Saturday, August 25, 2012

Live and Learn

Regular readers know I've lost most of my income this summer and am unsuccessfully hunting for suitable employment. To fill in the holes during this stressful time, I've been decluttering the house and trying to unload offering these items to deserving buyers on eBay.

One place I have lots of clutter is in my sewing room. I have a fabric stash that could keep me sewing for over two years with no trips to the fabric store. I also have dozens of patterns. Some are very dated, but a number are virtually collectors' items.

Earlier this week I sat down with a couple of pattern storage boxes in my lap and pulled out the patterns I was certain I wouldn't use again. Many were thrown straight into the trash can, but a couple of very special, expensive, and hard-to-find patterns went onto eBay. I didn't package them first to properly estimate postage. I just accepted the postage that a previous seller charged. eBay tries to make things easy for sellers, and I thought that was easy. Unfortunately, it wasn't smart.

I set the starting price at 99 cents. It was a very desireable pattern, after all, and had originally sold for $13.00, plus shipping. So it would surely bring in at least $5.00, right? Nope. It sold for 99 cents. And the shipping was set at $2.12.

I just ran to Walgreen's to get a shipping envelope when I realized I was all out of that size of envelope. $2.19 plus tax for the envelope. (You see a pattern here, don't you?) Plus the gas to get to Walgreen's. Now, as I print the shipping label, I find the postage is going to be $1.81. Plus the gas to get to the post office.

Can't somebody just hire me so I can quit throwing away so much money trying to generate income?!

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