BOLO: Lego Duplo Tubes

So my eBay bestie, Mandy, who I blogged about not too long ago... is letting me share some of her sweet finds since she is not a blogger. So I am going to highlight some of her awesome flips in the next few days. Here is one of my more recent favorites of hers:

Lego Duplo Tubes

Now if I saw these at a yardsale, I might have over looked them. They look like a "thousand pieces I don't have time for."
She picked up a box of these for $3 at a yardsale and sold them for $60.99 + Shipping.
An awesome flip, and I am jealous.

i love INK! A BOLO

A small tip for your Friday afternoon from me to you!

Always, always, ALWAYS pick up printer ink when you see it for sale for cheap. I love love buying ink. Even if it goes for cheap on eBay. Why you ask?
It either sells for cheap, but sells SUPER fast.... or it can make you a big profit but still sell FAST!
I always see new ink at yard sales or thrift stores and I make sure to buy it every time (even expired ink).

I bought these for $3 each. They both sold in one listing for $28.49. Minus $2 shipping and some seller fees, I profited $18. Best part; they sold within an hour!

Happy Friday!

....ps. Notice the marking on the ink boxes? Yep those are from Goodwill... Remember my post here? More about what happened with that later.

Merry....errrr Late Christmas? And a Happy New Year!

I totally neglected my blog the last month. My life has been insane. This is what happened:

1- My kids BOTH had horrible reactions to flu shots. Causing a week of my 24/7 time with them. (104 degree fevers, and cranky kids = no fun). (Also it means I get NO SLEEP)
2- Family Visiting
3- I took on multiple DIY Christmas presents... some took WAY MORE TIME than I thought.
4- Severe Jalapeno Burns on my hands from canning hot pepper jelly. No I didn't wear gloves.
5- We re homed our dog. It was SO SAD! We love him, but he is a gigantic 60 pound puppy that loved to jump, and unfortunately our kids were becoming scared of him because of his size and energy... so he wasn't getting the time he deserved. We homed him... and to make a long story short he ended up being in 6 different homes (badly mistreated by one, and abandoned by another) and it was a 2 week nightmare... BUT he ended up finding the PERFECT home, and his new owner and I have become good friends... so there was a happy ending.
6- We are currently getting over pneumonia and sinus infections in our house. (My poor kids have pneumonia and hubby and I sinus infections)...

Luckily the winter illnesses are starting to fade, and the holiday hustle and bustle is calming down. I feel like I can finally get back into the swing of things. My eBay sales were FANTASTIC right before Christmas. I was selling about 3-4 things a day which was awesome for me. It has since slowed down, but luckily I still have a stream of sales happening. Despite all the craziness I have been able to keep up my listings. (yay me!).
So with all of that being said, Happy Late Holidays and Happy New Year!

Here are some note worthy sales I had during the last month:
(All sales free shipping unless noted)

 Paid: 50 Cents Sold: 14.95

 Paid: $1 Sold: $21.95 (This is seriously hideous)

 Paid: $0! My father in law was going to toss it out. Bell Pit Boss Motorcycle helmet. Used. Sold: $59.95

 PG&E Mug. Ok so I grabbed this without looking this up. I knew it was probably unique since its the power company in California. When I got home I listed it at 15.35 and it sold right away. I should have listed it a little higher. (Paid 50 cents)

So after I posted my previous post about perfection pieces, I went to an estate sale and found this baby for $5! Complete with all the pieces. I listed it right when I got home at auction and it ended up selling for $45.05 plus calculated shipping! One of my favorite sales of 2013!

 

 



BOLO: Perfection

Last week while with my brother, we briefly stopped by a few yard sales before heading out to a sibling breakfast with my dad. We were kind of late in the yard sale world of timing, so I figured we wouldn't find much. My brother picked up a perfection game that was like NEW. Remember perfection? A total 90's kid game.

Much to my brothers disappointment the game was broken. He was going to toss it, and I asked him if I could keep the pieces. Luckily all pieces were there, and I quickly listed them. Within the first hour I had them listed I got quite a few watchers, and then bang... a buyer! Sold for $11.95 FS. (We paid 50 cents for the game).

 

After the listing ended, I even got a few messages from eBayers wanting to know if the pieces sold, and REALLY wanting them. Wow. So this of course sparked my curiosity for how much the game goes for itself.

 

 

Check out this recently ended Perfection game auction HERE

 

Seriously. I see these games alot. Its just a matter of if they have all their pieces intact :)

 



A lesson learned in shipping

On my last post I mentioned that I had quite the experience with the shipping of this item:

So I sold this item for best offer of $25 free shipping. I realized after shipping cost me $11 I didnt make too much off of this adorable peacock costume.

I shipped it FedEx. Why FedEx? I love their rates for large boxes, and as you can see those are some crazy wings on the costume and I didnt want to risk folding them up and ruining the costume.
-If you have something LARGE to ship, go FedEx.

So I packaged the costume up and went to a local satalite postage center. I believe alot of towns have these little franchises around. Its a little store that has UPS, USPS, FEDEX, DHL all in one place. Its the closest thing to my house, so I almost always ship packages out here... especially if I am going Fedex. That day I shipped out the above Peacock costume via FedEx and 3 other USPS packages. These were all prepaid Ebay labels, so all I had to do was hand the packages to the worker.

Now fast forward a few days. I recieve an email from the buyer of the Peacock costume saying that she has not received the package and there is no tracking information available. I quickly find the tracking information and sure enough there were no timestamps. Not even one for the pick up at the location I dropped the package off at. I called FedEx. Filed a claim. I then call the postage satalite center, the owner swears up and down he would never misplace a package and was very insulted I even insenuated that he or his employees might have. (Whatever). I then email the buyer and let her know what is going on. I told her that if Fedex does not find the package in 2 days I would refund her.

2 Days pass. Package is still MIA, and I refund the buyer. She is SUPER nice about this luckily and is totally understanding.

The day after I refund the buyer she writes me, "USPS just showed up at my door with the package. The package has the FedEx label on it. My postman said it somehow ended up with their stuff. I paid $13 to my postman for the shipping, and I can send you $12 for the costume."

At this point I am really annoyed with my postal center. Obviously they sent it off with the wrong carrier. I reply to the buyer and tell her that she doesnt need to pay anything and can keep the refund still. I then call the postage center and ask for the defensive manager I spoke to last time. I explained to him what REALLY happened and he told me it was my fault that I did not tell the employee which package went to certain carriers. Really? They dont check the labels over there?
ugh. I was really frustrated with this. I told him because of their mistake I lost money, and wouldnt ship anymore packages through them. After this he became very apologetic and said it wouldnt happen again.....

So what have I learned? 1. I cant assume postal workers know where to put packages, or even check labels. 2. I need to give directions to everyone that handles my packages... take no risks! 3. USPS will steal a package to make an extra buck $$ (policy is that they are supposed to return the item to its original carrier) 4. There are some good buyers on eBay that dont want to leave you negative feedback for fun.