Hey Neighbors aka New Port Richey City residents. You might not be aware of this or you might have forgotten when the CITY CLEAN UP DAY was scheduled for, well the time is NOW! Time to bring all of your junk to one of the 2 convenient drop off locations on SATURDAY 6/21/2014 between the hours of 8am to 5pm. So if your yard has been collecting junk by the masses or you have old furniture that needs to go - NOW is the time to go drop it off at one of the two locations and the best part, it is COMPLETELY FREE. This is for NPR City Residents only. You must live within city limits to take advantage of this FREE Clean Up day. Details below....
There are two locations you can choose from that will have dumpsters available on Saturday the 21st of June. Depending on what you need to drop off you may want to go to a specific one. For instance they are doing Paper Shredding at the River Road location only, and there is a limit on the paper shredding which will be 4 boxes per household. You might be asking yourself "what size boxes?" that I could not tell you. I am assuming an average size large box. I don't think they will be too picky as long as people do not get carried away.
Also at the River Road location they will be taking televisions, computer monitors, and computer towers as well. With these items however they are asking that they be NON-Damaged, however non-working is fine. Basically they cannot take televisions or computer monitors that have been torn apart for environmental reasons is the short version. Now I did ask a city employee if it was okay to bring TV parts like the plastic backs or cases (not the tubes) and I was told those kinds of pieces should be fine to put right into the dumpsters.
- Side note to my local readers - as many of you know we pick up metal and appliances FREE all year long, and if you have computer towers or any computer parts & pieces please let us know and we will pick them up locally or you can bring them to us.We personally DO NOT take televisions or monitors as they cost money to dispose of properly. If you have metal/appliances/computer parts or towers, drop a comment below or email me. Also can find other contact info for us on http://about.me/KimSager
I was able to find a main list of items you will be able to drop off at both locations.I found this list on the New Port Richey City website:
- Glass
- Carpet
- Metals
- Wood (8' or less)
- House Furniture
- Lawn Furniture
- Drywall
- Mattress
- Box Spring
- Fence
- Plywood
- TVs ( River Road Location Only)
- Computer Monitors/Towers (River Road Location Only)
The above list is what the New Port Richey City website has for "Materials Allowed".
Dumpsters will be at the locations below for city residents to begin dropping items off at 8am Saturday June 21st 2014 and will stay open until 5pm.
- Francis Park - Located off Louisiana (just a little west of Gulf Middle School on Louisiana on the opposite side of road).
- 6131 South River Road (Where River Road Church Property was) - This is the location for Paper Shredding & TVs/Monitors/Towers.
If you have JUNK that cannot go out with your everyday trash or maybe just too much junk to get rid of all at once on a normal trash night, which typically with most companies a 6 can limit, STOP what your doing and load up that truck, or your friends truck and head to one of the sites where the City Of New Port Richey has rented Dumpsters for us to be able to CLEAN UP!
It was on sale and as many of you know I just cannot resist a bargain. Well this time around I can see why it was discounted. I didn't even think they made lipsticks anymore that have that waxy sticky feeling and odd taste & smell that reminded me of my Grandmas lipstick when I was young. The one I tried was the Smooth Shades Smooth Vanilla 1.5g size from Bonne Bell. It actually says on the bottom sticker "Flavored Lipstick" well if they were shooting for Vanilla flavor they were FAR FAR off.
Not only was I not impressed with this lipstick, literally the only positive things I can find to say about it are that I did like the size. I really like the "skinny" lipsticks that are pretty much 1/2 the size it seems around then your normal lipsticks. That is just a personal preference for me I guess possibly because my lips are on the small side making the smaller sticks easier to apply. The only other positive thing I can say is the color is pretty but really with it being so sticky & waxy feeling it doesn't matter how nice the color/shade is if it is totally uncomfortable to wear.
I did find a way to make it so it was not a total waste. I had recently tried another "sale" item from Sally Hansen. It is Natural Beauty Moisture Plump Lip Balm in the color Perfect Peach 1035-30. If I first apply the Bonne Bell then apply the Perfect Peach from Sally Hansen as a layer on top of the Sticky icky Bonne Bell lipstick then I can wear it. Obviously not my favorite BUT I hate wasting even sale items I purchase so I found a way to make it work.
Also the Sally Hansen one mentioned is GREAT by itself as well. Also another small/skinny stick for easy application for smaller lips/mouths. And a very natural color nothing that is over powering. Pretty, simple shade that also makes your smaller size lips appear larger and feels nice when applied, creamy smooth, not sticky & waxy like the Bonne Bell. Also the Sally Hansen doesn't have a weird taste/flavor to it that reminds of Grandmas old lipstick.
I am in my late 30's and anyone my age I am sure remembers the smell and feel of their Grandmothers lipstick, and even though we love those memories of Grandma..... I am sure others like myself don't want to "feel" like we are wearing her lipstick and have that taste of it all through the day ICK!
So My opinion
THUMBS DOWN - Bonne Bell Smooth Shades Flavored Lipstick Smooth Vanilla
THUMBS UP - Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Inspired By CARMINDY Moisture Plump Lip Balm
I learned something neat today that maybe others know but I am sure there are many out there like me that have NO idea about this quick little tip. One thing 99.9% of eBay sellers do know is how important keywords are in our listing titles. There are actually other important things about our listing titles that not everyone knows that I have learned along the way such as the order of words in title should go in the order of how important they are to the search. I will go over that all in another post though. Right now it is time to share a neat little QUICK TIP that I just discovered today.
Have you ever seen how some sellers use the initials VTG to stand for the word Vintage? Have you ever wondered how many people, as buyers would actually search for the initials VTG when looking for a vintage item? The thought had crossed my mind and I always thought odds were from a customers point of view that VTG probably was not a big keyword search term. I have used the initials when I simply could not fit the word "Vintage" in at all but I never until today realized I can ALWAYS use VTG in place of Vintage in my titles where it applies and save valuable keyword space EVERY TIME.... and here is the neat part..... When you search for "Vintage" or "VTG" the same listings will appear no matter which term was used. Below here is an example of a search that I found to make it simple so only one listing comes up, but as you will see it does NOT have the actual WORD VINTAGE in title, instead it has "VTG" (This example is in CLOSED/SOLD listings so you will have to be signed into eBay to search).
Search eBay for Keywords "Vintage Old Dead Pawn lot Hand Stamped Tooled"
Or simply go to this link as I have done the search for you: KEYWORD Search for Above Vintage Item in sold Ebay Listings Click Here
As you can see it pulls up one item and nowhere in the title does it have the word Vintage, instead it has the shortened eBay lingo that a lot of sellers use "VTG" saving valuable keyword space for other searchable words in the title BUT still being able to show up when a user searches for "Vintage".
This now has me wondering if there are other abbreviations for different words that work the same way that we can save space but still use certain keywords we would like to but shorten them to what us usually abbreviations only known by sellers.
SO in short what I have learned: From now on I can freely use the keyword "VTG" instead of "Vintage" and I will show up when someone searches for a Vintage item.
Like I said when I started writing this, maybe there are a lot of people out there that were already aware of this little tidbit of info BUT I am sure there are PLENTY of others like me that had no idea. With keywords being so important to our listings any time we can free up more of that space OR times we have a little extra space but not enough on a vintage item where otherwise the word would have been left out now we know for sure it is worth putting the VTG in there.
And that is my quick tip, but as all my readers know........... I can't say anything or write anything brief ha ha ha...
Do you ever find that you want a new header for your eBay store or a new logo? Maybe you have a FaceBook group and you want a nice looking banner/header for the groups page? Maybe you want a complete store layout with listing/auction templates and all? If you know how to do these things, that is great... many like myself might be able to figure it out but it would be time consuming and time is money as we all know. Those that know how to do it might also want to outsource jobs like these to free up that precious time for the same reasoning... Especially online sellers. If you are able to outsource things like this it frees up time for you to be able to get more listings up, get those packages out, edit & run those sales, etc.
Biggest problems with outsourcing things like this is 1. COST - nobody wants to spend a ton of money just to save some time, even if time = money. If it is not cost effective then you really are not helping your goal overall and 2. Who do you go to? You want someone who will work with you, does nice work, friendly, and of course someone who is going to get the job done in a timely manner.
I am writing this to share with my readers a women on a website where you can purchase gigs like this for ONLY FIVE DOLLARS. Yep, now that IS a DEAL for sure. Most sellers on the site do have extras you can add on for more money but there are MANY MANY gigs for 5.00. Personally I can share with you a wonderful seller there who offers outstanding service, goes above and beyond, extremely friendly, her work is very nicely done, and she does get her orders done in a timely fashion. http://www.fiverr.com/sahmomgroup
This Stay At Home Mom of 5 offers an assortment of gigs on the fiverr.com website. I have personally used her for eBay & for my eBay Motivation Station FaceBook group. I have been thrilled with the work she has done for me. I lack imagination when it comes to these things so with what little info I have been able to offer to her she has turned my thoughts (which I assure you this was not an easy task but she did not complain) into beautiful work. Just take a look at the Motivation Stations Header at the top of the group page... I adore it, and have gotten many compliments on it. https://www.facebook.com/groups/eBayMotivationStation/ It is eye catching, gets the point across in a very cute way, and still simple at the same time. Most importantly it was done exactly as ordered, and even better than expected.
Sahmomgroup actually came highly recommended to me by another eBay user and I was very happy that I listened and gave her a try. I will continue to order from her again and again. Also she is good about if she has a gig she offers that is close to something you need done but not exactly, just drop her a message and let her know what it is you are needing. She will let you know which gig to order closest to your needs then go from there.
Here are gigs she offers for $5.00 (each gig also has add on options too)
- Custom Design eBay Auction Template
- Unique Custom eBay Store Header & Logo
- Custom Made Banner Or Header For Anything
- Write & Post An Article On Her Blog
- Write a Premium SEO Article with Video & Post on her blog
- Send You An Ebook Of REAL Work At Home Jobs
So don't put it off. 5 bucks is less than what is spent on a trip to McDonalds or insert another fast food place. This is her main page on fiverr.com http://www.fiverr.com/sahmomgroup
I just know you will be as happy of a customer as I am. You don't have to take my word for it either, just check out her feedback as well. Note: She is FAMILY FRIENDLY and only does FAMILY type work. No Adult sites or anything illegal. THANK YOU.
I will share other gigs & sellers on fiverr.com as I find interesting things, or can personally suggest a user after I use them for a gig. If you have someone over there that you were very happy with I would love to hear from you. Please drop me a comment.
Hello everyone and first thing I must say is I MISS BLOGGING. Every day just about it seems there is something that comes up that I absolutely would love to write about, but with the chaos that I call every day life I never seem to get around to writing anymore. I have decided though that it is time for me to insert something that I enjoy and that is a ME type hobby into my life. What I enjoy, besides the obvious - MY FAMILY, Especially every minute, every second spent with my children............the other thing I love to do is share my thoughts, about EVERYTHING to ANYONE willing to listen (or in this case read). So it is April of 2014 and Easter Weekend is here.... Odd time to jump back into my blog, but I figure if I keep saying "tomorrow" then that "tomorrow" will never actually come.
As everyone who does read my blog, or has read it in the past knows.... I write about EVERYTHING. I write to share experiences, I write to try to help others learn from mistakes I have made or things I have learned along the way - things on eBay selling, on Amazon selling, on yard sale hunting, on having yard sales, ideas for crafts & fun things to do with our kiddos, parenting funny stories - goals - accomplishments etc., I will be sharing more about life with my darling special little angels whom are on the spectrum.... Autism is a part of our daily lives and a part of so many families lives nowadays. I know it helps me to read about others experiences so I am going to share ours too.... you just never know what you will find to read with me, but I promise it will be down to earth, honest, and whenever possible try to help others in some way or at least give them the chance to laugh with me, or know they are not alone when frustrated.
Recently we are happy to share that we have kicked it up a lot with our Autism Awareness donations and are doing most of our eBay listings with a minimum of 1.00 each item sold or 10% whichever is greater to AUTISM SPEAKS. This is in addition to what we donate each month from the combined sales online & metal recycling. We are not able to donate 100% , this is because the donations depend on how well we do each month. As many know we sell online ad do metal recycling/scrapping so we can have schedules that are flexible to do the best by our children we possibly can.... BUT we also want to help other families like ours at the same time. We are very happy that we are able to combine our income that allows us to be with our children, and get them the things they need, and never miss a doctor appt or therapy, etc. AND also be able to donate to a cause that is severely lacking in donations but the numbers of those affected by Autism are constantly growing at an unbelievable rate. So we do what we can.
Every time you shop with Then And Again Treasures on eBay your purchase helps go toward the total we are able to donate each month. Also you will see in many listings that an individual items sale has 10% or minimum of 1.00 go directly to Autism Speaks (or some to other Autism Awareness orgs.) through eBay Giving Works. This is in addition to our other donations done from our total we bring in each month then donate what we are able to Autism Speaks.
Currently we have two auctions running for Autism Speaks - and in our store a mix of items and adding it to other items daily. A link to our store can also be found on the Autism Speaks website along with other eBay sellers doing what they can as well.
http://stores.ebay.com/Then-And-Again-Treasures
Speaking of which we will be at Raymond James this month in the Autism Awareness walk. I am trying to get sponsors in order to raise 150.00 AT LEAST... so far this has not gone as well as I had hoped. Either way I will be there to show my support, and continue my support in other ways as mentioned above.
If interested - this is our personal page through Autism Speaks to see where we are at in reaching our goal (or be the FIRST to Donate and get your name on the HONOR ROLL)
http://www.walknowforautismspeaks.org/tampa/thesagerfamily
Looking forward to sharing a lot more on my blog here - NEVER GIVE UP OR SHUT UP! And trust me.... its a VERY true statement from our family..................
Thank you for taking the time to read, to follow, and hope that you share with your friends & family things that you believe will interest them as well. Hey don't forget I LOVE TO HEAR FROM YA'ALL so when you get a second LEAVE A COMMENT, here or on any of the blog posts. I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! Your opinions, your experiences.... Very much so would love to hear from each and every one of you.
HAVE A WONDERFUL & SAFE HOLIDAY WEEKEND!
It just came to my attention that on eBay when people search or browse if you happen to have an item on sale they are NOT seeing the sale price on the list they are viewing. Customers have to actually click into your item then they will see the sale price inside your listing. This piece of information was a bit disheartening as far as my big plan for running sales from now until Christmas goes. I must say though no sooner did I learn of this then I also learned hours later that eBay had been alerted to the talk in FaceBook groups of this concern and were basically putting thought into making it better. Good to know eBay is listening and also taking sellers concerns seriously.
So now today I was supposed to be working on my own Friday challenge on a FaceBook group that I recently started "Let's Get eBay Motivated" (a motivational group for sellers to help each other, well keep motivated).... I have only managed 7 new listings today because much of the day was spent brainstorming ideas and doing a little research on new ways that I am not currently using to help get the word out that we are running this big holiday sales. I already use FaceBook, Twitter, and I really just haven't delved too much into the Pinterest thing, it just doesn't seem to be my thing. I did manage to come up with a couple of ideas. One is just mostly putting an old idea into action finally and the other is a play on an old idea I used to do years ago, but a bit of a spin on it.
The first thing that came to mind was utilizing YouTube finally. I have used it a couple of times to show that battery operated toys were working properly and what they did. I have also used it to make a couple little videos about scrapping/recycling metal for cash (something else we do), and of course I dipped into recording and uploading thrift & yard sale hauls. I am planning now however to make some videos to help promote the news of our holiday sales & the big savings to be found. I am still playing with ideas though as I know it can't just be "Come see our sale" nobody wants to watch that. Have to either come up with something silly or informative to draw people in THEN let them know about our eBay store & big sales.....
Then the other thought I actually did start putting into action tonight. Totally up in the air how it will go, but I don't stand to lose too much if it is a complete flop. Penny Auctions WITH Free Shipping too! I know its a little risky. I did it with small inexpensive items that are very lightweight with First Class USPS shipping. I put 4 of these up tonight so far and am going to add 2 more before I head to bed tonight, or tomorrow morning at the latest. In the title I put briefly what the item is but also used a lot of that normally precious keyword space in title to mention the holiday sales and the words KICK OFF letting buyers know these penny listings are to kick off holiday savings in our eBay store. Inside the listings I also added info about the sales as well and a link to our store so they can click through easily and see what the discounts are, on what items, and how deep those discounts are..... We shall see how this goes. I have high hopes that it will at least not be a total waste of time & money though.
These are the listings I put up already:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Toy-Frogs-PENNY-1-Cent-KICK-OFF-Our-Huge-Holiday-SALE-Store-FREE-SHIPPING-/261337080338?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cd8e76212
http://www.ebay.com/itm/6-PINK-Girls-STAR-WANDS-Party-One-Cent-PENNY-Holiday-HUGE-SALE-FREE-SHIPPING-/261337114406?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cd8e7e726
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PALM-TREE-Ice-Cube-Tray-PENNY-1-Cent-KICK-OFF-Holiday-HUGE-SALE-FREE-SHIPPING-/261337100780?pt=Bar_Tools_Accessories&hash=item3cd8e7b1ec
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pink-Purple-SNOOPY-Duo-Lip-Gloss-1-Cent-PENNY-Holiday-HUGE-SALE-FREE-SHIPPING-/251386259140?pt=US_Makeup_Lips&hash=item3a87c9e6c4
I am going to add two more tomorrow for a lipstick and a body glitter roll on key chain. The main goal of these is to attract buyers into our listings so they then click on our store link to view & see about the sales going on at the time. Fingers crossed.... Looking forward to eBay adjusting how the sales currently work though so that our customers actually will see the sale price reflected on the list that comes up when they browse or search on the site.
Any thoughts, ideas, questions, etc. Please leave a comment. I love hearing from everyone!
Now I am heading back on over to eBay to do a little more work before heading to bed and calling it a wrap for the night...... Nice to be back to blogging :)
UPDATE as of 12/9/2013 Since writing this I have noticed many times now where the correct price when on sale is showing up when searching eBay for an item. I am not 100% sure if this is permanently corrected on all listings/sales or if it is something eBay is playing around with the idea of implementing and it is not showing on all yet. I am going to look into it further and will update accordingly. I am happy to be able to post this update however that at least it is looking like now when we run a sale the buyers when browsing eBay will see the ACTUAL SALES price without having to actually click on the item before the price showing up. If this continues this way I will be very thankful.
People say that eBay does not listen to it's sellers but I beg to differ. I know that certain eBay employees actually frequent eBay groups on FaceBook and do read what we are saying and do actually try to work in the ideas that they are able to and that make sense to help eBay grow. Also when eBay sends the surveys, don't ignore them. Tell them your ideas, let them know how you feel. What is on your mind could very well be on hundreds of others and if thousands of members are saying the same thing eBay will notice and try to accommodate when feasible. You might just be one person, but together when speaking up our voices our very loud!!!
One other thing since writing this. I have been making use of Pinterest a bit more in the last couple of weeks. I am not 100% sure of how much of a difference it will make in the long run, but I have seen some short term results. Nothing concrete however when I pin things it is bringing in traffic and I do know for sure a couple of buyers had found me because of coming across my pins/boards and they followed the item over to eBay. So I will continue to utilize them as part of my social media marketing.
I know, I know it has been forever and a whole lot of days since my last blog post. I have been super busy and completely dropped the ball on the blog. That will change now however. I will be back and hopefully I can manage to keep everything going without going nutty.... ha ha ha...
So the last blog entry was about one of our hauls mainly for our eBay store. At the time I had mentioned that I picked up a Cisco Wireless router for a buck at one of the sales and what it should sell for according to researching closed items on eBay....
It sat in our store for a little bit, and had been put on sale a couple of times with no bites. Then in September I had it listed for 79.95 + shipping. It sold with Best offer for $60.00 + $8.55 shipping to a buyer in Canada. They received it, left feedback and were happy with their purchase.
At the time I had it listed, before then, and since then the very same routers have been listed by other sellers and many have sold for only 19.99 some even lower. So what made mine sell for so much. Opinions vary but I would wager to bet it had something to do with the many photos I posted of the item, the white background in photos instead of a floor or a busy background, not only a positive feedback history but the types of feedbacks customers have left, the detailed yet not overly done description, no fancy html inside the listing so easily viewed on all devices, good keywords in title and so on.
Find SOLD listing here : Cisco Valet M10 Wireless N Internet Router HotSpot With Easy Setup Key wifi
This is one of the reasons why I LOVE BEING AN EBAY SELLER!!!! However the #1 reason I love selling on eBay is it allows me to be a work at home mom!
Keep an eye on our blog here again as I am back and hopefully you will find something that interests you in my rantings & writings and truly I hope something that helps you along your way!
