the blob

Unless I have misread it, they just pay back my contributions with 5% interest. So we've had people retire at 59 even though they were still enjoying work because they were concerned about dropping dead and their spouse not getting the pension. It is a pretty messed up system. Also, if I leave at 54.5 and then take my pension later at 55 (the earliest I can, but with a massive penalty), 59, 62, whatever), even after 30 years, I lose the retirement health benefits. I need to leave at retirement age and start collecting to be able to stay on my cheap (relatively speaking, it isn't THAT cheap, but I'm not crying about pay $650 a month for a family of 4 either, I know that is really good nowadays) health insurance. On the plus side, the spousal survivor pension is not halved if I die like some are. I opt to make her my surivivor and I don't think my payment is even reduced by 10% because we are the same age. I could even make my children the beneficiaries (or even make them beneficiaries for 25%), but my payment would be reduced a lot more due to their ages depending on how much they get.

I have 30 copies in a box somewhere. I should find them. Not a copper, but is Superman 204 really now a $10+ book? I have 50 copies somewhere....

The shock of losing your income while still having basically the same bills to pay might justify having something to help her transition. I am 10 years away from that boat as I have a 12 year old and two kids in or who will be in college and by then my wife will be the survivor on my pension, which I/she will be collecting.

They probably assume comics are a scam. Buy a bunch of books from a show at $1-2 each that Overstreet says are "worth" $10-25 (or just have them in your possession), have a flood, try to collect Overstreet value on them. My friend used to get called in the appraise these claims for an insurance company when cards or comics were involved. Seems like slabs are one thing, those are easy to pin down and evaluate, but raws, FMV, and their condition before any event are another story.

are those on card stock or magazine pages?

Well, I've lost 15 pounds in the last 2 weeks. I am doing low carb vegan. I'm actually not missing meat and the sugar cravings are gone. For now my brain chemistry seems to have gotten altered and I'm eating for fuel and not for some psychological urge. I have a long way to go as my torn achilles has not healed well so exercising outside of mild weight training is a problem. I may call Big Lou, I've heard the ads. I don't want to be worth too much to my wife though. Right now I'm worth a lot more alive as I still have a few years before I can start collecting my pension and if I die before I start collecting it is basically lost.

I no doubt do not have enough. My "no questions asked 3X your salary" coverage through my job would pay off the mortgage and bury me with a little to spare, I need to have some more. My wife makes more than I do, so it isn't like there won't be a breadwinner left. I was hoping to apply for some when I would pass a physical weight wise, I can only imagine what the premium is on a 50 something who is 140 pounds overweight like I am right now, although I have no cancer history, no smoking, no diabetes, and don't have high blood pressure. so that would help.

We can agree to disagree. Next time you have 50 orders why don't you film yourself packing them up so that we can learn your techniques. I will admit it has been a little while since I had to do close to that in a day and maybe ebay has a better platform now, but if you have people buying multiple items then it isn't 10 ounces anymore (and really it is usually more like 13). And nothing takes 5 seconds. Folks are notoriously bad at keeping a clock in their head as to how long things take, that's my experience as a trial lawyer. Lots of studies on it. And if you have a 5-10,000 item ebay store pulling those sales for packing out of your boxes is going to take time, that is part of the process.

150 orders in 4 hours? That's like under 90 seconds an order. No way. Print a label, package the comic (assuming you have all the comics lined up in order), seal your gemini or whatever.... It takes a few minutes, probably more like 3-5 minutes a package even if you are heavily caffeinated and in a trance, and that's with everything already perfectly prepped up to do this, which should also be factored into your time.

Yeah, unless there are ebay bucks to use, when i see it on ebay I tend to go to the mcs shop to see if the price is better. Ditto when I used to buy stuff from mile high. But I think most people do not realize this.

A few issues, yes, probably have investment potential, but I don't see the bulk of this stuff outpacing inflation. Of course, it depends on what you're paying for it. If you're paying 10% of FMV you have a lot of wiggle room. I'm 52 and think this stuff is cool because I saw some of it as a kid, but unless it is some mind blowing cover or the 1st appearance of Cherry Poptart or some really early Crumb, what's the appeal to Millenials?

Kirby is Kirby because he helped create these characters, not because he was the most skilled, although for certain stuff his style was perfect. Going by folks in the 60s Neal Adams and even Nick Cardy were probably "better" by today's standards. Ross does not have the universe of creations under his belt.

I really liked Ronin when it came out. It seemed groundbreaking. Of course, I was 11, so maybe not the best judge. One of these days I'll read it again.

I am pretty sure we are the same age.

If ebay sends the IRS something saying I made $10K in sales I do worry about having to fill out another page on my taxes, that's all. Am I that worried if I say my cost basis is $9800 and I only made $200 profit (because the reality of it is that is probably true) I will get audited? Probably not, but I hate having to do more paperwork.

Between me and my wife, her 4 jobs, consulting business, etsy sales, and a myriad of deductions my taxes are more complicated than my 1099 and an ebay sale though

2022. I just feel like I'm in my 70s. As if things weren't bad enough with my achilles injury that has been a slowwwwwwww recovery, last night and this morning I had bursitis in my knee and could barely walk. 12 advils later I am ok.

$5000 a month is a real job unless you have a vast supply of primo stuff you paid discount prices for, yeah, a $500 (profit) side hustle is easy. It's weird, I hit 50 back in 2002 and lost my energy for this stuff. I guess I'll find it again next time I'm scrambling for money. I know you were supposed to pay taxes regardless, but the old reporting rules seemed fair to allow for a side hustle and to not force people into a nightmare of paperwork. $6K now I guess is a decent compromise.

I read Sharon's post as saying she does not deduct expenses, which I would read as the cost of the book, but as someone else pointed out, could be the myriad of other expenses. The problem is ebay reports $500, so it is up to you to be in a position to prove that it wasn't 100% taxable profit.

Seems nuts to pay $500 for a book, sell it for $500 and be expected to pay taxes on that. There was no profit.

He was present there every time I have popped in a couple of times a year, but yeah, does he want to eventually drop dead there? It is an enormous space and even if in a weird location it seemed odd that he could pay the rent there and even employ a few people in the process.

That's a real shame. It was fun rummaging there every few months. That place is nuts. The reality is that he prices most stuff around market, but there are treasures hiding in there. I found a VG or so copy of this hidden in the dollar boxes once:

The S&P 500 was up 23% in 2023 and is up 6.5% so far this year? Unemployment is below 4%. Interest rates are down (although a 20-30 year mortgage needs some work, my VR HELOC is KILLING ME). I just paid $6.99 a pound for skirt steak in a family back AND got a free taco seasoning pack, a red pepper, lime, bunch of cilantro, and package of tortilla wraps. I guess they supermarket really wanted me to make fajitas or something. If we need government booster checks for folks or 1-2 years of stay at home to have disposable income again we are in trouble. The market got a big spike of bored speculator money during covid that continued what had been building before that, I'd be fine with 2018-2019 levels although so many spikes were spec jumps based on some character appearing in a show or movie, which are always bound to subside and I think folks learned the lesson getting burned on those again and again.

I went on an Elfquest kick in 2020 when they were still cheap, but couldn't find a FQ 1 at a price i wanted.

cool!