301k in debt and morbidly obese - things aren't great!

beanielou

Sorry about ebay.
I think you can sell things now on Facebook.
What about gumtree?

de1amo

İ hate ebay and concur with Mr B tha it is a waste of time and ends up costing!-i have got loads of useless stuff that was over priced residing in my uk home. i am sure the bottom has fallen out of the market for wade pigs! they seemed bargains at the time!

As regards to habits and exercise--can anyone say that running or exercise becomes a pleasurable pastime--i spent 6 months in a gym getting myself down to a dietician's target weight only to be told by everyone i looked drawn and haggard--if not ill!

patman99

The one thing I always say to people starting-out on Ebay "get a set of postage scales". They can be had for £35+ on ebay, but this is cheap compared to shipping stuff at a loss. Knowing how much an item weighs BEFORE you list can save a lot of hassle and grief when you roll-up at the Post Office.

MrBloater

Back to basics tomorrow - the things that have worked out well in the last couple of months are my weightloss and my writing so hopefully I'll have some tales to tell in the morning when I return from my 4k - am loading up the mp3 player with some new tracks to reinvigorate me.

patman99

Don't be disheartened about Ebay, with a little trial and error you can turn a nice little profit. As for DVD's and CD's, Play and Amazon are the best place for those.
I bought 60 DVD's off Ebay for a total of £66 mainly because the box contained about 50 movies I wanted to see. As I watch them I then stick them on Play (assuming no other family members want to watch them first. I sold one tonight for £3.50. Take-out 80p in Playtrade fees and another £1 for 2nd Class R/D, and that leaves £1.70.
You do have to be patient though. Some items take a long time to sell.

My one saving grace is that where I work they throw-out padded envelopes that are just the right size for a DVD, so no extra outlay. They also have bubble-wrap pouches, boxes and other packing material to hand and all for free.

miggy

MrBloater wrote: »

Back to basics tomorrow - the things that have worked out well in the last couple of months are my weightloss and my writing so hopefully I'll have some tales to tell in the morning when I return from my 4k - am loading up the mp3 player with some new tracks to reinvigorate me.

Go for it, Mr B!

Talking of bubble wrap, by the way, some people ask at supermarkets for the bubbles that have been wrapped round fruit, and get it for free.
Alternatively: http://www.virtual-bubblewrap.com/popnow.shtml

thevinternet

Hi Mr B, sorry that your first ebay experience was not a good one. There are some good tips regarding ebaying in order to make a profit, one of which is weighing stuff. Personally I use electronic kitchen scales, which weigh in grams and were about £6 from Argos. It's all in the preparation. There are some great Ebay threads on here, full of tips about how to get free packaging, how to send your parcels (some courier services can be cheaper than royal mail for larger items) etc etc.

Also, you don't need to be queuing at the post office - you can go onto the Royal Mail website and pay for mailing your parcel online. You need the weight of the parcel, its dimensions (just use a ruler) and a printer in order to print out the labels, which you can then stick on with glue. Then you can just either stick em in the post box if they are small enough, or drop them off at the post office 'hatch' without queuing...job done. For someone like you Mr B, who doesn't seem to like crowds or waiting around much, this might be a better option!

The other thing to bear in mind is that the first time you sell stuff, you have no positive seller feedback. Personally, I don't buy from people without ANY positive seller feedback, it's a very firm rule I have from previously being burned on there! So, perhaps now that you'll have some, others like myself would be more willing to take a punt on your items?

Also, I'm gonna play Devil's Advocate here - what would you have done with those records if you hadn't sold them? Would they still just be sat in a box in ten years time in the garage? Twenty years? My Dad is in his seventies, he has loads of vinyl and I haven't seen him play any of it for the last 25 years....sorry if that sounds harsh, but isn't selling it to someone who will play them and enjoy them a better option?

Final suggestion - are there any vintage vinyl record stores near you? I know there are loads in London if that is indeed where you live. Perhaps you could call them up and see if they will offer you a good price? What about these places for instance:

http://www.reckless.co.uk/
http://www.londondossier.info/records.htm

MrBloater

The new songs on the playlist were really helping; where he thought he would feel creaks and aches, he felt just like he was gliding, where the potholes and cracks used to be, he felt that he was running on air. The new tracksuit trousers were also really helping - no longer would he evoke looks of pity, fear and bewilderment on those he chugged past on his early morning runs. He approached the point where he had taken the tumble eight long days ago, eight long days that had seen him delve into the parallel darkside that existed alongside his normal life - the deceit to the shopkeepers, the bins at the back of the supermarket, the queues in the post office, the cardboard dinosaur and the listing fees.
His way was blocked by some white police tape and as he looked at the ground he could see the white chalk marks where the large (probably around 22-09) body had fallen. The runner shuddered as he saw three items lying next to the outline, each of which imbued him with a hideous sense of foreboding; the first was a broken drawstring that definitely looked as if it had come from a pair of cheap swim shorts, the second was a half-eaten sausage roll, and the third was a cheap bouquet of carnations, with the reduced sticker just peeling off the reveal the original Tesco Value label. He shuddered with anticipation as he picked up the bouquet - he already knew who it was from, his recollections were coming back to him thick and fast now as if somebody had hit the fast forward button - there had been no accidential fall the other day, there was a courier van with a angry man hurling obscenities and sausage rolls at him, he tried to avoid everything but then the van mounted the pavement and drove straight on him. He had never limped home, he had never got home, by the time the paramedics had got to him it was too late. Through tears of anger and clarity he read the handwritten scrawl on the post-it note attached to the cheap plastic packaging - "Bye Bye Bloater. You never really thought you'd overtake us did you? Love, the Matrix Madams."
Meanwhile, in the shady car park of somewhere up north, a man stood uncomfortably chomping on a pork pie wondering how his life had come to this - he had been idolised at school, the captain of the football team and had gone to live every boy's dream - to be a professional footballer. How had it come to this? A severe tap on his shoulder brought him back to reality, and as turned around he was confronted by a number of hooded ladies.
"Thankyou," whispered the lead one - her voice disguised by a vocoder, "I'm sure you are glad as we are that Mr Bloater is no longer with us".
"Y-y-y-yeah" stammered the courier, he was freaked out and wanted to be back on the motorway heading back down to South London as soon as possible, "C-C-Can I just take the van now, I need to get back."
"The van?" hissed one of the hooded ladies.
"Yeah, the van" replied the courier, his anger piqued that this deal was not as smooth as he'd thought it was going to be, "you promised me a new van for sorting out that b*stard who used to sing the Postman Pat song at me."
"New?" shrieked the lead lady, her face contorted with rage, "we don't do new."
"Buying new is not moneysaving" the ladies repeated over and over again mantra-like as they cornered the courier and with his last breaths squeezed out of him as they mummified him in bubblewrap he heard them one of them say "to the post office, girls, this ones going second-class."

Polly_Wolly_Doodle

Bravo :j:j:j

We need some clues to the Bloater books

MrBloater

So back in reality - I done a 3k run and it felt really good, but not as good as the 4k tomorrow or the 5k on Thursday. My weight is stable at 22-09 and I will get it down under 22 by the end of November. Mrs B's leaving do is at some posh hotel at the start of December and my goal is to wear (without looking like a skintight dancer for the Scissor Sisters) a Lacoste shirt I got bought 3 years ago and never have been able to wear. Can now do the buttons up but it's a bit figurehugging so I have to have room to breathe as I like it baggy.
The writing in the previous post (which is in no way representative of the stuff I used to write which was far more edgy, experimental and urban gothic rather than this sub-Clancy puff) was to make up for the fact that aside from a neighbour staring blankly at the open boot of the car parked in the driveway next to him and the unmistakeable scent of charred flesh emenating from the houses there was nothing much to report - the new tracksuit and playlist have improved esteem and enthusiasm considerably. And I have to look at the ebay thing holistically - the end result is I have sold 11 records for 103 quid and another 24 are currently running at 56 quid with 2 more days to go. I'm going to probably get at least 200quid from this experience and that's not to be sniffed at. If I could time the listings and the admin better it wouldn't feel like I was losing family time and I can manage a trip or two to the post office.
Today's tasks include gathering together all the stuff I wrote years back and seeing if it's feasible to set it up for a kindle book or two. Should be more fun than listing. (crosses fingers)