A Bad Trade

As I am planning on moving in the next month, I have been looking for ways to lighten my load. I know I can just throw my unwanted stuff away, but I have a problem pitching things that are still functional. So I gave an old TV, a lamp, and my old computer screen to the local thrift shop. I also have several old textbooks sitting on my bookshelf, so I opened an Amazon sellers account to see if I could get rid of them and make a little money. One of my books was out of edition and offered for about ten bucks by the lowest seller. Just so I could get rid of it I offered mine for $2.50. About a week later I got an email informing me that my book had been sold. As a scrolled down the message I saw that Amazon had charged me a fee of $2.57. At that point I had sold my book for a 7 cent loss. I would have been better throwing the book away had it not been for the shipping credit of $3.49. I took the book to the post office and got a special media mail rate of $3.03, to leave me with a net gain of 39 cents that I used to buy a stamp to mail my tax return. In the end I basically traded a textbook I probably paid upwards of $70 for to get a single stamp. Pretty embarrassing for a person who works to make profitable trades as a profession.