Starting My Depop Taxes Journey
Okay so first thing I did was panic when that email popped up about tax season. Remembered I sold like twenty vintage band tees on Depop last year plus some random jewelry from my aunt’s attic. Dug through my kitchen drawer full of receipts – found old coffee stains on half of em.
Gathering All the Messy Records
Opened my Depop sold items page and man that interface sucks. Had to click through each damn listing one by one. Wrote down every sale in my grandma’s notebook: $15 for Nirvana tee, $8 for those fake pearl earrings, all that stuff. Took three hours cause Depop kept freezing on my phone.
The Shipping Cost Nightmare
Realized I forgot shipping costs! Ran to my junk closet and found a pile of USPS receipts crumpled behind Christmas decorations. Pro tip: Keep your shipping receipts in a cookie jar – way easier than my stupid method. Added up all those $4.95 charges and wanted to cry seeing how much I lost on shipping.
Platform Fees Slapped Me Hard
Checked Depop’s payment reports and holy crap their fees! For every $20 sale, like $3 vanished into thin air. Made three columns in my spreadsheet:
- What buyer paid me
- What Depop took
- What actually hit my PayPal
Felt like getting robbed three times over.
Doing the Actual Math
Took my calculator app (phone almost died mid-way) and started subtracting: Total sales MINUS Depop fees MINUS shipping MINUS what I paid for items originally. That floral skirt? Bought for $2 at Goodwill, sold for $18 – that’s $16 profit baby! But then those Docs I flipped lost me money after fees. Ouch.
The Final Tax Moment
Sat down with TurboTax feeling like a boss. Put in all my numbers from the notebook – which now looked like a toddler’s coloring book with crossouts everywhere. TurboTax asked a billion questions about “business expenses.” LOL no I just sold my old clothes! But hey, got to deduct part of my phone bill since I used it for Depop photos. Small win!
What I Learned the Hard Way
Keep records AS YOU GO next year. Got a cheap receipt folder from Office Depot now. Screenshot every damn sale right when it happens. And put 20% of every sale in a shoebox for taxes – Uncle Sam always comes knocking. Thought I made $800 last year but after all that? Cleared like $500. Depop and taxes teamed up to kick my ass.
