Adding It Up – October
I almost forgot to write up last month’s additional income review. October’s total was boosted by a cashback payment that had been in the pipeline for months, so much so that I forgot about it. Here’s a breakdown of where the money came from last month;
Oct
3
£64.39
Quidco
1
£34.00
eBay
2
£30.39
The cashback was from Quidco, most of which was earned via a home insurance policy I took out about 6 months ago! Luckily I wasn’t relying on this money for anything, as it certainly doesn’t get paid as a matter of priority between the retailer and the cashback company. October also saw two eBay sales, both for the same type of item.
As a Sky TV customer I was sent a wireless Sky TV on-demand box that arrived unannounced in the post. The idea is that you plug it into your Sky box (TiVo is the US equivalent) and it connects with your wifi and gives you access to films and TV shows via the TV. I couldn’t really see myself using this, as I have Netflix plus my time is at a premium any way, so I thought I’d check out sales on eBay for them. Surprisingly, they were selling for £20ish, and seeing as this was free, boxed and unused, selling it made sense. I shelved it with the idea of getting it listed soon. Then a few days later another one arrived, so I listed them both. Selling identical items on eBay is easy as you simply enter the quantity number and it goes down every time someone purchases from you. So I made my listing and waited. The same day I listed them I got an email from someone on eBay asking if he could come round that night and buy one, paying in cash. I agreed, he turned up, and the sale was made. When I went to look at the listing, I realised that the buyer hadn’t actually used the ‘Buy It Now’ function, he’d simply sent me an email and then paid cash for the item on my doorstep. This means as far as eBay is concerned, this sale never took place. I changed the quantity from 2 to 1, and waited for the last one to sell, which it did, this time in the conventional way via Paypal etc. Due to one selling for cash, and the other via eBay, the profits for each item were different. I made £18 straight profit from the cash buyer, and £12.39 for the eBay one. £30.39 profit from two items that cost me nothing. Not bad at all.
I haven’t sold anything on Amazon or eBay during November yet, nor do I have any cashback waiting, so this might be a lean month in terms of extra income, but we shall see. The money from this extra income is getting funneled into a slush fund savings account that I use for ad-hoc expenses, but this time it looks like it will be used to pay for my car insurance, which strangely enough is the same total as the money I have in the account, so at least that’s taken care of!
