About four years ago, after we had our third child, we were facing the make our dollars stretch dilemma like so many of us do. We are in full time ministry and my husband is a juvenile diabetic, which is very expensive for our limited budget. So after being depressed for awhile and realising the futility of it I finally started to beseech God for wisdom by simply asking"Father please help me to find a creative way to make money or a creative way to save money." Wouldn't you know it God started giving me inspiration in the form of eBay. I am a stay at home mom and I want to be the stay at home moms biggest cheerleader so I want to share a few tips. I don't make a ton of bucks but sometimes this gets us over the hump during the month my first eBay sell was a bunch of barbies that I purchased at a garage sell. It didn't make much but it encouraged me to try again. The second thing I purchased was a bunch of old times magazines. That was my landfall! I bought the whole stack for 5$ and made over 200$. I buy most of my eBay stuff from garage sells, auctions and very reduced items in stores. Here are some things I have had success with.

* Old vintage post card. I purchased at auctions
* childhood toys, nostalgic items like the old fisher price, Crissy dolls, liddle kiddles, Holly Hobby, and old Barbie's. Do some research on eBay and just see whats selling. I find most of these at garage sells. Pez dispensers without the feet. The old ones.
* Children's outgrown clothing. I have found to that if you keep your eyes out for super duper end of the year clearance that you can buy a number of outfits in one size then turn around and sell it at the beginning of the next years season. name brands seem to sell better. Make sure to leave tags on and advertise NWT(new with tags) selling in a lot, several items together will cut down on the cost of the add and might attract more buyer's
* buy fabric really cheap at the end of a season then turn around and resell at the beginning of the next, for example, I buy 10 yard of fabric at a 1$ a yard. it retails at 29.99 a yard. I advertise the retail value and start my bidding at 9.99. IF you can hit the season where every one is buying that fabric you will make a nice profit. You can look for other hobby things too that you can pick up very cheap and resale. I just happen to know about fabric because I like to sew.
* Books. I tend to find these at auction. You can buy a whole box for under 5$ Not every sells but with a little research you can find out what does. Old series books like Nancy drew, Trixie Belden, Hardy Boys etc. They sell even better if you can find them with their Dust jackets. I think homeschoolers could do well with this!

Here are some things I keep in mind

* Research before you put your auction up so that you can give a informed description. My favorite method of this is to Google it
* Never spend much money on anything. that way you aren't out to much if it turns out that the item is not a hot seller.
* It takes a little work but this is something that you can do with your kids. My son found a vintage Star wars millenium falcon that still had its original box at a garage sell a couple years ago. We bought it for 1$ and sold for close to one hundred
* End your auction during a time when people are looking. I go for evenings and Sundays. That means I will post on a Monday.
* Homemade items don't sell well I have found
* Name brands do sell. People are looking for them by name.

If you have any tips feel free to share. We moms have to stick together you know!

"If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him."James 1:5

my hubby's main source of income right now is ebay. i am looking forward to garage sale season so i can do what you are describing. i hope to find some really good deals and make some decent profits from them on ebay. thanks for the tips and encouragement!! God Bless.:love:

How do you figure out the shipping?

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"Before I was a Mom I didn't know the feeling of having my heart outside my body." ~Anonymous

This is a wonderful idea--you gave some great tips!

I used to sell on ebay, but stopped for a while. The shipping was a learning experience for me. I purchased a digital mail scale on ebay at a great price. I always weigh my items first along with the packaging before I post my items. I take the weight of my item and do a price quote on usps.com or ups.com or whichever mail carrier company you will be using. I always add delivery confirmation to my items (paid by the buyer of course), that way I and my buyers can keep track of the item and I have proof that it was delivered to there address.

Great tips Voni! I'm hoping to get back to ebay selling, once garage sale season comes around. Consignment stores are great places to shop also for resale. As long as you know what brands sell, you're in there. I once found a Vera Wang little black dress at a consignment shop for $5, and sold it for $50 on ebay.

Great tips! Thanks so much for sharing! Once our house gets finished, I would like to try my hand at selling more!

Thanks again!

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~ Jessica

If you are selling books you should try Amazon.com Ive been selling on there for over a year now and do pretty well. Its really easy and the only thing you have to write out is a short description of the condition of the book. They give you a $3.49 credit for stardard delivery and if you ship media mail you always make a few cents on the shipping. If you sell alot of books you should give this a try.

I get my books from lots of places, family, friends, freecycle. Freecycle is a big one for us.

I really need to get to the used book store a few miles from us! I've made children's clothing for a few friends and made a christening gown once. That certainly has not been a steady form of income though. I wish I could find a legitimate at home typing thing, but most of them seem to be scams just out to take your money or waste my time. I am at home to be with my children not to be wasting my time spamming messageboards about fake ways to make money LOL There are some decent sites that pay you to read emails or give you points like mypoints does, but even those are hard to find good ones. I've also found a few websites for doing surveys that will pay you for taking the surveys, but there aren't that many that actually pay well. I have gotten a few decent paying surveys from testspin.com, but mostly it's sorry you didn't qualify or sitting around for money that never comes. Still not a steady form of income.

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Kristina - mommy to Annette 6 years old, Joseph 2.5 years old and David 4/7/08

Thanks for the input ladies!!! I haven't done much with Amazon but defiantly need to check it out.
Formygirls, I state my shipping cost right up front with a flat rate fee. Make sure you take into consideration the cost of the shipping container too. I ask international buyers to email me about the cost of shipping to their location. I have started adding delivery conformation too because of a bad experience hope that helps.