Clawing our way to financial independence

I am so excited about how I made some money (outside working) this week. Last weekend Mr Wooly and I were in Home Hardware picking up screws for the fencing Mr Wooly is putting up, and I found 2 Saeco espresso makers on sale. These were really good espresso machines, one selling for $70 (retail price $360), the other selling for $262 (retail price $700). Excellent deals on the machines. I have been watching Ebay for a new machine since Mr Wooly tried to "clean" our little $30 machine and ended up breaking the milk frother completely. Anyway, I knew that the machines in Home Hardware were a really good price. We went home without them though and I checked on ebay, and sure enough found that I could sell the higher priced one for a profit and then keep the lower priced one for ourselves.

I thought about it overnight and then read this article from Money Smart Life talking about leveraging funds using "borrowed" money on your credit card, and then turning around and selling the item for a profit on ebay and paying back the money on the credit card before the next statement.

I felt pretty comfortable I would not lose money on the deal as long as I put a reserve price on the machine I was selling on ebay, so I went on Sunday and bought both. The auction ended last night, with a final selling price of $432, meaning I did make about $140! Now there are ebay fees and paypal fees still, so it is not $140 in my pocket, but my goal was to pay for the second machine which we are keeping, and I did just that. For 2 hours work, that is pretty good profit :)

I am so thrilled now I am watching out for other deals! The thing is that I don't factor in how many times I have been on ebay in the past few months pricing out espresso machines, so it was really more than 2 hours work at this point. Not to mention the research I have done on determining WHICH espresso machines are the better machines (I knew the Saeco brand to be well reviewed). However, if I can find somewhere to buy the machines at a discount in the future this research time will not be required (presuming I stick to selling just espresso machines).

And the espresso from our new machines is just so so lovely. I don't need to go out for coffee at all any more now that Mr Wooly and I are perfecting the skill of the perfect espresso.

So the spending part of the week was a $120 bill at the vet for one of my dogs who has a raging and perpetual ear infection that is out of control. Poor girl is just beside herself her ear is so sore. She got lots of love and treats from the vet though, so it is only me who resents going there, and I only gulp when I see the bill (most of the cost was for medication). Good thing I made some extra money this week, since we are going to try and absorb this into our monthly budget. This is an area I haven't budgeted for yet, and I see I need to!

20 mins later... Just talked to my Dad (we are organizing a wine tour for him this Father's Day, there are amazing wineries here in the Cowichan Valley) and I also made $40 last week selling 2 canoe paddles to someone he knows. That almost all pays for Renie's ear meds!