Due to our success on eBay recently you may have noticed that several of my blogs mention a tip or two about selling your clutter this way. I had an interesting question from Carmen which raised a subject I thought was worth mentioning. Carmen asked:- "Do you have any advice on shipping? The part I stress the most about is being able to find packaging (e.g. boxes) for the stuff I want to sell on eBay. Consequently, I haven’t sold much." What I say to this is      RECYCLE   RECYCLE    RECYCLE Buy the time you have sold the item on eBay you have already paid … [Read more...]
Day 134 My eBay preparations
Today I have been organizing some more items to put on eBay so I thought I would share with you what I do to prepare for this. Decide what I want to sell Check other completed auctions on eBay to see how similar products are performing. Take photos of the items I am selling and download them to my computer- sometimes if it is a like new item I may just download a photo from the Internet or off another same item already selling on eBay. If sizes or measurement are relevant I make a note of those while I am in the photo taking process. I also make a note of any imperfection or other … [Read more...]
Day 132 Give Away – Throw Away – Sell
Today I am giving you a tally of what has been thrown away, what has been given away and what has been sold on eBay since the beginning of my new years resolution of 365 less things. There is an upside and a downside to this count though. The upside is that most of the items I have uncluttered from my home have either been donated to charity, given to friends or sold on eBay. As I have mentioned before the advantage to this is that they have gone to new homes where they have the chance of being used to their true potential. The downside is that the reason behind the fact that there has … [Read more...]
Day 131 Good stuff
There is a lot of focus on the negative stuff in our lives when we discuss clutter and decluttering so today I thought for once I might focus on a few items in our household that have been in our lives for many years and have been in use all that time (or at least all the time that they haven't been in storage due to location choices) A White Plastic Laundry Hamper - in my bathroom I think has been in use (off and on) for 23 years. My Camphor Wood Chest -Â has stored different items for me since I was a teenager - I plan to reduce enough clutter in our home so that I won't need it … [Read more...]
Day 130 Reuse and recycle
Think about it for a minute, all the stuff in your home that you thought you needed at one point or another and never used to its potential (AKA Clutter) is likely to become landfill prematurely if you don't pass it on now to a good home where it will no doubt at least fulfill another person's needs for a period of time before either being used to it's true potential or get passed on again until it does. I was so please with all my eBay sales last week not only because they put a little bit of cash back into my pocket but also the items I sold are now being used by someone else. There … [Read more...]
Day 127 Snow gear eBay sale
Previously I mentioned how a change of location and or lifestyle can have an impact on the necessity for certain items around your home. Our move from Seattle in the USA back to Australia has rendered our ski gear mostly useless to us as we are now 700km from the closest ski fields. Sure we might like to take a winter holiday to the snow some time but in Australia you can hire both ski clothes and equipment should that ever happen. We also have some items that no longer fit our children anyway. So I decided to sell it all on eBay. Now I did my homework first and checked similar … [Read more...]
Day 117 Snow Gear
I finally got all the snow clothing out of the cupboard on the weekend (one of those jobs I have been avoiding) and put it all on eBay. All that is except the pair of men's pants that had a hole in the leg and a ripped lining - I don't know why I hadn't already tossed them out- and 2 pair of goggles that the foam fining had perished while stuck in the cupboard unused. The auctions are going well 5 out of 10 things already have bids on and anything that doesn't sell will be going to the thrift shop. While writing this I realised that I forgot to put the other pairs of goggles on eBay so … [Read more...]
Day 91 Stocking up or obsessing
I once came across and article in a scrapbook magazine with a survey to determine whether the reader was a scrapbooker or a collector of scrapbook supplies. This may seem amusing to some but there is an fine edge that one can easily slip over when at the height of a crafting obsession. This applies to all crafts and hobbies, woodworking, quilting, knitting, beading, model making... the list goes on. So beware and try to put a limit on the amount of supplies you allow yourself to amass. It is very easy to get carried away. Tastes change, trends change and life changes and one day you may … [Read more...]
Day 81 Every little thing counts
On January 15th my give-away for the day was wedding invitations that I made for a friend's daughter's wedding. My husband said that was a cop out and not really purging anything yet I thought this was one of my best donations yet. You see I have a lot of papercrafting items such as tools, cardstock , paper, adhesive, embelishments.... but I really haven't been doing a lot of papercrafting lately. I have previously made the invitations for the engagement party and when I was asked to do the wedding invitations I thought what a great oportunity to contribute to their special event and purge … [Read more...]
Day 80 Owership is not Compulsory
A couple of days ago I added my bicycle to the things that are to go to charity. I have owned a bike since I was about nine years old. I rode a bike to school almost every day from that age. I bought my first new bike when I was about sixteen and when I started working for my parents' business at the age of nineteen I used the bike to deliver the monthly accounts. The use of the bicycle got less and less once I was married and had children but it has been one of those thing that I have always owned and relied on during a long period of my life. I have never not owned one since the age of … [Read more...]