May 2014 - Make £10 a day - everyone welcome

elfy1807

Monday 5th - £20.76 second job overtime

Tuesday 6th - £5 from swagbucks finally transferred over to paypal

nat21luv

happy may everyone!


Im a bit behind I know, having a tough old time of it of late.


Anyway,


£32.50 car boot sale on the bank holiday- it was huge and there was so many buyers they were just all getting pushed around in huge crowds!


£5 on device payment
£1.52 in wombled Tesco receipts
£93.10 interest on a matured first reg saver account:)


not too bad so far, think im missing something though? I won a comp too, an experience for 2, think ill choose wine tasting or a spa day or something. Nothing too exciting but will be a nice freebie

please-let-me-be-lucky

Sorry things are tough Nat, hope things get better soon Xx

£4 saved for me as the guy rounded down a sale.

emmaglet

I've set myself a little challenge that every day I must do something that adds some pennies to the pot.

I went to the gym this morning, and whilst there, completed a £6 Roamler task. The final three items on eBay have been paid for so I'll be adding both of those amounts once I've printed all the postage.

Edit to add: £14.74 to add. eBay is almost not worth it when you think that's £6 from Roamler.

SuperSaver_Mummy

I'm with you about eBay Emma. I think it's ridiculous how much they take from sales now and that they even take a % from the postage because then you have to up it to make it worthwhile.

emmaglet

I was coming on here to rant that a lady at the Post Office refused one of my parcels due to its size today. I decided to cancel the £2.80 Royal Mail label and send it via My Hermes. For £2.78!

I always knew to check out prices for large parcels, but I may be turning to MyHermes more often. 2p cheaper than second class and it comes with £50 compensation instead of £20.

Guna

I hope it's not too late to join. I am aiming for £5 a day since it's my first challenge.
I did put some stuff up on eBay today, but without much hope. I have never sold anything through eBay or etsy in the past despite several listings so have lost faith in ever being able to make some cash by selling my (junk) high quality merchandise. How do you guys do it?

SarahB1989_2

Beat my target already!! Going to aim for £6/day instead - total of £186 for May.

Found £23 of coins (50ps and £2's) that I'd been collecting because they were the nice commemorative ones for various occasions. Not worth anything more than face value but taken them to the bank to add to the rainy day fund! Technically not gained any money as it was mine beforehand but it wasn't doing anything looking pretty in a box!

lynnejk

nat21luv wrote: »

happy may everyone!

I won a comp too, an experience for 2, think ill choose wine tasting or a spa day or something. Nothing too exciting but will be a nice freebie

Hope you soon feeling brighter nat - have a ((hug))


Ooooh - the spa day sound nice.

Guna wrote: »

I hope it's not too late to join. I am aiming for £5 a day since it's my first challenge.
How do you guys do it?

Never too late to join the madding maddening mad crowd on here. Good luck and I'm sure you'll find lots of help around the site to make some money - try top line (Income Family) and look at ways to up your income

SarahB1989 wrote: »

Beat my target already!! Going to aim for £6/day instead - total of £186 for May.

Found £23 of coins (50ps and £2's) that I'd been collecting because they were the nice commemorative ones for various occasions.

Lots of people would count that as roadkill or in your case housekill :rotfl: Well done with your totals so far :j


Must get my a**e into gear here - not much happening on the pennies front so need to make a push.


Hope you all have a great Thursday
Lx

SpecialBrew_2

Adding £4.78 from eBay

Guna wrote: »

I hope it's not too late to join. I am aiming for £5 a day since it's my first challenge.
I did put some stuff up on eBay today, but without much hope. I have never sold anything through eBay or etsy in the past despite several listings so have lost faith in ever being able to make some cash by selling my (junk) high quality merchandise. How do you guys do it?

I agree with what Emma and others have said about profit margins on eBay being very slim. I look at the number of completed items before listing an item and then look at the number of sold items to check what kind of sell-through rate that type of item has been enjoying (or despairing of!). This is 'must have' information anyway, but a nice little bonus of doing these searches is that it often nets me a few pennies via Qmee

Then I sort the list of sold items by price (including P+P) to see what the range of prices were that an item fetched. If there's very little in it then I will just use a BIN listing at a price I'm happy with. If I'm in a rush for a financial boost and the item has been enjoying a high sell-through rate on eBay then I will list the item at 5p less than the lowest one currently on offer (having already worked out what profit this will bring and whether it's worth it), other times I will pitch my price up with those of higher priced competitors and then bring it down within a day or two if it isn't getting many page views.

The item I sold today has been listed as a BIN that many times on free listing day that I'd got a bit used to it not going anywhere and was surprised when it did. It was only when my husband said the same thing to me, adding 'there's loads of them on there that are cheaper!' that I realised I'd forgot to put the price down. Oops

I almost always use BIN rather than auction now and calculate the profits before I list, offering free postage and factoring that into my calculations too. For items that have a low to middling sell-through rate on eBay I will just wait for free listing day, but for items that have a high sell-through rate I usually find that it's worth coughing up the 40p listing fee. Even if you only ever use free listings, keep an eye on your account tab in eBay as the Final Value Fees can stack up quite quickly as you make sales.

About the only time I use auctions now is for items on eBay that have had a wide variation in selling prices, especially if I don't quite know what I've got my hands on. Even then, I calculate the possible profits and only start at the lowest price I'd accept for something. I wouldn't rule out a 99p start auction in the right circumstances but can't think now what those would be and can't remember the last time I used one - the profits from them were pretty derisory when I did, and unless I jacked up the postage to a daft level to accomodate eBay's ten percent of it as well as packing costs, I knew before I started some things that I'd have to get at least two bids on them to make any profit at all.

I've banged on enough now and will shut up in a bit (promise ), but one other thing I always do now is pack items for posting before I list them (but after I've photographed them and noted measurements and details, obviously!). I do this so that I can weigh and measure them and calculate my postage costs accurately before I list, rather than have a nasty surprise when the Post Office slice a wodge out of my profits (or eliminate them entirely) because a package worked out to be half an inch taller than I thought it was. For obvious reasons I write on the package exactly what's inside(!) it, then when it sells I just stick the address label over what I've written. I don't do this for things that are the same size and weight every time, eg records, DVDs etc.

Oh, just one more thing (FREE! Columbo impersonation!), it helps to be a bit organized. I have three plastic stacking crates up here - the bottom one contains bits of bubblewrap, polystyrene beads and other kinds of padding filched from every parcel I've ever had come through the door, the second one holds an assortment of small boxes from the same, and the top one has my padded envelopes and a roll of brown paper in. Balanced precariously on top of these is a little box where my tape would be if ever I remembered to put it back.

Under the little table behind me (stop whispering 'She said she was going to shut up!' at the back - I can hear you ), is a plastic box containing my postage scales, a tape measure, a big piece of white cloth and a big piece of black cloth for photographing things on.

There are a million ways of eBaying, though, and others less gobby can now get a word in to tell you about theirs