Financial Update:
Having several debts now, my financial state has become a bit more serious - which is good in the way that it literally forces me to keep to a budget. I have an immense debt of $10,000 to pay off my car, plus I had over $2,000 in debt to my credit card company, Discover. The two thousand was primarily coin investments, predominately the Large "silver" Eisenhower (IKE) Dollars (non-silver coins).
I felt that God has been leading me to not get a second job, but to spend my extra time with Him, digging deeper into Him and His word, and just spending more time with Him. I know, without a doubt, that He has told me He will provide, and I trust Him on that, in whatever way, time, form, amount that He chooses. Within that extra time, I have also filled some with working on selling my coins on eBay. Yes eBay has large fees, but I purchased an eBay Basic Store Subscription for $28/month, which reduces many of the final fees by 4%. Meaning if I sell $700 each month, I have saved myself money overall - the money saved will have paid the store subscription cost. I have spent hours upon hours upon hours posting more and more and more coins on eBay. In all of this, I felt that God was leading me to keep my focus on Him. I had told Him, that I wanted to do that, yet at the same time I also felt like I needed to sell my coins to help pay my bills. I felt Him basically saying, 'focus on me and let me sell your coins.' I still have to do the work of picturing, posting, packaging, organizing, shipping and all of that, but to not worry or focus about selling my coins and just let God do that part. It has been quite hard, but effective. I don't want to say that it is a clear equation for all circumstances, but God is using a gift and love of mine to answer a prayer of motivation to spend more time with Him. He works in mysterious and wondrous ways.
Anyways, as I focus on Him, my coins sell. I have sold tons and tons of coins. fact I have just reached my $700 mark today, and I didn't really get into the full swing of selling until the last week or two. But now I am in the full swing of the business market and am keeping many coins up online, even when more sell. I currently have well over 100 listings (each containing anywhere from one to one hundred coins), and I have sold well over 150 listings already. Though some sales I am nickel'n'diming on, I am still making profit for the expenses I have put into them. God has even blessed me with free or cheaper materials in many cases. When I helped my aunt Cindy move, last, last weekend she gave me a bunch of packages and envelopes to use to ship bulk coin purchases. eBay gave me, as a store owner, $25 off their name-brand shipping supplies. I used the $25 to purchase about $23 worth of eBay large tissue paper for packing - I got 250 sheets for free. PayPal notified me that if I spent $50, they would give me $10 off. So I paid $40 for a handful of quite helpful and valuable to my business packing supplies, such as labeling stickers, a heat-sealing machine and plastic bags for coins to be sealed in, and a larger and much more actuate (than what I've been using) scale to tell me how much shipping will cost. Plus, by accident, Grandma Baurer and I noticed on eBay that you can purchase USPS Forever Stamps in bulk for a cheaper rate than the post office. So, combining Discover's 1% cash-back, an eBay 10% credit-back (I forgot to use the Ebates 1-8% cash back), and the already low prices of the stamps, I was able to get 300 forever stamps for under $0.36 each. (That now offers me $0.14 extra saving per stamp for each lot that I ship - I've already used probably over a hundred stamps). The post office also showed me how to get exact postage amounts so I am not wasting money - so through them (for their face value) I bought 2, 2, 5, 10, 21, and 71 cent stamps, and they gave me a copy of their sheet of prices per package and per weight.
In case you or anyone you know has an interest in any of these coins, I will post a link to my eBay Store below.
https://www.ebay.com/str/leminlimecompany
God has been enormously blessing me with my coins that He has entrusted me with. I normally don't sell much during the week, but He has been working differently that what I'm use to, just as I've been spending more and more time with Him (Which I am thoroughly enjoying by the way!). Just last night alone, I got bids on 31 different listings! I don't know if I have ever had that many listings have bids on them at a time! WOW GOD!!! And to top that off, even though I've had a handful of problems with customers and my shipments to them (one never arrived, one not on time, one heavily damaged and missing coins, one with a postage charge/fee, etc...), God has given me the grace, patience and wisdom to handle each situation well, and I have all 100% positive feedback!
Now, I still have well over 2,000 coins to post - many are the Eisenhower/IKE dollars, though there are a lot of other coins too. So I will keep plenty busy, and yet, I am blessed to be where I am, and to have this work. I really do enjoy doing the business of selling; for me there is a great joy in it! And God provides, just as He said He would. Yeah, it is a lot, and a lot of work, and it takes tons and tons of time, but to me it's worth it. I am growing, learning, and enjoying the process (Just as I am writing this, it occurred to me that there seems to be very few times where the process is enjoyable in life). Thank you God for letting me enjoy the process!!
Having several debts now, my financial state has become a bit more serious - which is good in the way that it literally forces me to keep to a budget. I have an immense debt of $10,000 to pay off my car, plus I had over $2,000 in debt to my credit card company, Discover. The two thousand was primarily coin investments, predominately the Large "silver" Eisenhower (IKE) Dollars (non-silver coins).
I felt that God has been leading me to not get a second job, but to spend my extra time with Him, digging deeper into Him and His word, and just spending more time with Him. I know, without a doubt, that He has told me He will provide, and I trust Him on that, in whatever way, time, form, amount that He chooses. Within that extra time, I have also filled some with working on selling my coins on eBay. Yes eBay has large fees, but I purchased an eBay Basic Store Subscription for $28/month, which reduces many of the final fees by 4%. Meaning if I sell $700 each month, I have saved myself money overall - the money saved will have paid the store subscription cost. I have spent hours upon hours upon hours posting more and more and more coins on eBay. In all of this, I felt that God was leading me to keep my focus on Him. I had told Him, that I wanted to do that, yet at the same time I also felt like I needed to sell my coins to help pay my bills. I felt Him basically saying, 'focus on me and let me sell your coins.' I still have to do the work of picturing, posting, packaging, organizing, shipping and all of that, but to not worry or focus about selling my coins and just let God do that part. It has been quite hard, but effective. I don't want to say that it is a clear equation for all circumstances, but God is using a gift and love of mine to answer a prayer of motivation to spend more time with Him. He works in mysterious and wondrous ways.
Anyways, as I focus on Him, my coins sell. I have sold tons and tons of coins. fact I have just reached my $700 mark today, and I didn't really get into the full swing of selling until the last week or two. But now I am in the full swing of the business market and am keeping many coins up online, even when more sell. I currently have well over 100 listings (each containing anywhere from one to one hundred coins), and I have sold well over 150 listings already. Though some sales I am nickel'n'diming on, I am still making profit for the expenses I have put into them. God has even blessed me with free or cheaper materials in many cases. When I helped my aunt Cindy move, last, last weekend she gave me a bunch of packages and envelopes to use to ship bulk coin purchases. eBay gave me, as a store owner, $25 off their name-brand shipping supplies. I used the $25 to purchase about $23 worth of eBay large tissue paper for packing - I got 250 sheets for free. PayPal notified me that if I spent $50, they would give me $10 off. So I paid $40 for a handful of quite helpful and valuable to my business packing supplies, such as labeling stickers, a heat-sealing machine and plastic bags for coins to be sealed in, and a larger and much more actuate (than what I've been using) scale to tell me how much shipping will cost. Plus, by accident, Grandma Baurer and I noticed on eBay that you can purchase USPS Forever Stamps in bulk for a cheaper rate than the post office. So, combining Discover's 1% cash-back, an eBay 10% credit-back (I forgot to use the Ebates 1-8% cash back), and the already low prices of the stamps, I was able to get 300 forever stamps for under $0.36 each. (That now offers me $0.14 extra saving per stamp for each lot that I ship - I've already used probably over a hundred stamps). The post office also showed me how to get exact postage amounts so I am not wasting money - so through them (for their face value) I bought 2, 2, 5, 10, 21, and 71 cent stamps, and they gave me a copy of their sheet of prices per package and per weight.
In case you or anyone you know has an interest in any of these coins, I will post a link to my eBay Store below.
https://www.ebay.com/str/leminlimecompany
God has been enormously blessing me with my coins that He has entrusted me with. I normally don't sell much during the week, but He has been working differently that what I'm use to, just as I've been spending more and more time with Him (Which I am thoroughly enjoying by the way!). Just last night alone, I got bids on 31 different listings! I don't know if I have ever had that many listings have bids on them at a time! WOW GOD!!! And to top that off, even though I've had a handful of problems with customers and my shipments to them (one never arrived, one not on time, one heavily damaged and missing coins, one with a postage charge/fee, etc...), God has given me the grace, patience and wisdom to handle each situation well, and I have all 100% positive feedback!
Now, I still have well over 2,000 coins to post - many are the Eisenhower/IKE dollars, though there are a lot of other coins too. So I will keep plenty busy, and yet, I am blessed to be where I am, and to have this work. I really do enjoy doing the business of selling; for me there is a great joy in it! And God provides, just as He said He would. Yeah, it is a lot, and a lot of work, and it takes tons and tons of time, but to me it's worth it. I am growing, learning, and enjoying the process (Just as I am writing this, it occurred to me that there seems to be very few times where the process is enjoyable in life). Thank you God for letting me enjoy the process!!
Glad you're enjoying the coin work. It sounds kinda fun to me too. :-)
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