Mum earns £1,200 from selling unwanted clothes and junk on eBay – how you can do it too
Karen McTweed, 53, from Elderslie, near Glasgow, uses the money to pay for family holidays
A MUM-OF-TWO earns about £1,200 a year by selling unwanted clothes and household junk on eBay.
Karen McTweed, 53, from Elderslie, near Glasgow, has paid for family holidays with the money she makes from de-cluttering her cupboards - and now she has revealed how you can do the same.
By auctioning off her kids' old clothes and other unwanted items, GP practice nurse Karen says she's made £12,500 worth of sales in the 10 years she's been selling on eBay.
Karen, who became a grandmother for the first time in November, explained why she started selling off her and her family's old clothes on eBay just over a decade ago.
She said: "At the time I was a single mum, I had some health issues and was only working part time.
"I started selling my kids unwanted and grown-out-of clothes to make some extra cash."
"You can sell virtually anything on eBay and eventually someone will buy it."
To do that, you must create an account with eBay and once you have done that, you are free to make a listing.
In your listing you can add up to 12 pictures of your item and give a description of what is exactly on offer.
You can also opt for a reserve price for your item so that if you don't get any bids that are high enough, you don't have to sell the item.
While you make your listing, you also set the amount of time you would like your item to be on sale for.
At the end of the sale, whichever fellow user has bid the highest has to buy the product and once they pay you must send it to them.
You can list 20 items free of charge per month. After that, it costs 35p to list each item on eBay.
The auction website giant will also take 10 per cent of the sale including postage and packaging, so make sure you factor this in when you set your auction price.
How does PayPal work?
PayPal is the way most people spend and receive money on eBay and is an instant way of sending cash to each other.
Once you set up an account, it is linked to your credit card or bank account and is mainly used for online purchases.
Receiving money into your PayPal account means that you have to pay certain fees.
The fee for each transaction is 3.4 per cent plus 20p of the amount you receive from your selling price.
However, if it is a highly priced item you are selling, the fee reduces as the price goes up. To check out fees, log on to the
Auction website eBay will take 10 per cent of the total sale price and will charge 35p to list an item, but the website does give sellers 20 free listings a month.
Meanwhile PayPal will typically charge 3.4 per cent of the total sale, plus a 20p transaction fee.
Karen's £12,500 earnings from her eBay sales don't take these charges into account - but she said she still brings in enough from flogging her unwanted junk to make it worth it.
Karen said she sticks with eBay because it was one of the few auction websites around 10 years ago and it's worked well for her.
But there are now plenty of alternatives to eBay, including Gumtree, Etsy, Asos Marketplace, Freecycle and Music Magpie.
Karen's success on eBay has now rubbed off on her children.
She said: "Both my grown up children sell unwanted clothes on eBay too now."
If you sell on eBay, beware of crooks who are currently preying on people flogging unwanted Christmas presents.
We've got a guide on how you can sell those leftover gifts you don't really want successfully.
Feeling the pinch this January? Try this money-saving challenge that could save you up to £520 a year.
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