I know I’m not the only Boomer struggling for every freaking dollar. When the going gets tough, the smart people get creative. For me, it meant getting back in the saddle with eBay. A few years ago, I wrote a book on it.
News flash: We are in a recession.
Us, the normal people. Nobody’s talking about it, but you can feel it on eBay and Etsy, all the usual places. Jewelry is not selling, beautiful things – pfft, forget about it.
I lost one whole day to despair. (I napped and splurged on a bag of kettle cooked chips.) My big bills are due at the end of December and I am not ready to give up my quirky little place in this wonderful little neighborhood.
If you’re in a bind like me, get angry and GET BUSY. You’ll feel better.
What do YOU have stashed away?
Turns out people are buying what they always buy in a recession; gold and coins.
Nine items end today – coins with holes from years back when I purchased for beauty and era. I was making jewelry and using my favorites as focal points. Who doesn’t want a necklace featuring a Civil War era coin? (Nobody.) But it was a fun idea.
So after all these years I had a box of holed coins. I thought they’d be worth … like change or something. I was wrong.
Note that I don’t know how to sell coins; I simply researched and put them out to auction in their proper categories at a very low starting price. (I also confessed my ignorance, which should have been pretty obvious.)
I forgot how exciting selling online can be.
As it happens, coins chosen for beauty seem to sell pretty well. Two more sales and I should be able to head to the vet and buy Princess her prescription dog food in confidence.
It takes about three days for PayPal to deliver the funds to my bank account.
This dance between actual funds and looming bills is mildly terrifying; but sort of affirming when you manage to stay a few steps ahead.
You can do this.
I’ve been tracking some of my online adventures on my book’s Facebook page. People want to know how to do this and $9.99 is a lot of money when money’s tight; so please come get some guidance for free.
Namaste
The Babbling Boomer 