***Make Us Money in 2010 with Ebay Challenge***

hermum

I am in a bit of a dilemma, just before xmas I bought a huge amount of gift items & was going to register as self-employed obviously, so far I've not listed anything so haven't done anything about self employment. I'm on benefits at the moment and need to clear around £140 per week to cover my benefits, this include mortgage payments, council tax & prescriptions. I am stuggling on that as my incap is £93 a week, do I take the bull by the horns & go all out to make my own living again, I've never been on benefits & don't want to be now. I'm scared that I won't be able to sell enough & end up homeless. Is it feasible to make a living on ebay, I also have probably thousands of items of my own to sell on my personal acct, so that could boost it. if I ever clear enough I'm sure that there will be several pigmy tribes lurking somewhere & I'm sure they would be worth a bob or two. It's only me & the dog so I don't have kids to feed & the dog's cheap to run.
Sorry for the long post

smem

with regards to making a living on ebay - l think it would be hard to maintain the sorts of sales long term to give a decent income. l am looking at any money l make as extra as l really cannot see people spending at key times of the year.l may have good sales now but during holiday periods or when people are saving for Christmas l expect it to be slow. Saying that l woke up this morning to £100+ sales overnight which is good going at the start of any month.
l know l couldn't rely on ebay as my main income but l know people do.

Floxxie

too_much_debt wrote: »

Where are Floxxie and Soolin - hope they are both OK.

Does anyone sell CD's? If so, how do you wrap them to post please? Thanks

I'm here TMD. Still no eBaying but plenty of listing on Amazon and GreenMet - another three books sold today.

Just had my friend over; she had left items with me in 2008 to sell and I hadn't got around to it :eek: Anyway she has agreed to take back the items (it will free up loads of space for me) and whilst she was looking in the room, she spotted several items that she would like to purchase so she's coming back with offers later. That should be enough to get me motivated again.

Just about finished the listing of books and CDs (I send CDs in a jiffy bag) that are downstairs - unfortunately opened a cupboard in the eBay room and found another 100 or so :rotfl:

too_much_debt

Hi Floxxie

Glad you are OK. You are doing well on Greenmet and Amazon so that is good.

too_much_debt

It's nearly 2.30 now, that means my time is up. I got 7 uploaded to Turbolister ready for later. Will take a few pics in a minute of the Business stuff I want to get listed later and then have to get DD3 ready to pick the kids up from school. Why does the time have to go so quickly?

soolin

too_much_debt wrote: »

Where are Floxxie and Soolin - hope they are both OK.

Does anyone sell CD's? If so, how do you wrap them to post please? Thanks

I am still around but not online as much as usual as I have a new PC but can't send stuff across from the old one so am in a heck of a mess real work wise. I'm self employed so I rely on my emails to tell me where to go and the details, and the last PC won't switch on at all and my back up copies are corrupted argghh..

I did very well last night on my provate account again though i have to pay more than half the proceeds straight across to my sons (sigh). Their stuff sells so much better than mine.

My business one has picked up a few problems, I have an Australian buyer that has set off my 'worry ' alarm, she hasn't done anything really nor does she appear to be a scammer but something is just not right about her. She put in best offers on lots of my items and i sent counter offers and on some of them she came back with lower offers than she'd offered first time round. Then overnight I sold half the stuff she wanted, and she was grumpy as she felt that I should have stopped other people buying (at full price!) while she considered a better offer. She also paid me 20p short, not the end of the world when she was spending £22, but odd none the less, I couldn't bebothered to moan about it in the end so have just sent the stuff.

Oh, and instead of packing 40 items to send today I spent half the morning at the vet as my son's beloved pet bearded dragon was ill, in fact it turned out she was so ill that she has had to be put down as she was suffering and he is distraught (he is grown up, but I can't bear to see him so upset).

kitschy

hermum wrote: »

I am in a bit of a dilemma, just before xmas I bought a huge amount of gift items & was going to register as self-employed obviously, so far I've not listed anything so haven't done anything about self employment. I'm on benefits at the moment and need to clear around £140 per week to cover my benefits, this include mortgage payments, council tax & prescriptions. I am stuggling on that as my incap is £93 a week, do I take the bull by the horns & go all out to make my own living again, I've never been on benefits & don't want to be now. I'm scared that I won't be able to sell enough & end up homeless. Is it feasible to make a living on ebay, I also have probably thousands of items of my own to sell on my personal acct, so that could boost it. if I ever clear enough I'm sure that there will be several pigmy tribes lurking somewhere & I'm sure they would be worth a bob or two. It's only me & the dog so I don't have kids to feed & the dog's cheap to run.
Sorry for the long post

If you're on Incap, you can work up to 16 hours per week and earn up to £93 per week WITHOUT affecting your benefits. Up to now, it has impacted on any housing or council tax benefits you might receive, but from April these too will be unaffected. It's called "Permitted Work" and it's aimed at people on health benefits as a way of making a graded return to work. It might be worth having a chat with your DEA or phoning the JCP as there is a form you have to fill in (PW1). The one thing to bear in mind is that you can only do Permitted Work for a year - when your time's up you have to either lose the Incap and keep working or stop working and keep your Incap. After a year's break you can do another year!

I work in this field, as you might have guessed, on the Pathways to Work programme, and eBay is a popular self-employment choice because of the flexibility it enables people to have! If you want any more info, feel free to PM me

Phew! :rotfl:

angelcakes_smw

do winter clothes still sell at this time of year or is it mainly just summer stuff?

mrscmr

i have been listing ski stuff which is selling... so i guess any thing and any time of year!

angelcakes_smw

thankyou that's good to know!