1st Day Back Selling on Ebay & already making $

I sold on Ebay a lot last year but haven't been doing it for a while. Since this time of year is so easy finding fun stuff to sell at garage sales, I decided to get back into it to help raise more money toward my $12,000 savings goal for 2014. I listed this Learn Through Music Toy with 4 cartridges as an auction starting at $29.99 or Buy it Now for $39.99.  It sold within a couple of hours.  I should have started the price higher :).  We originally purchased this Learn Through Music Plus, the 4 cartridges and an Original Learn Through Music about a year or two ago at garage sales and the thrift store.  I think we paid $5 altogether for everything. The original Learn Through Music wasn't working so well and was kind of loud when it rewound the cartridges so I decided not to try to sell it.  But this one worked fine.  My kids got to play with them for a year or two.  It's been in the basement in a garage sale pile for about 3 months and the girls never noticed they were missing.  After the shipping, pay pal fees and eBay fees, I made $23.51.

This weekend we hit the garage sales and I spent $9 on two items to sell on eBay. I'm going to use the money I made today to pay myself back the $9 and then use the rest of the money to purchase more stuff to sell.  I want to make sure I keep all the costs separate so any profits will go straight to savings and not get mixed in with our regular cash flow.

One thing I bought today was a set of wooden doll house furniture.  I've sold dollhouse furniture before and it sold well.  I was hoping the wooden furniture would be worth more but it doesn't look like it.  I paid $6 for the 24 pieces and after shipping and fees will probably only make a few bucks off it.  Same with a wooden block city building set.  I paid $3 and after all the costs will only probably make a few dollars.  I have a friend who is having a garage sale at the end of the summer so if they don't sell, I can at least try to get my money back by selling them at her garage sale.  It's really hard to make money with the cost of shipping and then all the fees.  It's a bit frustrating.