No I’m not selling our house, yet. Lately though, I’ve been scanning and mentally tagging—with or without approval from my wife—some items that I might sell online. Signs of the times? Maybe, maybe not. But don’t be alarmed as we’re not at that level of need, at least for now; I’m just following one of my golden rules that says “Practice makes perfect.” In this case, selling.
In the past I’ve sold items that I know got wifey’s disapproval, not to mention irritation. A few years back I sold my mountain bike for only PhP 2500, which I initially got for around PhP 17000, just after three years of having it. What followed next was my 1-year old Playstation 2 for only PhP 5000 over the original price of around Php 15000. The last one was our old car. I sold it for only PhP 50000 (in my defense, the Kia’s resale value is really low) just almost after 4 years with us. We got it for PhP 128000.
Frankly speaking, I felt a bit sad having to let go of those items. But then, selling and getting a payment every time for each transaction gave me some sense of accomplishment; of course, not until I later get to tell my wife about each sale. Every time I tell her “The buyers were so happy, I had a good deal”, her raised eyebrow tells me she couldn’t agree more—that’s agreeing with the buyers being happy but disagreeing with me having a good deal. I wonder when she’d get a court hold order for me to stop selling.
In my quest to perfect the trade, I started asking some friends around while embarrassingly telling the stories of my recent non-profitable activities-–their shaking heads and looks of disbelief and regret (for not buying it instead) confirm my wife’s opinion. I likewise checked the web for some tips and eventually re-activated my ebay account (like a cocked gun ready to be used). Luckily, I also reached the site www.claimspages.com that has an item depreciation guide which could help me about estimating an item’s selling price. The list made me realize that not all items have 10% depreciation over a 10 year period. I must have been busy pestering my seat mate during our 4th year high school accounting class. Ti abi.
My eagerness to start selling some petty items started again when we bought a multi-function printer. This item immediately made our existing scanner obsolete. Just the perfect reason—an item for disposal which is still too good for freecycle. And so just a couple of days after I posted the item in ebay, I got a deal with someone. He bid for half the price which is not bad for electronic gadgets. A few emails and SMS later, I received the payment (thru GCash) and I shipped the scanner in return. It was an exciting experience, my first ebay sale and my first time to receive payment thru GCash. Now, I’m really selling. Happy buyer + Happy seller = Happy wife.
How long will it take me to take our room TV out of its mounting? Now I wonder.
Marcus Can Blog 