to know there either died or moved away. Alot of them were 'refugees' fleeing New Jersey. They were born and raised there, and after a few yrs in PA, they couldn't take not being in Jersey & around the Jersey lifestyle so they moved back.*shudder* I guess it's a jersey thing.....you have to be from there to understand it, cuz I never could.lolol

 

So I was stuck in the middle of nowhere, with no friends to talk to, no family around & 3 small children to take care of.

So I found the internet. Having online friends to 'talk' to saved my sanity then, and I drove the hour it took to get to the stores and started buying crap to sell on eBay. I was better at the buying part then at the actual listing and selling part for the 1st few years. In short order, I had 2 small storage units FILLED with stuff, plus the screened in porch we had built on the house was 1/2 filled, along with 1/2 of my oldest son's bedroom. Add in all those outgrown kids clothes and the normal amount of castoffs from a family of 5 with no local Salvation Army/Goodwill type store to get rid of that sort of accumulation & you'd have the state of my house.

I was acquiring much faster than I was unloading it all on eBay. The only good part of this was I did not put this shopping on credit cards.....well, I did but I paid it off every month, so there was no accumulation of debt to go along with this accumulation of crap.

 

We moved 6 years ago to our current location-from a barely 1000sq ft. house to a 2200 sq. ft. one. All my 'ebay stock' now fit nicely in a combination of the garage(which we didn't have one of at the old place)and the basement(also didn't have one of those before). But I soon found the basement was not dry enough to store things and hubby actually had visions of putting his CAR in the garage.....imagine that!lolol So most of my stock went back into 1 larger storage unit down the road and the house was totally eBay stock free.....for now.

For the first year here, I continued to buy crap to sell on eBay at a quick clip....hey, now I was closer to stores and a much wider variety of them and I was still lonely! Fairly quickly, I needed to rent another storage unit, as my acutal selling was still a distant second to my buying activity.

 

Let me say that my mother passed away suddenly 2 weeks before we closed on this house 6 yrs. ago, so the 1st yr. here was not a great one emotionally for me, due to that and some other issues. Now I can see that I was shopping/buying crap to fill an emotional need that life changes caused in my life.

 

I finally snapped to about 4 years ago. Realized I needed to stop buying stuff and focus on the selling part...duh! I slowed way down on the buying and was able last year to buy very little for eBay. I am also proud to say that I was able this winter to totally avoid buying ANYTHING in the After Xmas sales, which in the past, had been a time when I spent TONS getting toys and such cheap to resell for the following xmas season. I am sure there are stores around here about to file bankruptcy protection b/c I was MIA.lolol

 

I've spent the last week or so in my storage units going through things, cleaning up, etc. from this past holiday selling season and I can actually discern that I am FINALLY making a dent in all this accumulation of stuff. If I pack carefully, I think I can now get all my eBay stock to fit into 1 storage unit! yay!! It will be nice to get rid of 1 of the monthly storage fees too.

 

I told hubby yesterday, that this year is my last year for selling on eBay. I am going to sell down what is left that I can make a profit on and donate the rest to charity and be done with it all as a fulltimer on eBay.

That freaked my daughter out as I have used part of my profits on eBay the last 4 years to send the kids to summer camp on Lake Erie for a few weeks. She LOVES camp and is worried about her camp sugar momma running dry.

I bet she'll start leaving the want ads out for me, trying to find me a 'real job' now......lol

 

I just wanted to share my decision so that ya'll can bug me about it in about a year from now if I forget. ;-)

 

sluggy

 

 

[Guest guest]

Wow....Sluggy, that is a monumental change in your life. Congrats on freeing yourself from that cluttered life. Simplicity is the way to go

 

Barbara

 

 

 

 

I've been selling on eBay for upwards of 8 years now. Started out selling an occasional spare beanie baby to pay for my stash of them. Then I got into selling toys, as I had 3 kids age 6 or younger back then and I seemed to spend ALOT of time in toy stores. Not that I bought alot of toy for them by any means, but it got us out of the house and it was a fun activity for them to go and 'try out' toys.lol So I got to know toys from being around toys alot. And then I saw that parents of kids and adult collectors would pay sometimes obscene amounts on eBay for toys that were out of production. After toys, my toy buying/selling grew to include collectibles.....then housewares.....and on and on.

 

I just wanted to share my decision so that ya'll can bug me about it in about a year from now if I forget. ;-)

 

sluggy

 

 

[Guest guest]

Any idea what you'd like to do next, Sluggy? Ya know, by then Holly might almost be old enough to EARN money to go to camp. ;-) Well, you can tell her that, just for fun, lol.

 

I was thinking as I read this, you know the first thing I remember about you? Ranting about Sally Winey, lol.

 

Cyndi

 

In a message dated 1/7/2007 2:14:50 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, arcure writes:

 

 

 

 

 

I've been selling on eBay for upwards of 8 years now. Started out selling an occasional spare beanie baby to pay for my stash of them. Then I got into selling toys, as I had 3 kids age 6 or younger back then and I seemed to spend ALOT of time in toy stores. Not that I bought alot of toy for them by any means, but it got us out of the house and it was a fun activity for them to go and 'try out' toys.lol So I got to know toys from being around toys alot. And then I saw that parents of kids and adult collectors would pay sometimes obscene amounts on eBay for toys that were out of production. After toys, my toy buying/selling grew to include collectibles.....then housewares.....and on and on.

Pretty soon, I was a full blown eBay seller. Back then, before we moved here, I was also very unhappy. We lived in a very isolated place in PA. We lived there for almost 15 yrs. It was beautiful but lonely once I stopped working to stay home & have babies, and all the people I had gotten to know there either died or moved away. Alot of them were 'refugees' fleeing New Jersey. They were born and raised there, and after a few yrs in PA, they couldn't take not being in Jersey & around the Jersey lifestyle so they moved back.*shudder* I guess it's a jersey thing.....you have to be from there to understand it, cuz I never could.lolol

 

So I was stuck in the middle of nowhere, with no friends to talk to, no family around & 3 small children to take care of.

So I found the internet. Having online friends to 'talk' to saved my sanity then, and I drove the hour it took to get to the stores and started buying crap to sell on eBay. I was better at the buying part then at the actual listing and selling part for the 1st few years. In short order, I had 2 small storage units FILLED with stuff, plus the screened in porch we had built on the house was 1/2 filled, along with 1/2 of my oldest son's bedroom. Add in all those outgrown kids clothes and the normal amount of castoffs from a family of 5 with no local Salvation Army/Goodwill type store to get rid of that sort of accumulation & you'd have the state of my house.

I was acquiring much faster than I was unloading it all on eBay. The only good part of this was I did not put this shopping on credit cards.....well, I did but I paid it off every month, so there was no accumulation of debt to go along with this accumulation of crap.

 

We moved 6 years ago to our current location-from a barely 1000sq ft. house to a 2200 sq. ft. one. All my 'ebay stock' now fit nicely in a combination of the garage(which we didn't have one of at the old place)and the basement(also didn't have one of those before). But I soon found the basement was not dry enough to store things and hubby actually had visions of putting his CAR in the garage.....imagine that!lolol So most of my stock went back into 1 larger storage unit down the road and the house was totally eBay stock free.....for now.

For the first year here, I continued to buy crap to sell on eBay at a quick clip....hey, now I was closer to stores and a much wider variety of them and I was still lonely! Fairly quickly, I needed to rent another storage unit, as my acutal selling was still a distant second to my buying activity.

 

Let me say that my mother passed away suddenly 2 weeks before we closed on this house 6 yrs. ago, so the 1st yr. here was not a great one emotionally for me, due to that and some other issues. Now I can see that I was shopping/buying crap to fill an emotional need that life changes caused in my life.

 

I finally snapped to about 4 years ago. Realized I needed to stop buying stuff and focus on the selling part...duh! I slowed way down on the buying and was able last year to buy very little for eBay. I am also proud to say that I was able this winter to totally avoid buying ANYTHING in the After Xmas sales, which in the past, had been a time when I spent TONS getting toys and such cheap to resell for the following xmas season. I am sure there are stores around here about to file bankruptcy protection b/c I was MIA.lolol

 

I've spent the last week or so in my storage units going through things, cleaning up, etc. from this past holiday selling season and I can actually discern that I am FINALLY making a dent in all this accumulation of stuff. If I pack carefully, I think I can now get all my eBay stock to fit into 1 storage unit! yay!! It will be nice to get rid of 1 of the monthly storage fees too.

 

I told hubby yesterday, that this year is my last year for selling on eBay. I am going to sell down what is left that I can make a profit on and donate the rest to charity and be done with it all as a fulltimer on eBay.

That freaked my daughter out as I have used part of my profits on eBay the last 4 years to send the kids to summer camp on Lake Erie for a few weeks. She LOVES camp and is worried about her camp sugar momma running dry.

I bet she'll start leaving the want ads out for me, trying to find me a 'real job' now......lol

 

I just wanted to share my decision so that ya'll can bug me about it in about a year from now if I forget. ;-)

 

sluggy