Tag: christmas money

Turning Your Hobby into Vacation Savings #savingsunday

by kaella, posted in Couponing and Saving

Photo Dec 03, 9 37 51 AM

Many of us have hobbies that we don’t even realize are hobbies. I an artist that loves to create to which I made my hobby of crocheting and sewing into a part-time business. Some people love to make woodwork items. Some people love to draw or paint. Some people love to write (another hobby that I love and why I started this blog). Some people love numbers and balancing them. There are so many different hobbies that people might not recognize in themselves.

These hobbies can make you a little extra cash for that family vacation that you are saving for. For example with a creative hobby, you can sell some of your creations. With a writing hobby, you can start a blog and make some extra money by advertising or doing sponsored posts for companies. For a numbers lover, you can offer your services to others like balancing their finances or helping others create a household budget. You can’t believe the ways you can make money by helping others.

When selling your creations, you can share those creations on your social media for friends and family to see and purchase. Also, you can use my post from last week and list your creations for sale on different local groups where you can meet up with the person to sell your creation in person. There are handmade websites like Etsy or Artfire to sell your creations but you will need to ship the items so you will have to determine your shipping prices. Last, you can look for local craft and vendor shows that have people come to you to sell your creations. These are all great and easy ways to make some extra money off of your hobby!

Update on our Vacation Savings: We didn’t do much shopping this week but a lot of selling. Shopping savings was only $25 because we really didn’t need to buy anything besides dog food which at petco we saved $15 between a coupon and our petco rewards. Plus, I had a few coupons that I used to get the few things we needed. As for the apps, nothing this week. Next week, Christmas shopping will get underway so this will hopefully change. As for selling, it was a big week on the yard sale groups for me. Most of what I sold was Danyella’s old clothes now that I have more of them organized to list. This brought in an extra $60 for the vacation savings and $60 for Christmas spending. Lastly, I sold more of my handmade creations and brought in an extra $30 for vacation and $30 for Christmas. Total for vacation savings for this week: $130 and overall $389! We are still off track for what we need to hit for goals but we are getting there. I can’t complain considering I am on bed rest with my pregnancy and getting this all worked out!

keep going

 

Make Extra Money on Facebook

by kaella, posted in Couponing and Saving

Since I run a handmade business and love to SHOP, my house has a tendency to have a lot of stuff or as my boyfriend sees it… clutter! To me, I know where everything (ok almost everything) is and everything has a place (are you singing Mary Poppins yet?) but to him, he just sees stuff everywhere. Now that we prepare to move, it is time to declutter my house and this has been my easiest solution for the past couple of years…. Facebook.

Before Facebook had a marketplace to sell your items, local people created yard sale groups for their area. I belong to 10, maybe more, of these yardsale groups for either my area in general or kids exclusive groups. I live on the border of 2 states so I have an added benefit for these groups to travel 5 minutes to the dark side (which is what I like to  Pennsylvania lol).

Since I know that I won’t stop shopping because either someone in the family needs something (kids, dancing, school, etc), my business needs something (new ideas pop in my head all the time), or my tastes in home decor changes, I came up with a plan a few years ago to find 10 (sometimes more) things each month to list and sell on these groups. After I saw some success with selling, months where I needed a little more for bills or another expense, I would declutter and purge more items to cover the money for it.

Now that Facebook has added a Marketplace, the ease of selling your “clutter” has become even easier because you can list it in one general area and add it to your yard sale groups. I tend to get more sales from the yardsale groups then the Marketplace but the more places you have them listed, the more exposure which can find the one person that wants it in their life. The best-selling items have been home decor, baby/kids items and women’s clothing/shoes and handbags but people will list everything and anything. At the holidays, I will list my handmade items and make even more money plus I have helped build my customer base this way.

So how does this selling your clutter on Facebook work? These are my tips to be successful in selling your clutter on Facebook.

  1. Find a notebook to keep track of what you list on Facebook to sell, how much you list/sell it for and when it is sold. It helps to make life easier so you know what is for sale and what isn’t plus I love to see how much I make.
  2. Besides the Facebook Marketplace, join Facebook yard sale groups. If you search your town or area and add yardsale, you will find groups to join and if you have kids add kids yardsale in your search.
  3. ALWAYS take pictures in daylight to give people a true sense of the colors. I hate when I see a listing and people don’t have a picture or the picture is so dark, you can’t even make out what it is.
  4. Be as descriptive as you can with your details. If it is something for the home or bag, give them measurements. With clothing, give them sizes plus long/short sleeve etc. The more detail the better the interest.
  5. When writing out your description, give them a location (I tell them my town since I live near another state) you are willing to meet them and write cross posted. Don’t ask me why but if someone sees an item on multiple groups and it doesn’t say Cross Posted, they tend to lose their shit and start going off in the comment section before you can even respond. (Like they are not human and make mistakes).
  6. When you set up a meetup, do this in public. I know some police stations have designated areas just for this now. Since where I live, I give 2 options for either side of my town… Walmart or Big Lots. By the end of the conversation (this will happen over messenger), you will want to agree on a location (make them come as close to you as possible since you are trying to make money not spend it on gas meeting them) and make/model/color of the car they will be in. I have made the mistake of not getting car info from them and then they either don’t show or I go through anxiety wondering who it is parking next to me and is it my meetup person.

Since being on bed rest and out of work the past month, we need make up the difference in money plus I needed to get rid of stuff for the move. I went through the house and placed items on our dining room table (which is now a cluttered mess) and began to list about 100 different things. Out of the 100 different things that I listed, I sold most of them and made over $500. I am not saying I can do this every month but, even when I make $100 a month it has helped with groceries (you know all those little items you need like milk, eggs and bread). If you saved the $100 a month you made decluttering your house, that is $1200 for Christmas (which brings in more stuff into the house) or a vacation! What would spend the extra money on?

clutter