Adding It Up – July
July has proven to be my biggest month yet in terms of money earned from various sources other than my salary. I made £127.05 and the breakdown is shown here in this cut & paste from my precious spreadsheet;
Jul
14
£127.05
Amazon Selling Account
5
£14.77
Quidco
1
£22.75
eBay
7
£72.23
Survey
1
£17.30
As you can see, the majority came from eBay, but it was boosted by payments for cashback from Quidco, and the rewards from online surveys. These two sources of income are very welcome, but they are infrequent. I can’t remember which survey site paid me the £17.30, but it must have been built up over months of filling in online surveys, giving them spurious marketing data to qualify for points to convert into a Paypal payment. Each survey must only take a few minutes when you’re racing through them, so they’re easy to complete. Other sites give vouchers, which I use for Amazon. As for the Quidco cashback payment, that was also built up over months, mostly due to the insane amount of time it takes companies to track and then reward your custom. But if you regularly use cashback sites for large or even regular small transactions you can often get more regular pay-outs. I have another £30+ waiting in the sidelines actually.
The eBay sales this month come from an eclectic mix of goods. I sold a brand new PS3 game bought using Amazon vouchers and then sold using Buy It Now for the exact same price. In fact, it sold within one hour of me listing it. I could do with more of those! From new games to old games, I also sold a PS1 game that I bought in a charity shop for 75p for £10, making me over £5 profit.
The previous owners of my house kindly left behind three empty butane gas bottles, which were sitting gathering dust in the shed for the past three years until I realised these could be sold online. I listed them for £10 each Buy It Now and they sold within days of listing. The buyers came to the house, handed over the cash and they were gone!
A few months back I bought a Camelbak water re-hydration system from a charity shop for £2.95. It was in woodland camouflage and looked brand new, despite having no tags. I knew this was a good item for re-selling, but only after buying it did I realise it didn’t have the reservoir bag inside it for filling up with water! Not sure what to do, I ummed and ahhed for weeks about how to list it. Biting the bullet, I listed it for £20 Buy It Now with free postage and made clear that it was missing the water bag. And it sold. I even emailed the buyer to confirm it was incomplete and he replied saying he already had the reservoir part, so I posted that off and made £10+ profit.
Selling several items at £10 or £5 profit a month quickly add up and if you combine the posting with items that sold for less, it makes the smaller profit easier to bear in terms of time spent in Post Offices.
So all in all July was a good month.
It’s early days for August right now, but I’ve already made a couple of Amazon Marketplace sales for some books which amounts for £22+ profit, so the month definitely won’t be a blow out at least.
Not sure I’ll be able to beat last month’s total, but it helps to pay the bills…
