eBay Seller Chat with Angela in Kentucky: Retired Nurse, Appalachian Trail Hiker, Published Author 📕

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:18

Foreign Hello, listeners, welcome to episode number 258 of eBay the right way. Today's date is February 25 2026 my guest is Angela in Kentucky. No announcements, so let's get started. Hey everybody, my guest today is Angela. And do you go by Angela or Angie? I usually go by Angela, okay, okay, great. So welcome to the podcast. Thank you for agreeing to come on, because I picked you out from the post on the Facebook group. Okay, thank you. So, how are you this morning, and where are you? Well, I'm doing good this morning. I am actually in south central Kentucky. We are about, we tell people we're about halfway between Louisville, Kentucky and Nashville, Tennessee, okay? And the the town is Glasgow, okay, I live about 10 miles out of town. And have you been there very long? Um, lived here for a little over 30 years. So yeah, it's been a while. It's been a while. Okay, good. That is beautiful country. I've, I've I've driven through there. So, yeah, yeah, it's beautiful, lucky you. So we'll talk a little bit about where you get your things to sell and all of that. I like to start off with a little bit about your eBay history and what got you started, and when that was, well, I've actually had an eBay account since I wrote down some notes 2003 I didn't start selling until 2023 Oh really, right, me and my husband had planned retiring a little bit earlier. I retired, actually in 2019 and we decided to do some major hiking, which we've been avid hikers for years, but we decided we were going to hike the Appalachian Trail. Oh, and we we've eventually got it done. It took us a little while with covid and everything else going on, but we finally finished it. And we finished in 2022 and after that, it was like, What am I going to do with myself? I wasn't working. I was looking for something to do. I was doing all kinds of crazy stuff, putting together puzzles and just whatever to keep me entertained. And I have a family member that got into eBay really big, and she does a lot of vintage or high dollar clothing, and she really does well with it. I thought, well, I could maybe do that. Well, I found out clothing is not my niche at all. I just pick out things that I like that nobody else likes, apparently. So I finally gravitated more toward glassware and vintage items. So at this point, just, you know, getting into the eBay has really helped. Went into it with thinking, Okay, I'm going to make enough money to pay for my health insurance. And so I've done that, and just kind of kept going with it. It gets addictive. What can I say? Do you remember the first item you ever sold? I do. I had gone through the house and compiled a bunch of things that I thought I could live without, and it was a tiny, little Corning wear bowl with a lid on it. It was about six inches square. Cutest could be. That was the first item I sold. Do you remember how much it sold for? Oh, it sold for maybe, you know, 15, $16 It wasn't much, but, first one, yep, got it out of the house. I had a lot of things, and actually had compiled things and had them upstairs in the bedroom on the bed, and called the kids one time when they were all here and said, Okay, come up here and look at this stuff. If there's anything, you won't take it. And if you're not taking it, I'm going to sell it or donate it, or it's out of here. So they took a few things, but then I started selling things from here in the house, and well, and that's the way most people start, is get rid of what you're not using right now. Back to the Appalachian Trail. Did you do that all in one shot, or did you do it in pieces? We did a lot of it in pieces, but the pieces were like, We were gone for 30 days. We were gone for a couple of weeks. We were gone for six weeks. The last time that we were out, we were gone for four months. So yeah, we did it all kind of, kind of in sections, but we did it in the timeframe that you are allowed through the Appalachian Trail commission to be considered a through hiker and to be considered for the they call it the 2000 mile or club. So we had registered with them, and we did it within their guidelines, and got it done technically in a year. I think I know the starting point down in Georgia. What is that? Amiclova Falls. Yes, I know it started with an A I couldn't recall it fast enough. Yeah, so, so you just hike, what you're going to hike, and then remember where you left off, and then you drive back to that point to start again. Is that how it works? Yeah, you can do that. A lot of people will start and just hike all the way through and never stop. And we kind of actually started with that in mind. But we hiked for about 33 days. We made it to Hot Springs, North Carolina. Oh, nice. Did you enjoy the hot springs while there, oh, no, we actually covid had had started really ramping up, and they were telling everybody that they needed to avoid this and avoid that. And we finally decided we were just going to go home. So just a little bit north of hot springs, we had our son in law at the time, he come picked us up because we didn't even have a car. We were just hiking, and we've made it right about 300 miles. When covid Put us off the trail, we waited and tried to get timing and seasons and everything right. We decided we were going to go to Maine at that end and hike south. So we for about six weeks, and then a little later on, we did, you know, two weeks back down south, another two weeks back down south. And then the last, the last we did. We started at, let's say Damascus Virginia, and went from Damascus Virginia to Gorham, New Hampshire. Okay? Hiked. It took us about four months. Okay, so, yeah, well, back to the hot springs. I know in that area. I haven't been yet, but I was gonna go, but then Helene, yeah, kind of ruined a lot of these places, but they have. I don't really want to call it a spa, but it's more like a campground and with cabins, and they have these hot tubs over the springs. So the water coming into the hot tubs is the mineral water. It's not really about the jacuzzi part of it. It's about the mineral water part of it. And they have, you know, like a cabin with the hot tub on the porch, and you just soak in that mineral water, and it just does wonders for your body. So it would have to, what's that? It would have to help, yes, oh yeah, yeah. So I was looking at that, and they're rebuilding still. Some of them are partially open, but it's still a mess in that area. It's going to take a while. But anyway, we were so fortunate to get through that area before Helene hit, okay, good. We look back and see places and we're going, oh, you know, we were there. It was beautiful. And maybe you'll get back to that way sometime, eventually, they'll get it fixed. Now, did you watch the movie a walk in the woods with Nick Nolte and who's in that with him? That was Robert Bradford, wasn't it? Yes, yes. And they're hiking, and they're starting at Amna colola falls at the resort there. Yes, like, I know. So Nick noltes voice kind of gets on your nerves, but yeah, have you seen that movie? Yes, yeah, that's that's got to be inspiring for anybody who wants to walk the trail. Hike the trail. Yeah, I know we came on to talk about eBay, but Well, I mean, we're real people with lies, so yeah, if I can, I don't know you can edit it out. I guess, if I'm not allowed. But can I shamelessly plug that after we hiked the trail, I wrote a book about it. You certainly can. That was, that was what kept me busy for a little while after we hiked. Was writing, and then when I got that finished, I was just at a loss for what to do. So did you like self publish or put it on Amazon, or I did self publish through Amazon, and I had kept a journal of our day to day hiking and things we saw in places we went and different things, so I relied on the journal and a lot of a lot. Of the crazy things that happened, shall we say, there was a lot of funny stuff that happened. It was an experience, and writing the book was also an experience. So what's the name of your book? The book is called the mountains called and we went, Oh, I love that. So yeah, good for you. Of course you can plug anything. Yeah, this podcast is about the eBay lifestyle, and we all have lives that have nothing to do with eBay, that, you know, we're all real people, yeah, and real lives. So, and I have sold a couple of my books on eBay, actually. Oh, really, that was helpful. Okay. Well, good for you. What a great thing to do in your retirement. I've written books too, and it's, it's a commitment, and, oh yeah, you have one of your books. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes you just don't want to, like, I can't look at this right now. I gotta go do something else. And you, you put it down, you come back to it, and the spirit has to move you to write. And you'll just be out taking a walk, and thoughts just drop in your head, and I put I put them in my phone so I don't forget. But yeah, for anybody that's never written a book, it is you have to wait to be inspired, and it comes out a lot better if you just go with the flow of that inspiration. But it, how long did it take you to write it? Let's see. We finished the trail in July of 22 and I got it published in September of 23 I think, okay, yeah, about a year. Took a little while to, you know, I write and I go back and read and I go, Oh, wait a minute, that doesn't sound right. I would write again. And, you know, my husband was going, how do you remember all that stuff? And I'm going, well, I've written it down, and I've wrote it down so so much in the book that he'll start talking about something, and I'll go, Whoa, it was here. You know, don't you remember? Right? No, I don't remember. I don't know how you remember. So the ones you sold on eBay, those were hard copies, right? They were paperback, yeah, that's what I mean. Back, yeah, they don't allow Digital Works, no anymore, so you actually have to have it printed, which is an upfront cost, and then put it for sale on eBay. Yeah? So I had, I had bought some. You can buy authors copies through Amazon at a reduced rate, and then you can sell those. So I had bought a few of those. Okay, well, that is a wonderful accomplishment. Good for you. Yeah, I'm glad we did it. I wouldn't do it again. I hear you on that. Okay, well, do you want to talk about some of the things that you've sold recently and and the stories behind those? Oh, yeah, recently, a couple of things that I had put on the Facebook page. The pocket watch was my last one. That was a really crazy sale. I was looking at an online auction, and they had a selling lot, and I could tell from the picture, it had, you know, crochet hooks in the packages. It had some patterns. And I'm thinking, well, it's probably got, you know, some safety pins and needles and all that stuff. And I do several craft things and do repairs of this, that and the other. And I thought, well, I could use that. Didn't have a bid on it, so I put $2 on it was what's their minimum bid. I got it, got home, started going through it, and found this pocket watch that was gold plated, but it was just the case, and it was called a hunter case, and it's double Hunter because it opens from both sides. And I started doing comps on it, and I'm like, No way, no flipping way. Is it worth that? So I posted it for $200 and it sold within 10 minutes. Oh, really, yes. So that's probably the one that has just bowled me over here lately was that one so and how much did you pay for that $2 so your return was like 100 times your investment. Yes, I love that, yeah. So that was, that was a big win. So that one, that one, just happened, you know, like a week ago. Oh, okay, yeah, that was very recent. A little while back, I think it was before Christmas, I had gone to a church sale. They have a church sale pretty often in a town that's pretty close to us, and they had half price day. So I picked up a bunch of glassware there, I get home and I wash it up, and one of the things I found was a set of eight Lennox Moon was the pattern, and they were nice T glasses. I think I had paid $2 and a half, I think, for that box, and I sold it for 179 so I love that. And so. No issues shipping. You don't mind working with glass shipping it? No, actually, I don't. I'm fortunate that we have some good neighbors who give me a lot of their packing materials and their boxes. And I have a good friend that the job she works at, she gets a lot of really good packing material, and instead of them putting it in the dumpster at her work, and instead of her having to break down boxes, she's more than happy for me to come and get them so and they're good sizes, so I get a lot of my packing materials there from and do recycling. But I don't mind the glassware. A lot of people shy away from it. You just have to learn how to do it. I think I've packed a set of 12 in not too long ago. Also, I think it was back before Christmas. And this was a unique one. I found a set of it was called Bexley crystal champagne glasses. There were 12 of them. I gave $1 a piece for them at one of the little thrift stores, and I comped it in the store, and I thought, you have lost your mind. There's no way. And I got home with them, and I thought, if I don't pack these now, I'm going to throw them around and they're going to get broken because they didn't have not a spot on them. They were in perfect condition. Well, I sold them. It took about a month or so, I think, if I remember, right, I sold them for $249 and I packed them all in one box. And the funny part was, they were made in Bexley, Ohio, okay, by the glass company that was there, like in the 40s, 50s. And the person that bought them was from Bexley, Ohio, and I shipped them back there. But that was the neatest thing that I've come across, as far as shipping and where it went. And I've heard you say before, I like to know why someone gets this, or where it goes, or what they're going to do with it, but that one just I, you know, you wonder who got it, and what are they doing with it, but it went back where it was manufactured. That's what I call a boomerang. It just goes right back to where it came from, maybe exactly 30 years later, or however many years, yeah, I always look at where things go. I just, I'm just fascinated. It's just a curiosity about who is this person that bought it? What are they going to do with it? Why do they want it? Why did they go on eBay to buy it? It's just like, what's the story? Yeah, yeah, I said something. I don't remember what the item was, but it went to the address was hot springs National Park, and then it had the zip code and it was Arkansas. And I actually messaged that person who was like, well, to buy this for the park, or was this for your own personal whatever? And the the guy did reply to me, and he said, No, actually, this is my address. I live in an area that is considered part of the national park, but I'd never seen an address like that, so I just had to ask on that one, yeah, like the park rangers, or I've had packages go to campgrounds, and, in fact, back to the Appalachian Trail. At one point, I was selling food products on Amazon, and I always looked where things went. A lot of them went to military addresses. I look it up and it's an aircraft carrier or even a submarine, but at one point, it was to one of the stops along the Appalachian Trail. So I learned at that point that people who were doing it in one shot, maybe, or in long segments, they ship things ahead to themselves. And so this was, this was like, beef jerky and backpack kind of foods, you know? And I just was like, Well, isn't that smart? That is a great use for Amazon. You don't have to bring everything with you. You just have it sent ahead of you so it's there. And you know, now everybody's got a phone, and if you have, if you have cell service, you could go on your phone and be like, Okay, we're going to be at such and such in four days. Let's send our supplies ahead. And yeah, this was like, of course, people plan their trips like this, but I've never done anything like that. So it didn't even occur to me that's what people are doing, is having their supplies dropped ahead of them on the trail. I just thought that was genius. Yeah, you can actually order from Amazon and have it shipped to a post office, and there's a particular way to label it that it's hold for at hiker, and then your name on it. And at the post office for like, I think if I remember correctly, it's like, they'll hold it for 30 days. So if you pay exactly what day you're going to be there, just get you know as close as you can make a good guess, and it should be there waiting for you. I mean. What an industry to pop up around hiking. It's just fascinating to me. I keep using that word, but it really is how people coordinate this and how they use the services out there to make it all work. And I'm sure there's probably some book you buy when you're going to hike the trail, and it tells you all this stuff now, but I just, I was like, Oh, I never would have thought of that. Yeah, yep, there, there's, there's guides out there, and there's also apps that you can get that give you a lot of information, like the postal addresses and all this stuff, and you know the names of whatever vendors are in town for outdoor stuff, outfitters or anything. So you there's a world of information out there available. And I know that people listening to this are like, Oh, that's great. I was thinking about doing that. And now I know whatever the information is in these podcasts is useful to people. I get emails all the time of oh, so your guests, so and so talked about this, and can you put me in touch with them so I can ask them more questions and things like that. So, yeah, this, this podcast just goes where it goes. So do you have any more items you want to talk about? I've got a couple of them that were just kind of weird, and it's been a while, so I don't remember. It's probably been a year or more since I sold a couple of items, but it was just things that it were amazing to me. I found an old accordion from the 1940s and it was in an estate sale, and it had been $50 but I was there on like, the last day, and it was everything marked half price, and I had done my comps on it, and I thought, okay, it'll it might do okay. So I ended up buying it for 25 and I sold it for 250 Oh, yeah, sold it for 250 it took about four or five months to sell it. It went to Texas, and I was, I was pretty happy with that one, but it was kind of a shipping issue. Question, was it a size, full size one? It was a big one. So I've had to really stop and think a few times look at something, I go, Oh, my that's awesome. And I'm like, wait a minute, I have to ship that thing. So I've kind of learned to walk away from a few things when I think I've really got to work at it to get it shipped. We do have UPS and FedEx place close by, so I utilize them quite a bit for the larger items. Is Facebook marketplace big in your area, or you too rural for that it is, and I do look at it every now and then. I have bought a couple of things there that I've turned around and resold. And actually have a nephew that does a lot with Facebook marketplace, but he's in in a bigger town, and he's, he's worked at it for a while, and he's really well established with it. I, for me, I'd rather not have to go meet people and wait on them and, you know, do that kind of stuff. I'd rather kind of still be behind the scenes and pack it up and throw it in the mail. I am on board with that. I get requests sometimes, oh, I'm one zip code over. Can we meet? And it's, I just had too many of those blow up where? Okay, sure, you go and you meet and they don't show up. And, or even if it's, you know, porch pickup, and you get it all ready, and they just don't come, yeah? And it's very frustrating because there's no, there's no governing body. Well, you can report people for being a no show, but there's really, they just open a new Facebook they don't care. Yeah, there's, there's no Facebook marketplace police that's gonna help you when people don't show up, and it's just, it can be annoying and a time waster. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Now I've talked about a lot of things that I've sold, that it has made, you know, good money, shall we say. But I also have a lot of things listed that are, you know, the$20 item, the $15 item, and and I've heard you say a sale is a sale, and that's true. You know, you might only make $10 off an item, but hey, that's $10 you didn't have before. Well, if you get four those in a day, 80 a day, that's $2,400 a month, right? So you just have to look that whole what is that a journey of 1000 miles starts with a step, and you just keep putting those steps in there and and watch it accumulate. So I never, I never poo, poo any sale, because they all add up exactly, and it's good for the algorithm, yeah, because it likes active stores. That sell things, and a $10 thing is a thing, right? Yeah, I don't think they look at the cost of the item. It's just like you said, a sale is a sale, you know. And there's times I go through two or three days and don't get much of anything. There's not sale, very few views. And I think, Oh, good grief. What have I done to, you know, make this happen, or maybe I've just got too much junk that nobody wants, or whatever. And eventually it's like, okay, it'll break through, and I'll sell four things in one day. You just never know. You have to train how you think about it, train your brain, yeah, and just say, oh, okay, this is we're in a lull right now. We're in a valley. Yeah, I'm going to keep busy and keep listing and shopping or whatever it is, right? Keep working on your business, doing what you can do, and it always comes back, and it's just the unknown of it's like sitting at a slot machine. You just keep putting money in and pulling that arm, and eventually it's going to pay off. Yeah? So, yeah, you just have to have faith in the system. And the better records you keep, the more you can look back and say, okay, yeah, this was a slow time. Or I've been here before, it'll pass and it's it's not dwelling on what's not happening. It's focusing on what you can do to keep going. Sure enough, it always comes back. You're right, okay, just sometimes it gets a little concerning, but I've learned to just let it go and, you know, go clean up my room. That's right. You can always organize, reorganize your inventory, your shipping supplies, see if you need to order any supplies. And, you know, keep busy with it, right? Like farmer waiting for rain. You know it's coming. You just don't know when. Right? As humans, we like, we like predictability, yeah, and that makes us feel safe. And eBay is kind of not that very unpredictable, okay. Now where do you get most of your things to sell? Usually, I get most of my stuff from thrift stores, from Goodwill, occasionally, estate sales and online sales. We have a couple of estate sale companies that are local, that they cover, you know, pretty much the whole area. And I don't know, estate sales.net I've got the app downloaded, and I'll look at those. And then one of our guys that does the sales, he also post his sales to Facebook and does some live stuff and walks through and videos what's selling. And you'll see a lot of his stuff there that you don't see in the app when he advertises. So I'll look at those and decide if I want to go to their sales. And they're wonderful if you're there on the last day, and they're just trying to get rid of stuff, and they've seen me enough they know me, so they're like, Okay, you have you. Here comes the leftover lady. Yeah, exactly. Actually did that one day couple of weeks ago. It was Christmas glasses and Christmas sales. It's crazy. I sold a set of Christmas glasses probably two weeks ago. Christmas sales all the time for me. So these were the like the Libby stemmed glasses, and I saw a bunch. They were up in a cabinet in the top. People don't look up sometimes, right? Especially as short people that I went and got the guy, and I said, you see all those up there? How much would you take for all of them? And I knew there was a bunch, because I'd stood back and looked and counted. He said, I'll take $5 and I said, sold. I got 32 glasses. Wow. So then I was like, oh, Lord, what have you done? You've got to pack those up somehow and take them and put them in the car and get them home. So I got those done, and it turned around and looked and then there was more Christmas stuff. And I've sold those kind of glasses before. And I thought, oh geez, I can't leave them. So I go get the guy again. I bring him back. There's all these glasses and a stack of plates. And I said, how much you want for all that? He says, I'll take $10 I said, Okay, so, you know, I do a lot of that with the estate sales. We've got a couple of online auctions around that are local. I'm bad about going in and sorting what their listings are, and seeing what does not have a bid, I can sort it. And if it doesn't have a bid, and it's coming up this sales over tomorrow, a lot of times you can do the minimum bid, and you'll get those items right. So that's kind of what I did with the sewing lot. There was no bid on it, and so. I got that. So I like to look at those so you can is it on a major site, like high bid, or is it just their own site? It's always get it backwards. It's a a pro bid. So it's a site with with a whole bunch of different Yes, it's not just this one company, right? It's a pro bid, and they have various auctions on there. But we're just lucky enough that there's, like, there's about four of them in this area that post to that site and do their auction on that site. So I look at them, but I go in, like said, sort them. You can sort them, you know, by highest bid, by lowest bid, but, and you can search, you know, if you want to look at glasses, sets of glasses, or whatever. So I kind of go in and tag things that i i First, my first run through is I tag things that look interesting. Then I go back and look a little closer, but, and then, you know, Goodwill. I have found a few good things there, but they're pricing themselves out of business. For me, getting harder and harder. I know had to change what I'm looking at because the clothing is so expensive, it's getting so expensive, yeah, so you just have to zig when other people zag, kind of thing, and find items that are lower priced and you they're easy to find. You know, it's repeatable, almost like glassware and dishes and things like that. What kind of prices do you see at your goodwill? Oh, the clothing is crazy. I mean, a jacket, just a simple little jacket, you know, 1159, most of the shirts, blouses, or, you know, like 599, 799, you just can't really make any profit on something. No, you can't. You can find good stuff for yourself. Well, yeah, yeah, there's a couple of times I bought things for myself and thought, Okay, this will work for me, but I couldn't. I'm not going to resell it. I'll probably wear it a few few years and donate it, but I'll get some good out of it. But the glassware, they tend to think, if something is dirty or looks old, that it's really not worth anything. So they tend to price those pretty good. I find a lot of things price 99 cents, or, you know, 59 cents sometimes for a smaller glass. If it's dirty, that's what I look at, because if it looks like it's been out in the barn, okay, it could be a diamond in the roof. So lot of times you wash them, yeah. And people like the rustic look, that's, that's very popular with home decor, restaurants, coffee shops, they want it to look a little beat up. Yeah, so I don't know if you saw that post I put on a group A while back about the knobs. They were drawer and cabinet knobs, and I don't think they were brass. They were a dark color, whatever that is, and it was like 60 of them, and they did have the the green patina on them. And I asked the group, should I clean these? Because that was going to be a project, getting in all the grooves. It had this very pretty flower design on it, but it had all these grooves and like, you'd have to get a toothbrush and get in there with your cleaner, and I didn't want to that just was a big job. And most people said, just leave it the way it is. People want it that way, right? They're going to do something with it, repurpose it, make a craft or make jewelry or just put it on cabinets like that, if they're redoing a piece, like a hutch or a dress or drawers or something. Yeah. And sure enough, they sold a couple weeks for, I think, my asking price, and that convinced me you don't have to clean everything. You know, some of us get sort of OCD and we want it so clean and pretty and shiny, but it's time and effort. Yeah, yeah, I've sold some silver plate things actually. I know sometimes you kind of get hung up in that, but the more ornate it is, the better. And some of the patina, there is some that's called a rainbow patina. And if you were to try to clean it, you would ruin it. So yeah, I understand there's some things. You just leave it alone, post it and let it go. And if it's a collector, let them clean it if they want, and potentially ruin it like, yeah, just sell it the way it is and get what you can get. Yeah, don't. Don't be OCD, and that's me. I want everything to to look as presentable as possible, because part of it is your competition on eBay. You. Want your listing to look better than your competitors, so at least it gets clicked on and looked at. But it doesn't really seem to matter if your keywords are vintage, rustic patina, you know, put those words in the title to get those people who are looking for those things. And yeah, that takes a lot off of our plate. Yes, it does. I don't mind cleaning, but if you don't have to use that time to get more listings up or go find more stuff or something, well, I kind of developed a shortcut on cleaning glassware, too. If it's not too terrible, if it's not too terribly dirty, I keep a spray bottle with vinegar and water and a microfiber towel, and I can make them look all pretty and shiny without going through the dish soap and the, you know, dish pan hands and all that. Every now and then you've got glassware that needs the soak in the hot water to get the labels off and this that and the other stickers. But if I can just give them a quick wipe with the spray bottle and the vinegar and water and set them up and take their picture. You know, I'm going to do that as much as I can, because it saves a lot of time. Have you ever tried a hair dryer on those stickers? Nope, actually, I have that is a great time saver. So you just get your hair dryer and blow it on the you got to get, like, one corner of the sticker up, and then do the hair dryer, and then back it off, actually peel it a little bit, do it again. And then if you use the, I think it's 90% alcohol, to with a cotton ball to get the residue off. That works wonderfully. People all have all their own tricks, but that's my process, that hair dryer is. It works on, you know, cardboard. It works on anything without ruining it. Yeah, I think I have used it on cardboard before. I got, like, a vintage game that I had sold, and I've sold several of those, actually, that I just remembered I this has been probably a year or more ago. There was a stack of old games that just looked horrible, that was in one of the online auctions, and I got that bid for$1 and I sold everything in that stack. I ended up selling everything in the stack. And I don't remember exactly how much it brought, but I know it was probably $100 give or take a little bit. But I did use a hair dryer on some of those labels of getting off the cardboard, and it worked very well. The glassware, sometimes you can just whip a label off, and it's okay and it doesn't residue, but sometimes you just have to, and usually my glassware is probably dirty anyway, and the vinegar and water, if with the microfiber, will actually take off a minor label deal. Okay, it works. Hey, we gotta have all these tricks to get those stickers off. Yeah, I just, I don't like the ones that goodwill that are scored, oh yeah. And they put it like on the bottom over the the Hallmark, or the new brand name. And I keep one of those. It's called a Scotty peeler. It's like a you probably have it. I keep one of those with me when I'm shopping so I can get that up enough to see what's under it. So I'm not going to buy it if I don't know what it is, right, and I don't know why they can't figure out a better way to do those stickers. And also, you have to pick up the item and flip it over and look at the bottom. And the more times you have to pick something up, the more opportunities for it to be dropped and broken. So I just don't know why they aren't smarter about that. Yeah, I'm with you on that. The labels are horrendous, but usually hot soapy water soak them a few minutes, and most of the time I'm going to have to clean the glassware, because if the glassware looks like it's been in the barn, it's probably pretty good. I'm going to look at it a lot closer, because it's probably older it's been stored somewhere. And yeah, the older dirtier the glassware is, the more it excites me, because I want to look at it and see what it is well. And there have been sellers on this podcast that bought a property or bought a home, and there's a barn on the property, and it's just full of stuff. The previous owners, maybe they passed away, whatever. There's all this stuff in the barn. I know Tina Wozniak is one of them. She's going through this barn that came with a home they bought and like your own treasure trove, although she does go to Goodwill for boredom busters and Marlene the horse lady, she's got a barn full of stuff, and I just feel like, what a blessing to have all this, this inventory, just right there. Work, yeah, and eventually, at some point, somebody's going to clean it out and maybe donate the stuff. And then we come along, like you said, maybe the dirtier it is, the older it is, and the more valuable it is, yeah, I just, I don't think thrift store employees think like we do, they just have this back room of intake stacked to the ceiling of stuff that they have to get out onto the floor to get it sold. Yes, I usually ask the managers when I'm in a goodwill I've never been to, it's like, well, how many items do you sell a day? And they know, they know how many items are donated and put on the floor and sold, because that's they need to know their numbers. But one told me a couple of weeks ago, they're like, well, we we bring out a rack of clothes every 15 minutes, and there's 100 items on each rack, and that wasn't even counting what I call the junk in the back, all the breakables and lamps and all that kind of stuff. So just the sheer volume of what they get must be overwhelming, and maybe they do know a few things of what's hot or might be valuable. I think they have magnets back there where they you know, if it doesn't stick to a magnet, then it's precious metal in it. So I think they go through it with magnets, pulling out the junky stuff, and then what doesn't get picked up, they know, is more valuable jewelry or flatware, that kind of stuff. But then again, maybe not, because people are out there finding this stuff. It's like, how did that get through intake? You know, this nine to five sterling silver thing. How did that even get out here? Oh, that. That reminded me of another thing that I found that was amazing. And this is probably been us six, eight months ago, I was in a local store here and looking at Christmas stuff. They had just sitting up. I looked up and I saw two glasses or crystal champagne flutes, is what they were. I looked up, saw those, and went, Oh, those are very pretty. They were so shiny. And I thought, oh, that's got to be some good stuff. I got it, looked at it, and on the foot of it, very carefully, I looked it said, Waterford. Oh, nice. And there were two of them, and they wanted $5 for the two of them. So I got those, and I told my husband, I felt like a thief when I walked out the door. You're like looking around it. Does anybody see me? Right? Like your car. So I sold both of them before Christmas, but they it come to find out they were two in a set of 12. It was supposed to be like 12 Days of Christmas, and I had number 11 and number 12, and they had little charms on the stem, and this charm matched an etched figure that was on the flute itself. So I sold both of those. And yeah, that they didn't know what they had. They were right? They somebody just thought, Oh, well, these are kind of, you know, they're Christmassy, and they don't look all that great, and we'll just stick them up here so well. And it's such a mixed bag, because plenty of sellers have been on this podcast. And, like, I don't find anything at Goodwill, or it's, it's priced too high. I'm not doing it. I'm not going there anymore. And then other people, they keep finding stuff all the time, and I just don't think there's any rhyme or reason to it. Maybe it's, it's just the employee that day just is like, Oh, I have an hour left. And they just, they just put whatever price on stuff, and they don't even, they don't know they're not paid to know. They're paid to put things out on the floor or be the cashier or whatever. And it's not going to affect the money they're making. If they recognize a $300 item, they're not going to get paid anymore. So it's weird, they'll either, they'll either overprice something that's, you know, nowhere near worth what they're pricing it, or they're going to underprice it. So it's, there's no rhyme or reason sometimes, yeah, it's, again, it's your mindset and mine is always what is out here waiting for me today, I'm going to find great things today. I can't wait to see what shows up. And sometimes it's just been put out, and sometimes it's been there for six weeks and nobody's picked it up. So I think if you go in with the attitude of abundance, and you know, the thrifting Gods put those things in front. To me today, I always well, I have walked out of a few stores here. It was senior day. It was too congested in there. There was no carts, and I'd start looking, and I'm just like, Yeah, I'm just not feeling that vibe. Sometimes I'd rather go on not seeing your day and pay a little bit more to have a better shopping experience and not be overwhelmed and anxious with so many people in the store. Yeah, yeah. I don't like it when it gets too crowded. I'm just like, get me out of here. I get claustrophobic. If I'm just, I guess, too, too crowded and just too, he's just anxiety put into people and stuff. Yeah, it's like, this is not I want my business to be fun. If it's too, it's like shopping on Black Friday when people used to beat each other up and, you know, just getting stuff. And I don't want to do it that way. I want an enjoyable, almost meditative experience of looking and thinking, and you can't do that when the store's all crazy. So now you mentioned your husband. Does he help you with the business? Well, I have given him the title of VP of shipping and receiving, so he helps with it quite a bit. He'll put things in the car for me. If I'm packed up, things going to go the post office. He will take things to the mailbox. If it's small enough, it's going in the mailbox, or, you know, if I've got something ordered that's related to whatever, he's always, you know, going and getting it and bringing it in for me. So he does quite a bit to help me that way. And he was kind of a reluctant participant at first, because he thought, I thought you were supposed to be getting rid of things here in the house, not bringing more stuff in. And so once he saw that I had some really good sales, though he's kind of been like, are you going shopping today, or, you know, if I've been, he goes, Did you find anything good? You know? So he's, he's gotten where he's a little more supportive of it than he was in the beginning. So, but he's, he's very helpful. Now, you mentioned being retired. What kind of work did you do before you retired? Well, I was a nurse. I graduated nursing school in 1984 okay? And I worked in health care for a little over 35 years. Oh, did a little bit of everything, from working as a floor nurse to eventually, I worked my way into a more administrative type position in the last several years, you know, old floor nurses burn out pretty quick. Your legs don't hold up all that well, and your body just kind of gives up after a while. The last several years, I worked, I worked more in an office setting, okay, and that type of thing. But yep, about 35 plus years in health, and so you retired before the whole covid thing? Yes, I retired in December 2019, oh gosh, right, when it started, I was never so glad to be out of it, because it was such chaos in healthcare. And even in the administrative job that I had. I worked in risk management, and it was horrendous. My co workers that I left begged me to come back and help, and I'm like, No, I can't do it. We're going to go hike. And then then we ended up leaving the trail anyway. But no, I was really glad to have retired when I did and avoid a lot of it. So I think that was divine intervention. It must have been. I remember back in December of 19 I was without having lunch with my son, and he was talking, I didn't know anything about this was going on in China and wherever, and all the people stranded on the cruise ships, and they were doing YouTube videos about being stranded and they couldn't get off because they were trying to contain the virus, and I didn't know anything about it. And and then we get get into March when the world went crazy. And, yeah, yeah, that was very lucky for you to be out of that mess, and like you didn't have to make a decision about it. You just exactly out that that's, yeah, that's a god wink, right there. I think, I think you're right. Okay, well, we have made it through our time here. Do you have any last words for the listeners? Maybe, how, how to get started, how to keep going, or anything. Well, I think, you know, like everybody usually says, look at what you have in your home that you can live without. That's a good place. I think, to start especially things you've had for a long time that, you know, the kids are not going to want it. They don't care about this stuff most of the time. A that's a good way to get started. And I think the other thing is just you don't have to buy something every time you go somewhere. Just keep your eyes open and try to be selective about it. And I didn't really do it that much in the beginning, and I try to be more selective now, even though I still come home with too much sometimes. But just try to be a little more selective about what you've got. And if you keep at it long enough, you will find your niche. It just kind of comes to you. It's the Goldilocks, the Goldilocks method. You just keep trying until it's just right exactly. I think I would have never dreamed that I loved looking for glassware and packing glassware, I would have thought, yeah, that's just crazy. But so many guests and other sellers have said, Just do what you love, yeah, and it for you. I guess it's more of a hobby. And as far as the glassware and all, I think the people who are working a full time job and then doing eBay on the side, or maybe a mom with five kids, or whatever it is, like they are structuring their business so they can ship things quickly. It's not that, Oh, I hate glassware. I don't want to do it. It's just, it's all about time, and when it is, when you have a full time job or a bunch of kids, or you're a caregiver for an elderly parent, you just don't know what your day is going to be like and how much time you're going to have. So I'm looking at more of that breakable stuff now, because the way our goodwill does it is they just have a sign of what the prices are. They used to tag every single item, but they just do copy. Mugs, 49 cents. Dishes 49 cents. And then their method is, if the date on the sticker, if the item does have a sticker, if it's more than four days old, then you get it half price. Oh, wow. But you have to tell them it doesn't just ring up with the barcode. You have to say, Oh, this one is eligible for 50% and they have to do this whole thing and get the manager and all this stuff. I didn't realize that when I moved here to this new location, but now I'm looking for those stickers with the dates like, oh, this will be 50 so you don't even have to go on senior day, if you can do it like that, right? I've sold several things that I paid 50 cents for, for $20 and, yeah, I'll do that all day long. And they're small or gift items. They're easy to ship. They're linens. So like you said, just find what you like. I think every seller will agree with that. So Well anyway, what do you have planned for the rest of your day? Well, I need to go to the post office. I've got a few items I packed up this morning. I need to sell, and I'm going to go get my daily walk in. I didn't walk. Try and walk four or five times a week at least. And so my husband's out this morning doing his usual. He loves to fish, so he's fishing this morning. Oh, good for you. Must have the giant snow storms must be over for a little bit. Yeah. Did you get a whole bunch on that one that came through a couple weeks ago? We did. We got quite a bit of ice and snow, probably here, where I live, we got three or four inches of snow, but the ice on top of it was a doozy. The roads were slick. We stayed home for a couple of days. Got a little cabin fever, you know, it melted off relatively quickly. We have, we have a good road department in our area. Were out grading and salting and doing all the stuff that they needed to do. So yeah, we were fortunate. We did not have enough ice to affect the power lines, so we we kept our power the whole time. So that was good. Some people just south of us weren't quite as fortunate. They were without power for a week or two. I have a sister in Murfreesboro. She just moved there from Atlanta to be closer to her daughter and grandkids. And just yeah, the pictures, they didn't lose power either, but it was nasty. And then that second thing that came through, I think it was January 31 here in South Carolina, upstate, we got 10 inches, and I did not leave my home for a solid week, yeah, just because it kept thawing and refreezing and schools were closed. And like, if schools are closed, I'm not going anywhere. We're all ready for spring. So yesterday, it was in the 70s. A week ago, it was like 12, yeah, today it's like in the 50s here. I think a couple of days ago it got close to 70 degrees here. Yesterday was a little cooler. Today's yet a little cooler, but today's still in the 50s, and it's nice and sunny, so it's tall. Horrible. Yeah, it's going up to the mid 60s here today. So anyway, we've gotten off on many tangents, but that's what we do. We talk about our life. So yeah, I'm good at doing that. Anyway, yeah, I will let you go and do your day. Thanks so much for coming on and talking about your business. And really nice to meet you in person. Yeah, it's nice to meet you in person, virtually, whatever this is. So okay, well, thanks again, and we'll see you on the group. Okay, thank you. Next week, my guest is Marla, who is a veteran ebayer. She started back in the early 2000s and her business has been evolving all this time. She is very helpful in the Facebook group answering questions. I hope you will join us next week. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have a profitable and productive week on eBay. Bye, everybody you.