Learning a new sales platform

We know I show up here generally to bitch. I try hard to find nice things to say because you all are nice and seldom pitch a fit. This complaint is not so much about the cost of things as it is learning something new when the old was adequate! 

I'm getting ready to move. But I couldn't muster the energy to begin packing, until I figured out why I couldn't get around to it. 

I've accumulated stuff! How did that happen to minimalist me? What to do? Sell it. It worked twenty years ago, when we were tired of housing the family "heirlooms" and inquiries of mom's six grandchildren (we were aware of at the time) produced no takers. I sold it on eBay. Easy peasy.

There is so much to put on eBay, again. The left over heirlooms. The extra weaving thread. The books. Good lord, the books. So I began, a week ago, a bit every day, every other day. If I'm moving in September, I better speed it up.

There was a lot of beautiful 10/2 weaving cotton, the stuff that weaves lovely fabric. It came to ten pounds. I probably paid close to fifteen dollars a pound for it, which makes no difference when I just want it gone, so I put it up for six dollars. 

I immediately had an offer of forty dollars for it, from a weaver in Washington. We exchanged several emails; she is a lovely person, not one of those cheap artists who try to squeeze the last concession from a person. Which is why she offered forty dollars. The other lot of thread I have up will probably come down to the last man standing, upping the bids by pennies in the last minutes for stuff I bought for $20 a pound.

Anyway, eBay charged her over fifty dollars for ten pounds of freight. In an exchange of emails I said that was an obvious mistake and I would refund her the difference. And, USPS charged me $51.80 to take ten pounds to Silverdale, Washington.

I call bullshit. I call bullshit on these last two effing years, where we have done nothing, but costs have escalated dramatically. Mine have. Rent, food, drugs. Not income, though.

So I refunded her half of her purchase price, since I never thought I'd have such a decent offer.

And then I spent hours, until I researched on google, how to make an eBay refund. I had to search a competitor (?) to find the keystrokes in eBay. I hate them, too.

Back to business. I figured out the books. Media mail is cheap (relatively!), and I decided a dollar a book, take it or leave it. As many books as I can stuff in one tyvek envelope. Three books, three bucks. Five books, five bucks. Then if there is a good book in the lot, it will bid up. 

I've decided to sell everything but the fat man and mom's brick.

I'm still hanging onto the box. Maybe I'll shoot for the trash can on my way out the door.