Phase One Ends (well, almost)

Phase One of the eBay and Craigslist experience is over. For the most part, anyway. We have found some stragglers--CD's we forgot about in the car, a couple more old computer games I found way back there in the desk, stuff like that--that are up for auction right now, but none of it will bring in much money. It's more about clearing out clutter at this point.

There haven't been a whole lot of developments since my last post. Not surprising at all was the outcome of my unpaid item claim on eBay's Resolution Center: the Louisiana deadbeat never paid. Nor did she even respond. She has, however, found the time to buy more stuff on eBay...and pay for it. Why she never paid for my item will forever remain a mystery.

If you ever sell anything on eBay, take the time to block this person from bidding on your items:

dre_kayla

So ten days after I originally sold the item--plus all the wasted effort of trying to contact dre_kayla, followed by wasting my time opening an unpaid item case in the Resolution Center--I have sold it again to a person who was the third-highest bidder in the auction. The new buyer's maximum bid was $2.00 less than that of dre_kayla in the original auction, so that's what I sold it to her for.

I haven't had any other problems with payment. Everyone else has been great about promptly paying.

Only about half of my buyers have left me feedback on eBay so far, but it's all been positive, so that's good.

The item we got the most money for? The lot of 78 CD's from 1980's hard rock hair bands that went for $140.00. Nothing came even close to that. In fact, we sold a lot of 97 CD's from 1990's bands and got $53.00 for it. The Mrs. can't believe that my "lousy" music even sold in the first place, much less that it became the top seller. I still chuckle about it.

All the "big" sellable stuff from inside the house is gone now, so we'll make very little additional money for however much long it takes Phase One to finally fizzle out. Phase Two will begin when it warms up, and I can get up into the attic and out into the storage shed to see what is up and out there. I suspect, however, that most of what we'll find in those two places will be more appropriate for a yard sale than for eBay. There may not be a Phase Two, but we'll see.

At any rate, we've grossed just over $800.00 so far. By the time eBay and PayPal take their fees, and we factor in all of the shipping supplies we've purchased, I imagine we've probably netted somewhere in the neighborhood of $650.00 or so. Not too shabby.

I did spend a little of our earnings during my time on eBay. I found a nice little wall decoration that I've been after for quite awhile. It very simply states Luke 6:31, also known as the Golden Rule. It's a very important concept to me. It's the way I try to live my life, and it's something I want my daughters to see on the wall every night at dinner and incorporate into their daily lives, too. There are several variations of it, but the decoration I got says: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." I got one for my office, too.

Maybe I should have gotten an extra one for dre_kayla.