I am not sure why it is so hard for me to write in this blog daily, every other day, once a week, or even once a month.  I have so much to say and so much knowledge to share.  I love shopping at yard sales, thrift stores and estate sales for stuff to sell and telling other people how they can make good money doing it too.  Hell, last week I went shopping in my basement and storage unit.  My BFF loves to visit my house and she tells people she is going to my store.  I have so much stuff that I really don’t know what I have.  But I have been working on getting rid of a lot of it.  I had a great 2-3 weeks on eBay and Amazon, but now I have to put my Amazon account on vacation and go help out with my 96 year old mother.  I know when I say 96 years old, it makes me sound old, but my mom had me [very] late in life.    It is a blessing to have her still with us.

I probably won’t have Internet access, but I am taking plenty of work with me.  I am going to work on Hallmark Christmas ornaments, blue jeans and jewelry from my basement and storage unit. I have two large plastic bins of Hallmark ornaments.  I am going to list them on paper and photograph them.  I will probably get the jeans out of the way first by measuring and photographing them, that is a pretty easy job.  I am also taking hundreds of pieces of costume jewelry with me, but I am not sure I will get to work on any of the jewelry.  Hopefully, I can organize it better.  I have so much jewelry it is overwhelming.  Some of the pieces I bought individually over the years, but I also buy jewelry by the bag.  Most of the pieces in the bags are junk (remember junk sells) but I have found some good stuff in the bags.  It is fun going through all the pieces of jewelry when I buy it by the bag.  A lot of the jewelry is vintage pieces. Read more »

I’ve been MIA for a little while but I am really going to try to write in my blog every few days.  I have lots of tips and ideas to share and also I get lots of questions so I have decided to do an ‘AskJean’ about eBay or Amazon or about other ways that I make money. 

I love writing on ehow.com although I have not written an article in a while I know the potential is there to make lots of money.  I get a small amount from ehow every month and that is based on the articles I wrote months ago.  I also like affiliate marketing although I haven’t done a lot of it, I made some money from being an Amazon affiliate. 

Today I’m taking a little break from eBay and Amazon.  I have some things that I have to do today for Amazon like add tracking numbers, but other than that I’m going to try to take it easy.  I just finished planning and hosting a big event for my mother’s 96 birthday.  When I got back in town on Sunday I had 18 Amazon orders that I had to pack and ship yesterday.  So today I’m going to have a little ‘Me Time.’

I was laid-off my job in May and I’ve been working really hard since then on Amazon and eBay.  I hit the ground running as they say and I hadn’t slowed down.  I really want to make a living on Amazon and eBay but it can wear you out.  I realize that I need some help and eventually I will hire an assistant.  I also thought about starting a personal assistant company.  As much as I love eBay and Amazon sometimes I need a break from it all.  Anyway, leave your comments; ask questions, I promise I will respond.  Thanks for reading!

I’ve been away from blogging for a little while and away from eBay for a couple of months.  But my Amazon business is still booming and in the next (5) days I will be telling how yours can too!  Why not subscribe so you don’t miss these valuable tips to make your bank account fatter!.  The beginning of February I was getting so many sales on Amazon and then all of a sudden it slowed down to 1-2 sales a day and some days no sales at all.  ;-(  But it is starting to pick up again.  I find when I am listing more and more books, CDs, and DVDs I get more and more sales.

I was recently laid off my job or I should say RIF from my job, so I have been listing a lot more stuff on eBay.  I love selling on eBay but with the economy the way it is, it seems people have slowed down on spending money.  I have been hitting the thrift stores pretty hard.  I always say the fun part about eBay and Amazon is shopping and finding great deals and the sales you get after listing the stuff.  I am much better at shopping than I am at listing.  I have a basement full of stuff to list and also a storage unit.  I’m almost embarrassed to talk about the storage unit because I’ve had it a while.  But as I said it’s the hunt that is so much fun.  I could go to a thrift store everyday, but I don’t, but I know people who do.  There is this one thrift store that I just love and it seems a lot of other people love it too because I see the same faces everytime I go.  I’m going to post some of my favorite thrift stores in my area in my next post.  

I wrote this blog post the end of February but never posted it.  Since then I listed a bunch of stuff on eBay and all of it has closed except some things that didn’t sell and I ended up relisting them for 30 days.  I kind of like being able to list items for 30 days for $0.35.  In most cases the items sell during the 30 days.  I will be posting more stuff this week or this weekend.

A blogger is giving away a $25.00 eBay gift card to one lucky winner. Win a $25.00 eBay Gift Card  Just leave a comment on his blog to be entered in the contest.  Contest ends Sunday night Jan. 11th 2009 @ 11:59pm (Pacific Time).

I wish you all a new year filled with good health, peace, happiness, success and prosperity. The new year is a good time to reflect and look back on the months gone by and decide how we can do things differently or continue as we were. Many people make resolutions to exercise, get out of debt, lose weight, save money, get a new job and so on. I haven’t made any resolutions but I would just like to make this year better than last year. Last year was a good year, I don’t have any complaints, but I do want to become better physically fit, volunteer and give back, try to eat more organic foods, pay off a few bills, have more fun, laugh more, make more money (so I can help others), have multiple streams of income and just work at being a better person in every aspect of my life. I want to live my best life(as Oprah would say). In a week or two I will sit down and make some goals for my eBay and Amazon business and decide what direction I want to take.

I hope you all have a great year, make it your best!

Do you have a best sale?  My best sale was not on eBay but on Amazon.  I sell on eBay off and on because it takes more time to research, take photos, write description, answer questions from bidders, and so on.  Amazon is so much easier.  I can list a book, CD or DVD in a matter of minutes, plus on Amazon the items can sit in my store as long as I like them to.  (My Amazon Store) I’ve had items sell after sitting on the shelf for a year or longer.  My best sale did not sell right away, matter of fact because I listed it at such a high price, I didn’t think anyone would ever buy it but I was hopeful. 

My best sale was a very large coffee table book called Forgotten Flies by Paul Schmookler.  I purchased the book at a sale for $4.00 and it sold for (drum roll, please) $398.75.  Amazon’s commission was $61.16 but I didn’t mind, I was just happy the book sold.  I was reimbursed $3.99 for shipping but it cost much more to ship because the book was very heavy, and if I’m not mistaken I had to buy a box to ship it in because I could not find a box large enough.  The book was in excellent condition.  Sometimes I get a little nervous when someone purchases an expensive item from me because I don’t want it returned. 

I’ve had lots of sales on Amazon from Thanksgiving until a few days before Christmas.  I sold lots of CDs, DVDs and books.  I sell a lot of Classical music CDs, and during the holidays I sold a lot of Christmas CDs.  But CDs, DVDs and books sell all year round.  I am a little concerned when selling used CDs and DVDs because I do not want any of them returned because they will not play, some of my CDs and DVDs sell for over $50.00.  I am not able to listen to or watch all the CDs and DVDs but I recently learned about a machine that repairs/cleans CDs and DVDs.  I purchased it and I will write about it soon.

Please share your best sale.  Thanks for reading.

Here is the CD, DVD Repair machine I purchased - 

Most of you know about the hot toys that are selling on eBay; Elmo Live, Wall-E Interactive Robot and Hasbro’s FurReal Dog Biscuit but there are a few hot Christmas items to look for when you are shopping the flea markets and thrift stores.  I have noticed lots of Christmas decorations and ornaments at the thrift stores that I go to.  I always pick up all the Hallmark Keepsake ornaments that I see but I have not found any of the Hallmark ornaments that sell for over $200.

Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments

Hallmark introduced it’s first collection of Hallmark Keepsake Ornament in 1973 and every year Hallmark introduces new ornaments that are only available during that year. A lot of the Hallmark ornaments Read more »

Last weekend I heard this story on the radio but I understand it has been circulating around the Internet.  I thought it made sense and wanted to share it.   It’s worth reading if you do not quite understand what is going on with the Wall Street bailout.

 

Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.

The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went into the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and, as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He further announced that he would now buy monkeys at $20 for each. Read more »

In addition to selling on eBay and Amazon, I recently started writing on several websites to see if I could really make money writing online.  First I signed up with http://ehow.com the end of July and today I received my first payment.  It was lunch money; over $10.00 but at least I know it works and next month I am expecting to make a bit more. I made over $10.00 on just eight how-to articles.  I know if I write more I will earn more.
 

I just read about a lady who made $892.78 for the month of September.  She has written an ebook “How to Earn Passive Income at eHow.com: Residual Income for Web Content Writers” This is what she says “You’d need $240,000 in the bank at 5% interest to earn $1,000 a month in residuals … but I earn more than that each month from my “bank” of eHow articles and other passive income streams.  Learn how to put your work to work for you in my fast-selling eBook.”  Read more »