The Great Debt Payoff

The other books I bought on eBay as a part of my book-selling experiement arrived and my batting average isn't so hot.

I received another one with a different ISBN than the one listed in the eBay listing. Apparently, when they are listing their books, they just search by title and assume that if the title matches and the front cover matches, then it must be the same book. Not so. There are different editions to books and on Amazon, a different ISBN could mean a lot of difference in selling price too.

I received two that were in HORRIBLE condition. They were from the same seller and both had significant water damage, smelled of smoke and had extensive notes in them. I haven't decided whether I'm going to try to list them anyway or try to return them.

I did receive a few books that were the ones I had bargained for in the beginning and in good condition, so I'll list those and see how I make out.

Anyway, I've decided to abandon my experiment at this point. I think it could really be a profitable situation for anyone who doesn't mind spending the time searching on eBay, running to and from the Post Office and is willing to take the risk of buying used from one person to sell used to the next.

As for me, I think I'll move on to something else.

My first book from eBay arrived which I planned to sell at a profit on Amazon. Well, guess what? Wrong book. The seller was a first-time seller and said she wasn't careful enough in listing the book. Her auction listing said the ISBN was that of the latest edition of the book. But when I got the book, I noticed the ISBN was different; this book was an older edition. Major bummer.

So, I emailed her, told her I was disappointed and wondered if she'd respond. If she didn't, I'd be out $30 which would be another bummer.

But I'm happy to report, she responded right away, apologized profusely and immediately refunded my money. Now all I have to do is send the book back...and then go over to leave my feedback for her on eBay. And what will it be? 100% positive. The experience was a disappointment, but her excellent customer service made up for it.

I'm not deterred in my experiment. I've still got a few more books coming, so hopefully I'll find success eventually.

We've got a credit card that we don't use anymore for purchases, but we have been using it to consolidate our debts at low rates. We transferred all our credit card debt (about $4800 currently) to that card at a rate of 1.99% through November.

Our only other debt is in student loans which are currently at 5.05% interest and most certainly will go up come July 1. So, we've now transferred the bulk of our student loans onto our credit card at a rate of 3.99% for the life of the loan.

Obviously, it's a sweet deal. But we've gotta stay on our toes because we'll lose the rate faster than we can say boo if we commit any number of repayment no-nos (like making a payment even 1 minute late, for example). In order to avoid such a crime, we'll set up an electronic payment through our bank account so the bill is automatically paid each month, well in advance of the due date.

Then we'll watch that debt just melt away!

(Right. I wish it was that easy.)

I'm going to keep a running list of specific ways to make money online. I'll add to the list as I work my way through The Great Debt Payoff and I'll put the link under "Helpful Posts." It would be great if all of you would contribute by sharing your ideas as well.

To begin...

As I see it, there are essentially 4 ways to make money on the internet:

1. Sell a product.
2. Sell a service.
3. Sell information.
4. Just ask for it.

Can you think of anything else?

If you sell on eBay or are thinking about it, the pros will tell you that a little research before diving in is a must. I've sold some things in the past and will do so again as part of The Great Debt Payoff at some point. I came across this article again, though, and thought I'd pass it on to you while I was thinking about it. Find out The Most Popular Day to End an eBay Auction.

(It's an old article, from Feb. 2005, but as you'll see, the results seem to be consistent from year to year.)

For those of you with kiddies and a long summer ahead of you, Regal Cinemas shows free kid movies (G & PG) on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings at 10 am through the summer. Click here to see if there's a Regal Cinema near you participating in the program and to see which movies will be showing.

We enjoyed doing this last summer. The kids liked seeing a movie in the theater and I liked the fact that it was 100% free (unless you buy snacks). (The air conditioning was pretty nice too since we don't have a/c at home.)

So I just bought a book on eBay to sell on Amazon. A simple concept and I'm certainly not the first to try it. There are people who make a nice living doing just this. But for me, the question is, how much time and energy will it require? And what can go wrong? I've got 3 kids to raise and a house to keep, so I want to make money as quickly and conveniently as possible without a lot of hassle. Then again, what might be a hassle for me, may not be a hassle for you, so here's what I did in case you're interested (although you're smart so I'm sure you can figure it out yourself).

Anyway, here's the basic process:

1. Go to eBay.
2. Find a book.
3. Open the listing and find the ISBN (most of the books have ISBN's in the description).
4. Copy the ISBN.
5. Go to Amazon.
6. Paste the ISBN into the "Search" field.
7. Click "Go."
8. Look at how much the book is selling as "used."
9. Determine whether there's enough profit potential to make it worth your while.
10. If you think you can make a decent profit, bid on the book at eBay.

Like I said, I just bought a book which I'll try to flip. We'll see if it pays off or if there's some catch that I'm just not seeing yet. (In that case, this will become a $30 lesson.) Hopefully I'll get the book soon and even more hopefully, it will sell quickly at a much higher price.

The other night I saw a book that sold for about $50 on eBay. The same book was selling on Amazon for about $150. So, you can see, there's huge potential here if you're willing to master the process.

Here are some things you might want to keep in mind if you decide to give it a whirl:

1. Don't forget to figure in shipping (the shipping you'll have to pay to eBay and any excess shipping you'll have to pay to Amazon) when determining profit potential.
2. Take note of the condition of the book on eBay. A book in bad condition on eBay will have to be accounted for when you try to sell it on Amazon.
3. Beware of old editions which have been or will be replaced by newer editions. (I'm sure there's a way to find this info out but I haven't done it yet. Anyone??)
4. Make sure you're buying a book on eBay from someone who has a good feedback score. It'd be a bummer to get stuck in a raw deal that takes unnecessary time, effort and money to rectify.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Does anyone else have anything to add?

Another two books sold on Amazon last night. Those things are goin' like hotcakes! That brings my grand total of book sales to $175 & change. Sweet!

Well, our garage sale pretty much got rained out. Oh well. BUT, we still managed to make about $20. And that's 20 bucks more than we had when we woke up this morning.

On the brighter side (no pun intended), I did sell two more books on Amazon overnight. That's another $30 or so. I'm becoming a huge fan of book selling on Amazon. It's easy, it's quick and it's free to list! Can't beat that. The only bummer is that I'm running out of books to sell!

I need to do a little research about what kinds of books sell for the most money. A lot of the books we've got lying around (novels, bestsellers, etc.) are selling for less than $2 each as used books. So far, textbooks are definitely the way to go. Someone also mentioned that cookbooks might be good sellers too. Not sure about that though. How about any of you? Do you know what kinds of books net the most profit on Amazon?

Admittedly, The Great Debt Payoff has been going very s-l-o-w-l-y as of late. Whereas I was significantly more focused earlier this year, now all my time and attention has been focused on our new baby. But he's 5 weeks old today and a routine seems to be emerging. With routine will (hopefully) come a more concerted effort toward The Great Debt Payoff once more.

Speaking of which, we are having a garage sale tomorrow. It's actually a neighborhood garage sale and the neighborhood association took care of the advertising so all we have to do is stick our stuff out there. Seemed like a pretty good deal to me. So, if I can drag myself down to the basement and pull some more stuff out to sell (it's almost 9 pm and I'd so rather go to bed...especially since that sweet little baby I was just talking about decided he wanted to be held from 1 am to 6 am last night), I think we'll give it a whirl.

Also, I put some more of my old textbooks on Amazon. As of today, I've sold 5 and have made almost $100. Not bad.

Lastly, I plan to start babysitting again in the next week or two. That should get things rolling too.