Thrifty Thursday: My Little Ponies!

Everyone remember back in the 80's when My Little Pony first came out? I swear I probably still have a few in my grandmother's attic somewhere! Either that or I sold them all for a quarter a piece back when I didn't play them anymore. Well, while out thrifting one day a couple of months back I came across a couple of very well played with MLP's from 1986! The hair was matted on one of them and they were both very dirty but I had read somewhere that some of these were super collectible and I figured that for $2.99 Naomi could play with them if they were worth nothing!

I actually took forever to get them listed, I bought them back in July and they have been sitting in my "To List" pile for months. I finally bought a Magic Eraser and cleaned the ponies up a little a couple weeks back and they looked pretty nice. When I researched their names and checked the completeds on eBay for these the blue one looked like it would for sure go for at least $10 and the white one I could probably get $5 for. "Better then looking at them everyday" I thought to myself so I listed them both at $.99 for a 1 week auction.

Within 2 hours I already had a bid on "Bright Eyes", the more collectible of the two. And by the end of day two I had 9 watchers on that one and 3 on the other! That's when I get excited!

Princess Tiffany - not as collectible ended up selling to someone in Canada for $4.25 + $6 shipping. Enough to "pay for" both ponies at the thrift store!

Bright Eyes - she was one of the twinkle eye ponies from the 2nd season or something and if you ever find her friend, Mimic, who is an orange unicorn you can guarantee at least $90 for her. Bright Eyes here is also collectible though and she sold to someone in Norway for $33 + $10 shipping! So glad I took a chance on buying these and next time I won't hold on to them so long!

Wordless Wednesday: Brother & Sister

Consignment Sale Re-Cap

I am so so pleased with my last two consignment sale experiences! Between the two JBF sales that I did in October I am coming away with a little over $400! Combine that with my checks from the two spring sales I participated in and I've made over $700 in consignment sales this year!

After I had Naomi I knew we wanted another baby so I saved most of her clothes, towels, blankets, hats and all of her toys. Then when we had Mr. Mason come along we were over run by pink! Luckily all baby toys are pretty gender neutral and all of our baby equipment like the swing and pack & play was all neutral colors as well so we are able to re-use all of that. I saved a few things to make a baby clothes quilt for Naomi's 1st baby someday but a lot of the stuff I decided to add to the sale.

So along with all of her old things plus about $50 in other items that I have collected from garage sales and thrift stores for really cheap I made about a $350 profit! I keep track of the items I buy for re-sale on a handy dandy spreadsheet that my husband helped me make a few years ago. That way I can keep track of what I spend vs. what I sell it for and how much my profit is for each and every item.

I found that grouping items together into outfits and packs and pricing them relatively low really helped. For example, I priced a group of 5 onesies at $5 with the option to go 1/2 price on the last day of the sale. Most of those sold at full price making me $.65 for each onesie! At a garage sale I would have stuck a $.25 price tag on each piece so I definitely raised my profit margin by doing the sale! I also grouped together towels & wash clothes or a bag of various bath toys. People like getting the most for their money.

I had over 255 items in the system and ended up with about 75 items at the end. What to do with those 75 items you ask? Well I have already listed a few things on eBay at fixed price listings and the rest is going to my local consignment store. I get 50% of whatever the items sell for there and they are on the floor for 6 weeks and donated after that if they don't sell which I am totally fine with. Most of the time I use the money I make at the consignment store to buy other items for re-sale or clothes for my kids.

I have already started buying for the spring sales for 2012! Much to my dear husband's dismay I store the clothes and other items I find in bins out in the garage and then when the time comes I destroy my dining room for about a week with tagging and hanging all of my items! I can't wait for the spring sales! My goal is to take 500 items to the next sale I participate in and not invest more than $.50-$1.00 for each item.

Stay tuned for the next couple of weeks, when I get back from vacation I am going to do a post on how I dress both of my kids for "free"!

Winning!

Wow I can't believe there were so few entries for the JBF sale giveaway last week!

Congrats to Emily and Devon for each winning a $25 gift certificate to the sale!

Lucky Ladies!!

Thrifty Tuesday: John Deere ROCKS!

You know those grab bags when you go to the thrift store that are always filled with random crap whether it be a bunch of random toys or kitchen supplies? Well one day a couple weeks back I happened to be browsing through the toy section and came across a grab bag of John Deere tractor toys for $1.99. I almost didn't buy it because I wasn't sure how well or if they would sell at all and my son is not even close to being of age to play with tractors!

Well I am SO glad I bought it! I came home and it was a set of 20 pieces including model tractors and trailers with a farmer dude, a horse, a tractor crossing sign and three boulders plus a cool diecast bi-plane toy. After a couple quick searches on eBay for these things I decided to list the farm set and the airplane separately. I put the set up as an auction for a week with free shipping and the airplane as an auction plus buy it now listing.

After a week at auction this tractor set sold for $31.00 with free shipping!! An awesome profit on a $1.99 investment/risk!

But wait, it gets better! Remember the little plane that was in the bag too?

In the last 15 minutes of the auction with no bids this little puppy sold at the BIN price of $19.99 + $10 shipping to the UK!

When you factor in all of the ridiculous fees from Paypal and eBay and the shipping costs plus initial investment my profit for the $1.99 grab bag ended up being $40.49! As I said in the title, John Deere ROCKS!

Giveaway Extended & Sweetened! Win 1 of TWO $25 Certificates!

I can't believe only 2 people have entered the JBF sale giveaway so far!! This will be an awesome sale out in Issaquah NEXT weekend, October 14th - 16th and the owners of the sale have generously offered to add another gift certificate up for the giveaway!

So got to THIS POST here to enter the giveaway! TWO winners will be selected on Monday, October 10th at 5pm. The prize is 1 $25 gift certificate good toward anything at the sale! The winners will be able to pick up their gift certificates at the sale next weekend when you come to shop.

SO go now! Enter! Win! Good Luck!!!!