ThriftBitten

Just stopping by…

Hello World!

Just wanted to revisit my goals

Get up to 1000 listings by end of November –> we reached 917 listings by December
- upon further evaluation, we put 200 on auction to end most listings that were under $5.00
Source at Goodwill Outlet at least 1x by end of the month
- We totally touched the Goodwill outlet in Escondido — Scored a bag of vintage cabbage patch dolls for $15
Get my affairs in order i.e. budgeting, expenses, and bookkeeping
- Invested in godaddy.com and MyCostPro
  - Godaddy – went with this so I could see the whole picture
  - MyCostPro – this is a nifty spreadsheet that we found on ebay and it has been a timesaver! If you’re looking to track your cost spent on an item – which godaddy doesn’t have – this works for my purposes. Plus i love that it pulls SKUs so I can see clearly what needs attention
Send in 1-2 FBA shipments to Amazon
- Totally lagged on this but I HAVE accumulated enough to send 2 boxes so *technically* i’m there just need to pack, weigh and ship it
buy a MacBook by end of year
- yeah, no. this will definitely happen this year 🙂
Re-focus this blog’s premise so that it’s chock more full of information than my personal blog –> Working on it!

BF has put himself out there on poshmark and is getting the bug. He got his first sale with a vintage VW bug sweater which was awesome! He now tries to make it a game to follow and share items.

This week, I have made it a point to listen to more podcasts (i.e love listening to So You want to sell on ebay & Scavenger Life) as well as learning more about Amazon.

Merch is another venture that we have on our table. We’ve reached Tier 25 and it’s been a great side hustle!

Welcome to the Hustler Life

The past few months have been a flurry! July was a hard time for us personally and honestly I had lost my fervor in the business.

My mom had a stroke in July and I have learned so much about the condition and done so much research that I am a close to becoming a self-taught therapist and nurse. One thing that I learned about strokes is that there are so many people affected by it that we as a community don’t really know how to deal with stroke survivors or even how to make sure these people get the care and resources they need to continue living. It’s a sad fate and I am at a point tired of hearing that families are lucky when they have their family advocates fighting for their loved ones. It’s a sad situation it is … Anyway, back to the main topic at hand …

The opportunity to grow our reselling business took a short break between July – August but it ignited an enthusiasm in Mister that he has actually took the bull by the horns and has owned the process. Literally owned it. Pretty much showed me up in my organizational and listing skills.

I’m still sourcing just as much but he’s shown up to the table with learning the little techniques to create a listing and make it better. He’s already turned around a few of my old listings, tweaked them, and they would sell pretty quickly. Let’s just say he was surprised at himself that just a little research and legwork actually works.

One thing that did happen is we went below average – yikeS!

It was of course a dispute with one of the returns (that I prodded Mister to just refund and forget) and they closed in buyer’s favor. He’s been working his butt off since our last review of August 20th, and I think we’ll be back in above average by 11/20, especially with all the little sales we’ve been getting here and there.

Being below average in a nutshell a nightmare when you’re a small time reseller but it really gets you in gear to get your metrics back up.

Anyway, just wanted to check in and make a note to myself about a few goals we have for the rest of Q4:

Get up to 1000 listings by end of November
Source at Goodwill Outlet at least 1x by end of the month
Get my affairs in order i.e. budgeting, expenses, and bookkeeping
Send in 1-2 FBA shipments to Amazon
buy a MacBook by end of year
Re-focus this blog’s premise so that it’s chock more full of information than my personal blog

Such a busy time …

We haven’t visited our honey hole and our yard sales are very bare bones! It’s almost summer and I have an idea that the best yard sales are coming after summer. Come on Sacramento!

I think it’s a sign that we need to keep on listing through June and manage our time for our personal finances, fitness, and get back into the groove.

This last weekend, I was picked up a Bissel Spot Clean Vacuum for $30 (used 1x!), a vintage lace dress with slip (super whimsical), 4 HP ink Cartridges (All 2016/2017, SCORE!), and a pair of Pilcro and The Letterpress jeans for $4. At this point, I’m going to chalk a majority of this as personal buys, i just couldn’t resist.

Anyway, we finally put up our wire shelving to hold our clothing inventory bins and will start migrating them downstairs from our spare bedroom. The only thing i’m not looking forward to is sorting through and combing any stale inventory and decide if i’ll recycle, re-shoot, thred-up, or use it as an excuse to take it downtown to FreeStyle Clothing Express. I have a bunch of summer clothes that aren’t selling for me on Ebay but they’re super cute and I don’t want to let go just yet.

This weekend might be another weekend that we’re not sourcing so looking forward to getting our process locked down!

Finds of the week!

Back to the honey hole we went this weekend! We’ve been consistently going since we found it. Scavenging these places are super fun and getting good deals is always our objective during the weekends.

So here’s a list of things that I’ve yet to take pictures of but super excited about finding:

Polaroid Spectra II – not worth a lot of money but I always feel like saving the ones in good condition before getting junked
Excellent Condition!
- Sold to a reseller on ebay within a few days!
Deluxe 8-Track underdash player w/ original box – it has never been installed, so this would be perfect for someone’s car restoration project who’s looking for an original 8-track player
iOmega Zip External Parallel Port Zip Drive – Paid $5, Sold for $39.95

s-l1600 (2)

This Edme & Esyllte top was from a “Free” bin at a yard sale so made a little $$ from this cute orange top

Summer is coming …

There are so many things I am looking forward to this summer … I never really get excited about T.V. shows but I seriously can’t contain my excitement for Game of Thrones. I binge watched last April to catch up and I’ve been hooked since.

Anyway, One thing I’m NOT looking forward is forking out the money to get my A/C fixed. If you’re familiar with the Sacramento area, living without A/C is near torture. How I got through 2.5 months of a broken A/C last summer is still beyond my comprehension. So, my goal by June 15th is to make enough sales to cover the cost. It’s about $1k to get it repaired. For me to reach that goal, that means listing more and consistently (and higher value). I have about $300 right now to start with so just $700 more.

I got the idea from couponingtodisney because I like how she makes deposits towards their fund for disneyland – it’s seriously a labor a love. That discipline is to be admired.

Anywho, the boyfriend came back on saturday with a $10 clothing haul of about 52 pieces, so I think combined with my pile of free clothes I got from a yard sale (there were some serious brands in there, I was stunned), I’m realistically going to raise a few hundred dollars to throw at this car fund.

4/22 Yard Sale Haul! — Love us some random finds!

He spent a little over $30, but some of the things pictured are:

vintage bjorn borg tennis racket with cover (and some tennis balls haha)
snap on tool case
The Little Prince (this is for my personal collection)
Huge pile of women’s/men’s jeans that came out to about $0.19/piece; Most people shy away from ordinary clothes, but Not I!
Metal folder organizer for a dollar!
2 zips of about 500 MAGEC cards (not pictured)
another Igloo Play-mate 🙂
and some other miscellaneous things he’s reselling that I can’t remember off the top of my head

As a fun aside, This last weekend, I took a break from our typical Saturday sourcing and spent the day with my best friend for her birthday. We started the day with these fabulous Honey Mimosas and ended with margaritas at Tropisueno in Downtown San Francisco.

Honey Mimosas! — taking a break from saturday sourcings!

Sunday was the most leisurely day we’ve had in awhile. We hit up a few yard sales, not much but we found some things for the house ($5 for 2 unused Dryel packs – definitely useful) For the rest of day, we spent more time organizing, taking pictures, and prepping listings for the week. One thing that I’ve been meaning to tackle was our inventory system. The focus has been clothes prior to all the cool stuff we’ve come across and if you let it get out of hand, you will misplace things. We’ve implemented some of the inventory process that some of the resellers on IG (i.e. 10kontheBay) shared and it seems to be working.

I’ve been at this since September and it was starting to get out of hand :X so we’re using plastic storage bins and a simple numbering system. Money Saving Tip: Always keep your eyes peeled for storage bin sales – we usually wait for end of season clearance and then maximize ordering online for some of the stores like Lowe’s (Ebaaaates!) to pick up in store.

I learn something new everyday at my day job, and it’s the same with my “part-time” job. I really enjoy learning how to run this business and have fun with it.

Listing, listing, listing …

I tasked my business partner aka my bf to get to 420 listings by 4/20. Oh man! He’s finally zipping through our money piles that we sorely needed to get listed the past few weeks. Our house was coming to close to a hoarder’s dream!

BUT this guy has OCD about cleanliness and orderliness, so i’m sure soon enough the house will be back to its original appearance (plus we are getting some intruders on our front side window that I want to get ahead of before the spring comes and they multiply! I hate bugs)

Some worthy items of note he has listed and sold:

Lil Debbie Bucket Hat

lildebbie hat

we picked this up at a neat little thrift store in Escondido, CA and flipped it for $19.99 after 47 days. Honestly, I didn’t know who the eff Lil Debbie was, so for your reference, it’s this chick. He was so stoked when he found it because we didn’t see any comps on eBay which is usually a good sign. It did take about a little over a month to sell but we love these type of flips because we believe there is someone out there looking for that specific item.

Sony Walkman FM/AM Radio Portable Cassette Player

sony walkman

this item was in a bunch of items we bought and it came out to be $1.00 and flipped it for $19.99 – SAME DAY. Never pass up a good looking walkman! This one was such a fun find because it was in excellent condition, no scratches, no dents, and it was PRISTINE.

He’s been taking more and more strides in owning this business since the start of the year and I think the satisfaction from seeing success is a huge motivating factor alongside the helpful online reseller community.

Keep listing my friends!

Favorite March Sales & Finds

Here are some of my favorite sales from March:

Paid $0.25 and Sold for $19.99 after 13 days listed

Paid $5.00 and sold for $20.00 after 14 days listed

Paid $5.00 for a box of random plush ($0.14 for this item) and sold for $6.50 after 3 days

*The bearista was one of my favorite finds because we were in San Jose, Ca for a FOL sale and decided to check out yard sales in the area. We came across a yard sale of a guy who was selling all the knick knacks and small stuff he acquired from a storage unit auction. Good for him, better for me! This box had all this plush stuff new with tags! Could NOT resist it. Anything else that sells from this box is all profit.

And here are some of my favorite finds for the Month of March:

Lot of 6 Vintage Leather Coach Bags (See IG for my haul)
Harley Davidson Screaming Eagle Button Up Shirt (Sold 4 days after listing)
Scene-It – Friends – New In packaging $4.98 at Eco-Thrift (Can’t decide if i’ll FBA or Ebay list it)
Bunch of Brooks Brothers & Vineyard Vines Men’s dress shirts from a Goodwill in SF

Happy thrifting!

xoxo

Thrifty Misty

Hello World!

Thrifting has been one of my learned hobbies since a young age and I have so many fond memories of being a thrifty seeker. There is a misconception sometimes of what it means to be a thrifter and I hope to share my passion with others about what I love about thrifting and ultimately flipping.

I’ve gotten my boyfriend loving the thrill of the hunt and found we’ve bonded over a hidden strength that I brought out of him. We both love to shop but even more so just identifying the cool, kitsch, and unique items that speak to both of our interests and hobbies. I cannot express how satisfying it is to thrift and work towards our personal goals from personal development and financial health.