Nearly New

I sold some of Munchkin's stuff at my first nearly new sale this weekend. I opted for a NCT sale since they're popular and well organised. It cost £3 to register, and NCT will take 30% of what I make. I feel better about giving a percentage to a charity than I would a private individual.

I was lucky enough to win an early bird shopping slot at the sale. Had it not been for this, I'm not I would have gone there to shop. I was there to drop off items to sell at 8.15, the sale for non members started at 10.15, and I was back to collect unsold items ay 12.30 - too much to-ing and fro-ing (no idea if I spelt that right).

It's taken me weeks to launder all the baby clothes, select 70 of the 300 odd items to sell and price everything up. I was disappointed to be handed two bags of unsold items and a ride-on ladybird, after all that hard work, though have since realised that quite a lot did sell.

Please someone, buy this ladybird!

I spent £22 on clothes, and a baking set for Munchkin. As always, NCT popped lots of promotional leaflets in with my purchases. Handily, one was a flyer for 10% off at JoJo Maman Bebe, where I was planning on spending money later that day.  I still have shed-loads of stuff to sell. I think I'll try eBay next. If you know of anyone who wants to buy a rocking ladybird, please send them my way.

In other news, my mouth still isn't better, we took Munchkin and Sweetpea to Peppa Pig World this week, and Munchkin was as sick as a dog yesterday.

Clearing Out

I recently spent two days transforming our home office from a junk room back into an office.  I've now moved on to the conservatory which is being changed from an unused and junk filled sitting room into a play room.  This has left me with piles of stuff that I've been trying to sell or give away with varying degrees of success.

A month or two ago, I tried to sell some good quality baby clothes to a local pre-loved shop.  They declined the lot without even looking, telling me that baby clothes didn't sell.  They were interested in one good-as-new toy but I declined the offer as I was sure I could get more on eBay.  The following day, I asked parents on a local Facebook page if they thought it was worth the hassle of trying to sell baby clothes.  Some said no, others advised me to do a nearly-new sale. My current approach is to dispose of what I can through the internet, then assess if I need to do a nearly-new sale.

I've tried various means of selling things online.  I've got mainly kids' things plus a few items of furniture to dispose of.  Facebook selling pages have proven a complete waste of time, though I managed to sell something to a friend via a Facebook status.  Friday-Ad proved brilliant for selling furniture - it went for the asking price, give or take £3 and the ads didn't cost me a penny.

I've put various things - mainly toys and baby equipment on eBay.  Some things haven't generated any interest.  Others have lots of watchers and a few bids.  My most popular item?  Used, slightly bobbled training pants.  Munchkin's old pants have three bids and nine watchers so far!

Would you pay good money for these pants?

There are some things I can't even give away.  I've put Munchkin's old changing mats and changing bag - all clean and perfectly useable, but by no means good-as-new on three Freecycle-type sites and no-one is interested. The problem with the changing bag might be that Boots give them away for free but I can't explain the changing mat thing.  So why do parents want to buy used... and I mean USED... pants when they don't want free changing mats? I don't get it, but those FLIP training pants we didn't get on with will be going on eBay as soon as I have time to take pictures.