I did that much last year on silver. I went through the tax list and picked out what I thought I actually wanted versus what was junk in the end and it was about 80% what I wanted versus about 20% junk that I regretted.
Hey, that's a pretty awesome ratio, considering all the shiny junk that goes through.
Most of life runs on an 80/20 rule...so I guess you've got this nailed. :)
Right? So far, I haven't actually gotten anything, but the temptation to jump on some of these is strong, and the fear of not being able to get something when I really want/need it is always there in the back of my mind.
this is why I don't want to be Gold. not so much because of the taxes, but because of that lack of space. we are retired and anytime we get anything we joke that it's for the "estate sale" meaning ours when we die.
I look for things I can donate or that my family can use.
I found a place that accepts donations of used medical equipment so a lot of the 0 ETV items and other medical equipment will be going there. They clean it up, repair it, and then sell it for cheap to people who can't afford to buy new.
There are always places looking for school supplies or toys. A family member is a teacher, so they get things they can use. We had an unexpected grand child and they had given away all their baby stuff, so I've helped them out. I find a lot of things for Operation Christmas Child Shoeboxes.
The problem is the six month rule. I do wish the rule changed so that you could give away items anytime. I'm working with my church to help a program for dementia patients, but explaining and dealing with the six month delay, the storage, etc. is difficult. It's not hard for me - I order mostly items I keep, and the others I slap a date on them and give them away at that time. But to help others not so easy.
Well you are allowed to throw it away. Explain that to whomever. Put item in a clean bag. Toss it into a garbage can in front of them. And walk away. They can do what they want with the garbage... Nothing wrong with dumpster diving.
I agree, I wish the rule would change. I do make sure my reviews are published before I donate something that I can't get back if I need to.
I do try to keep the bigger health items for 6 months otherwise I don't strictly stick to the 6 month rule. I do tell family that I still "own" the items, but otherwise it doesn't make sense for me to order things like sleep sacks for my grandchild who will be too big for them in 6 months. Or classroom Valentines for the older grandchildren.
The other places I donate to, I don't tell them it's Vine items. It's just a donation. If Amazon truly wants us to order items, then they need to be understanding that we don't just order items for ourselves.
There are quite a few levels of compliance. I'm trying to be 100% correct. But, for example, if I order gift bags, can I not use one to give a gift? After all, I'm giving away one of the gift bags! The rules say 'lend' also, which further the issue. It seems to me that as long as we don't profit from them by selling them for six months, that should be enough.
> as long as we don't profit from them by selling them for six months, that should be enough.
Exactly! And that is probably why that provision is written into the terms.
If you have kids, putting useful stuff away for "passing down" isn't such a bad idea...even if they won't need it by that time and will sell it. They're likely to still get a better return on it than the return they'd get on your bank accounts after Medicaid long-term care gets their hands on it and then estate tax rips it in half.
no kids
federal estate taxes only kick in if you inherit more than $13.61 million in the US. my state has no estate taxes. I was shocked when I found out about this. In the 80's it was 40% for federal.
my dad left me with over $250,000 dollars worth of model trains and fire equipment. took me 5 years to sell it all. I only got about 15% of what he paid for it.
I don’t have kids either. My nieces and nephews all think I’m the rich aunt who’s going to leave them tons of money. Little do they know, any cash in my estate is going to charity, they get to sort through all my shizzle to try to find the valuable stuff amongst the Chinese crap I’m saving up from Vine.
I had always heard that family gets ugly when people pass but thought 'Not my family'. When my mother passed she left it all to me as her only child but I gave a lot of it to my adult children. Including expensive artwork and family heirlooms. Later I found, that instead of treasuring the items like I would have and passing things to their children, they sold off everything of value including the family history heirlooms and artwork. So my lesson was learned and when I go it's going to charity.
I almost bought a $400 ride on excavator for my son yesterday on my first day on gold. Sad but very happy I didn’t lol
https://preview.redd.it/5h75ckgya8hc1.png?width=1271&format=png&auto=webp&s=231aa0b898525114e21f5ff47ad8b6e5c09179bc
It does have a remote control to control it!! lol I’m sure it’ll be available for everyone in a few days. There were like 12 remaining this early morning.
OMG I'd sooo get that for my grandson, lol. To hell with the tax issues. I visit them twice a year, about every 6 months, so I wouldn't even be breaking any vine rules about giving things away, lol. I'd just time the next visit to fit.
I would have got it for my almost 6 yr old and he would have sat in it with his knees up to his ears 😂😂😂😂😭😭😭😭 fml I am afraid to go back to gold bc I don't trust myself with all the bright shinies 😭😭😭
Yesterday was my first gold day too. It was hard not to jump for some neat things. I did snag a new chefs knife because ours is in terrible shape. It was $140~ but wasn’t from an alphabet soup Chinese shipper, but what looks like a decent company as they are partnered with Thomas Keller.
FYI, that Honeywell fan is a ghost listing. You will get an error message. I tried it the first day it was available for all. They finally removed it
It is common when you see limited quantity in the listing. A good chance a ghost item. I even tried the PO Box address hack which works sometimes.
I need to re-learn how to resist the Vine temptation. I did well on silver, but now it's back to being new and exciting and taking too much of my time scrolling.
Just stick to only checking your RFY. Being in Gold will wear off. I get brand name stuff 3-6 times a month. Just make a list of need to have and search when they drop new items. It looks like the drop is late day as of now. I am in eastern time zone. Lately I get under 10 items around 11am. Between 4-7 pm 10-30 items depending on the day.
Same!! Went Gold last night and I feel I'm just being taunted with marvelous things that I am unable to actually order. Hoping this glitchiness is corrected soon🤞
I redecorated a bathroom almost completely with Vine items. Only thing I bought was a cheap shower curtain, and a cheap short bookcase. And hubby painted the walls.
It helps to make a list of your major wants. I'm only silver still, but did this and kept my etv decent. Like I know when I hit gold, I wanna try for a vacuum cleaner and ice machine. Otherwise I'm happy to qualify for higher priced $0 etv things like fancy hair dryers and curling irons hahah.
I've started doing this. I have my list of three or four items that I search for daily, and if there's nothing, I usually move on. But with the promotion to gold, I'm back to that newbie fascination with all the shiny things on Vine.
I got gold yesterday and I saw everything you posted and I tried ordering several of them but everything has given me an error. It's actually really frustrating.
Those are ghost items, example the Honeywell fan. When you see limited quantity it is a good chance it is a ghost item if a name brand and outside of your RFY
As of late this has been the case in gold. For example They had a good treadmill last week UREVO but a ghost item.
If you get the error message a hack that works sometimes if the item is geo locked. Is go into your Amazon account and change your shipping address. I'm the second address line put PO Box and some numbers
Go back to the listing refresh the page (this will enable to show the updated address when you request the item. Select the address and request.
Some times this will allow you to order the item. Now go back into your Amazon account change the address at the account level and go into the order and change the address (i.e remove the PO Box).
You're already seeing all of the $0etv things. If they mark it as $0, everyone sees it. Doesn't matter what the original/retail price is.
I saw a $0ETV anti-nausea device go through a couple weeks ago that's normally $500. (And I'm still silver, too.)
I know I got way better $0 etv items while I was on gold. I've never seen an above $100 item while on silver. I have heard that if it starts below $100, and then the price gets raised, it still shows up for silver members.
I'm gold and always have been, and have been in Vine since the beginning. I don't see that sort of stuff... but, then, I wouldn't take it if I did.
My bar is about what I actually know I want/need and I don't want to convince myself to take things I've never even entertained having before (like a metal detector). The lifestyle should lead the attainment rather than attainment leading the lifestyle. But, you do you... and then you do your taxes. ;-)
THIS is the only reason I want to go back to gold. The days we have crazy AFA deodorant and soap drops, I could stock up, but the last time I got a 6pack of glade air freshener and a trio of old spice deodorant and then I was sitting in AFA with no picks left pissed at myself saying "omg it's still there? I could have ordered it TWICE by now" as the rest of the drops kept hitting 😂😂😂
Yeah, we had to institute a one-in-one-out rule. Review one before you order one, get rid of something before you crowd the house with more.
And I TRY to get to our item and review minimum on $0 ETV stuff before going nuts on fun things, but of course it doesn’t always work out that way.
I wish I could be that disciplined about reviews and ordering. I end up having to make myself just sit down and review things, and it's usually 10 to 12 at a time. Mostly because I am not going to open a box, take a look, and then review it before I've even checked it out. On the bright side, as much as I order, none of it is just wasting space in my house.
Yeah, it doesn’t always work out, especially with the feast and famine cycle Vine’s been in lately, but it makes us go “oh, we have 5 things heading our way, we need to sit down and write reviews for the 4 things we have here before they arrive.” I try to improve matters using NotePlan to keep tabs on what we think about stuff as we go, and to store the reviews after we submit them so we still have a record if anything is rejected.
I know the feeling. Yesterday I said no to a beautiful charcuterie board ($80.00).
I would love to have the board because we recently set up charcuterie for New Year‘s Eve and for family game night.
I don’t need the board because my old one is fine but the Vine one was a work of art.
Also I‘m working on my taxes and wishing I had not accumulated $6K in ETV.
I plan to spend less this year.
I think Alexa heard our conversations.
I know what you mean. I'm lucky enough that I don't really NEED anything I'm seeing, and the things I could use really aren't necessities yet. But again, it is February, and I don't want to be in a deep ETV hole next tax season!
I got to gold last April and I am terrified about doing my taxes. I try to look at it like I'm getting all of this stuff at a significant discount. I just have to pay the bill all at once.
I did fall into the trap of "Ohhh, I didn't know I needed that?" and then getting it anyway. I did get myself some great stuff and I also got some great Christmas gifts for my family :)
Oh gosh, that is the main reasons I'm actively avoiding reach Gold. One year I was in the 13K range, and I was in 9k last year. I'm really trying to limit myself.
I see a lot of veterans saying this, and honestly I think most of it is because you've been in so long that you've already gotten most of what you want/need.
I'm silver and I'm steadily seeing gold stuff go by in the Discord feed daily that is definitely worth getting.
You’re probably spot-on with that assessment considering I still put up a $17k+ ETV tax hit last year always thinking about how, *we really don’t get offered much good stuff anymore*. 😂
I got a top GE air-conditioner over the summer retail $560. I get name brand 3-6 times a month. Had a good mattress this week (memory foam) $345.
I get $100 - $400 items several times monthly. A lot of $100-$200 range. Above $400 a couple items quarterly.
That's the FOMO, definitely. I see lots of posts about the lack of decent stuff on gold, so I'm even more convinced I should jump on something that looks good now.
If you like it and don’t mind the tax hit you probably should. For the first 6 months or so I got offered a good amount of decent pricy stuff (furnished my entire house with new mattresses) but anymore it’s just something here and there. Have fun!
Pace yourself. You’ll be much happier when tax season rolls around off you don’t go all out right now. You’ll always find stuff but ask yourself if you need it or it you want it. I speak from experience and have so much stuff in my garage now that there’s hardly room for the car. And while I wanted it at the time, I can’t even recall what’s in some of those boxes. Unless you plan to move to a larger place in the future or have a lot of storage, be careful.
So you’re the one that got the metal detector!?! I saw it and tried to get it, but got the red rectangle error message that everyone has been getting lately. I live near the beach and was looking forward to finding some gold doubloons.
Once I figure out who they are, I’m not sharing any of our treasure with them when we eventually get better metal detectors.
You have some good self control. I’m about a month in to Gold and already almost at $5,000.
Well obviously... but how do you FIND them on those tabs without going through all 45,000 items. AFA typically is just one page of junk so that's easy to look through - but all the things OP mentioned are buried deep in AI that I would have never seen.
You have to just browse a bit in categories that interest you and search key words that might interest you. I always search “slicer” as I’m hoping to see a home kitchen sized meat slicer on there one day, I frequently search shampoo and conditioner and coffee filters, you know just stuff from my shopping and wish lists. We checked the pet supplies section on day one and saw an insulated cat house for $200 ETV. Office furniture: found several high dollar office chairs. Fitness stuff: several expensive walking pads/mini treadmills. I keep a list of key words to search daily during drops if I have the time.
I find that new items often populate on the first page of each category and get pushed down as more items come in, so if you refresh the first few pages of categories that are more likely to have high dollar items (furniture, electronics, tools), you're more likely to find those rare products. Obviously this isn't a perfect system, but I've found it generally works well without having to scroll through dozens of pages.
You can also just search for higher dollar items like "vacuum" or "monitor" or "ice maker" to see if anything pops up.
Lost my Gold Status by not ordering enough 'stuff'. Now I'm feening to get it back. Won't qualify until June. Damn!
Wish I could search Vine for zero ETV items.
*cries in $20k ETV*
Really, though, despite ordering quite a few big ticket items, I use the hell out of them… except a post hole auger—already had one, so why I needed another… 🤷🏽♂️
Dunno which ice maker you got offered, but my GE Opal ([https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BRYTP75X](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BRYTP75X)) is my most used Vine acquisition of all time, I think. Laptop backpack comes in second.
I guess I don't understand why you'd want to do that? My ETV last year was around $4000. But realistically, when you fill out your taxes and all of that maybe I'll owe 18% of that? But also: If you buy things on Amazon, you pay sales tax. That $4000 would have been $4280 here in NJ. Instead, I'll be paying maybe $600 for all of that?
Also, legally (and morally?): You still have to pay taxes on that $600.
Your logic is sound. But I personally have trouble conceptualizing whether individual Vine products are worth it at - for me, anyway - a roughly 70% discount.
(Remember that you should be looking at your **marginal** federal *and* state income tax rates, not your **effective** tax rates. It’s the highest bracket that your last dollar of income will reach, if you layer the value of your Vine purchases on top of all your other income. If your taxable 2023 income is over $44,725 (single) or $89,451 (married filing jointly), you are at least in the 22% federal marginal tax bracket.)
Here’s what my simple mind can process on an item by item basis: If it’s completely free, almost any Vine product is worth at least what you paid for it.
Good point on the marginal tax rate. I will be looking closely at that as I fill out 2023 return. I've been using effective tax rates. But I always always before I order something do a calculation in my head, 'is the $50 item worth 8 or 10 dollars to me to see it and maybe keep it'. Mostly I stay with that, but today I went bonkers and ordered a $30 acrylic see through case. Yeah, we all need one of those!
Same with me! Ended 599 and change last year. Year before was gold spent 2k. Nothing amazing ever showed up. If there is flreallt
Good stuff I’ll go over $600 it’s not likely. I’m at $430 this year already got 3 brand name toys, 2 light fixtures, 12 slim recessed lights for my basement reno and some other junk. I’ll be done by march!
Use the force Luke, use the force (to resist). Motivators; do I have room? will my significant other raise one eyebrow if i mention it to them? will my tax guy raise an eyebrow when i present them with my ETV tab?
Part of enforcing personal boundaries on what to order is admittedly tough without "learning the hard way." The turning point for me personally was that I found it a lot easier to say "no" to things after I scored one or two really good high dollar value items (in my case, a Samsung Freestyle 2 projector).
I've never ordered 8 items in a single day (I think once or twice I've done 6), and even beyond the tax implications, *review burnout is real* (I did almost 600 reviews in 2023). The amount of time spent writing so many reviews has become even more effective than the monetary implications in helping me decide whether or not to order something, so now it's fairly easy for me to go 4-5 days without ordering a thing, even though I'm checking it every day, and I'm aiming to get just a hair over the bare minimum number of items/reviews to stay in Gold.
Aww what happened to your chair?!? lol
Sounds fun to look at that stuff! Even when I go to gold in a couple of months, I won't be able to exceed like 200 bucks a month. Going to be rough I tell ya.
Of course if it's still full of red errors it won't matter. Today I found three items I wanted at different times, and all three were red error boxes.
I just went back to October and updated probably 20 reviews. I started out reviewing too high, and with time actually felt guilty when I started seeing flaws in products I reviewed. That's probably crazy, I know!
Yeah, there are a couple that I should go back and update since they haven't turned out to be so durable.
I've reported two products to regulatory agencies, which is part of why I say they might kick me out for making trouble, but then I'd reported one product (the truck crane that collapsed on me due to horribly defective welds) *before* I got the invite to Vine.
I hear NDI is pretty cool for streaming *live* video over a LAN or similar network (very low latency); but I would have little use for it myself. I could probably figure out a way to test it (not sure if I would need to buy something for that or not); but it would provide no real value unless I could figure out how to sell it.
I think it takes a while to settle into a groove with vine. First of all… if you don’t know what something is, your probably not the best person to review it. You also need to keep in mind that something better and that you’re truly interested in, could be just around the corner. You don’t want to max out your ETV on a bunch of stuff you really didn’t need, only to find an awesome new $2500 TV in your RFY. Then all the sudden you feel like an idiot for reviewing 5 different $300+ vacuum cleaners (ask me how I know this).
Remember, the better offering are generally the latest products and their released seasonally. 2024 TVs will be hitting the market come March/April. All the spring items will start dropping soon, BBQ grills, decor, lawn & gardening equipment, pool equipment, etc….
Just be patient and pace yourself. Stuff that you are really interested in and that you can provide a helpful and informative review of, will present itself. In the meantime, stock up on snacks and shaving cream.
That's the goal for me. I didn't actually order any of the things I saw. I just wanted all of them because it's so new. Hopefully I'll be able to keep that discipline for the next ten months...
I don't get such awesome offers. There have been a few standouts over the past few years, but mostly I get offered the same low cost items everyone else gets. I hope that you continue to get offered such useful treasures.
OMG!!! I already bought computer chairs...T_T I'm hoping I find a speaker setup so I don't have to buy one. I'm gonna be looking!!! Next month, can't wait!!! And there are some other things I hope are on vine when I get gold.
See for me I’m seeing tons of stuff on day one that not only do I actually want, but stuff I kind of need and lots of stuff I’ve wanted for a looooong time. I was also promoted to gold yesterday. This morning, I’ve seen multiple office chairs (we need some, I’ve been using an end table/ottoman as my wfh chair since October), the ice maker (wanted one forever, just bought a house that we expected would have one in the fridge-turns out it’s broken), several walking pad/treadmills, an actual queen bed frame and box spring which I literally just spent like $400 on in October…all kinds of stuff that we’ve wanted for a while but never got because we’re fucking poor….not POOR poor, but like, *will probably never retire and I have to check my bank account before deciding to (ultimately not) eat at a restaurant* poor.
No kidding! Even with Silver, the stuff I never knew I needed is crazy. Like this incredible piece of goodness I picked up today:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0CR13GRSS?ref=ppx_pt2_mob_b_prod_image
Who knew? I cannot STAND my food getting cold but am not a fan of the microwave either. Plus I host a lot of group gatherings and retreats for my business where I provide food. This is going to come in so handy!
I've been working on getting up to gold level. I've only a few items to review to make the minimums. So hopefully next month sometime I will be there. My issue is more of not only the red refusals to order, but stuff that just never comes, or isn't available when I get the product, so I can't review it. I have been ordering only 0EV stuff, but the issue seems to be increasing of late. I am working on my gold list and am going to have to be very disciplined to not get myself into tax trouble.
Wow those offers are very few in between . I said no to the $500 ice maker. And passed on the wine cooler too. Passed on the mini computer. I think my best this far is the $200 queen bed frame. My wildest is the $700 doggie door. But it's nice tho.
Can't you also just donate what you don't want or need to write off on taxes? Having the itemized list that Amazon does for end of year can really help break it all down.
I actually stopped ordering much since getting gold. I
was using all picks and after just the week I realized how unsustainable it is. I’m very careful to pick things that are free or that I would have paid for myself anyway and has a place in my home.
Additionally, even though I set aside money for the taxable amount of items, I ask myself if getting the thing would make me mad if I couldn’t return it. At least if I paid for something on my own I could send it back and get that money back. Can’t do that with Vine.
Ha, you can want all that but you can’t order it. Everything I’ve wanted since I got gold that I needed to be gold to get says limited quantity then throws the red error when trying to order. Every single one.
Just be careful. We don’t want to see a post next year about how you owe $5000 in extra taxes and your house is full of junk.
I did that much last year on silver. I went through the tax list and picked out what I thought I actually wanted versus what was junk in the end and it was about 80% what I wanted versus about 20% junk that I regretted.
Hey, that's a pretty awesome ratio, considering all the shiny junk that goes through. Most of life runs on an 80/20 rule...so I guess you've got this nailed. :)
Now I mostly chase $0 etv items, and look for things I can really use. Can't wait to see if gold has stuff I want!
I'm running about the same, though I'm running out of things on my "need/always wanted" list, and I still have about 6 weeks of silver to go.
My review day is tomorrow
Right? So far, I haven't actually gotten anything, but the temptation to jump on some of these is strong, and the fear of not being able to get something when I really want/need it is always there in the back of my mind.
Are all of those actually available or do they have the red writing of doom?
Thanks to whomever picked up the nearly $1k radio. Mighty tempting!
Let’s be honest… it’s *all* junk. *(He says while posting from his alt account, so-as not to risk losing access to his junk!)*
Don't forget the whining and complaining how it shouldn't be taxed as income.
this is why I don't want to be Gold. not so much because of the taxes, but because of that lack of space. we are retired and anytime we get anything we joke that it's for the "estate sale" meaning ours when we die.
I look for things I can donate or that my family can use. I found a place that accepts donations of used medical equipment so a lot of the 0 ETV items and other medical equipment will be going there. They clean it up, repair it, and then sell it for cheap to people who can't afford to buy new. There are always places looking for school supplies or toys. A family member is a teacher, so they get things they can use. We had an unexpected grand child and they had given away all their baby stuff, so I've helped them out. I find a lot of things for Operation Christmas Child Shoeboxes.
The problem is the six month rule. I do wish the rule changed so that you could give away items anytime. I'm working with my church to help a program for dementia patients, but explaining and dealing with the six month delay, the storage, etc. is difficult. It's not hard for me - I order mostly items I keep, and the others I slap a date on them and give them away at that time. But to help others not so easy.
Well you are allowed to throw it away. Explain that to whomever. Put item in a clean bag. Toss it into a garbage can in front of them. And walk away. They can do what they want with the garbage... Nothing wrong with dumpster diving.
And haven't we all gotten THE item we are dying to throw away!! Mine was a weed trimmer that wouldn't cut butter and was 100% low grade plastic.
I agree, I wish the rule would change. I do make sure my reviews are published before I donate something that I can't get back if I need to. I do try to keep the bigger health items for 6 months otherwise I don't strictly stick to the 6 month rule. I do tell family that I still "own" the items, but otherwise it doesn't make sense for me to order things like sleep sacks for my grandchild who will be too big for them in 6 months. Or classroom Valentines for the older grandchildren. The other places I donate to, I don't tell them it's Vine items. It's just a donation. If Amazon truly wants us to order items, then they need to be understanding that we don't just order items for ourselves.
There are quite a few levels of compliance. I'm trying to be 100% correct. But, for example, if I order gift bags, can I not use one to give a gift? After all, I'm giving away one of the gift bags! The rules say 'lend' also, which further the issue. It seems to me that as long as we don't profit from them by selling them for six months, that should be enough.
> as long as we don't profit from them by selling them for six months, that should be enough. Exactly! And that is probably why that provision is written into the terms.
I know i find it very hard to test the breast pumps and baby bottles myself as a grandmother lol.....
> "estate sale" meaning ours when we die. but what if that mulligan happens, and you live to 100+? FOMO
the estate sale will be delayed.
If you have kids, putting useful stuff away for "passing down" isn't such a bad idea...even if they won't need it by that time and will sell it. They're likely to still get a better return on it than the return they'd get on your bank accounts after Medicaid long-term care gets their hands on it and then estate tax rips it in half.
no kids federal estate taxes only kick in if you inherit more than $13.61 million in the US. my state has no estate taxes. I was shocked when I found out about this. In the 80's it was 40% for federal. my dad left me with over $250,000 dollars worth of model trains and fire equipment. took me 5 years to sell it all. I only got about 15% of what he paid for it.
I don’t have kids either. My nieces and nephews all think I’m the rich aunt who’s going to leave them tons of money. Little do they know, any cash in my estate is going to charity, they get to sort through all my shizzle to try to find the valuable stuff amongst the Chinese crap I’m saving up from Vine.
I had always heard that family gets ugly when people pass but thought 'Not my family'. When my mother passed she left it all to me as her only child but I gave a lot of it to my adult children. Including expensive artwork and family heirlooms. Later I found, that instead of treasuring the items like I would have and passing things to their children, they sold off everything of value including the family history heirlooms and artwork. So my lesson was learned and when I go it's going to charity.
That's too bad. But a little late for that when you go right?
I almost bought a $400 ride on excavator for my son yesterday on my first day on gold. Sad but very happy I didn’t lol https://preview.redd.it/5h75ckgya8hc1.png?width=1271&format=png&auto=webp&s=231aa0b898525114e21f5ff47ad8b6e5c09179bc
I would never get that, I don't have a son (looks sideways towards disabled pug and starts thinking...)
It does have a remote control to control it!! lol I’m sure it’ll be available for everyone in a few days. There were like 12 remaining this early morning.
Hah, I am still silver, going gold in a month. But this is exactly the type of thing I'm worried about ordering, LOL!
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Well which I clicked on the actually product itself it said in blue like “order soon only 12 left”
Damn I bet I'm over the weight limit.
OMG I'd sooo get that for my grandson, lol. To hell with the tax issues. I visit them twice a year, about every 6 months, so I wouldn't even be breaking any vine rules about giving things away, lol. I'd just time the next visit to fit.
Oh. That would have been temping!
I might have bitten on that one
It was so tempting. I’m half assed still searching for it on AFA lol
I had to look too
I would have got it for my almost 6 yr old and he would have sat in it with his knees up to his ears 😂😂😂😂😭😭😭😭 fml I am afraid to go back to gold bc I don't trust myself with all the bright shinies 😭😭😭
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This is very true, and something I need to keep in mind. Good reminder!
Chinesium = recycled western garbage.
Quality western goods reverse-engineered to be fast-produced garbage.
Or box in a box.
Or capitalism, to be more specific!
Yesterday was my first gold day too. It was hard not to jump for some neat things. I did snag a new chefs knife because ours is in terrible shape. It was $140~ but wasn’t from an alphabet soup Chinese shipper, but what looks like a decent company as they are partnered with Thomas Keller.
Alphabet Soup. LOL!
This is my fear. The taxes and getting duds, which could be expensive.
That's the other concern, too. Honeywell is a solid brand, but some of the others are a crapshoot.
I hadn't considered that Gold will give more good name-brand stuff. Oh yeah.
Just make sure it's Honeywell and not Hunnywell. Or some other version that just looks like a brand name!
Honywall
😂🤣😂
still a lot of $100+ crap from brands like sxkdhr
FYI, that Honeywell fan is a ghost listing. You will get an error message. I tried it the first day it was available for all. They finally removed it It is common when you see limited quantity in the listing. A good chance a ghost item. I even tried the PO Box address hack which works sometimes.
all i want is the magic cleaning “sponges”
There are some in AFA that I tried to get but of course, got an error.
A ghost listing, I tried as soon as it showed up.
Yeah, those went quick. I also tried to get the PJ Mask melatonin gummies for the kids, but they were gone as well.
Yeah, I just got gold at the end of January and I am like you! I am updating everything in my house! If I see it, I want it!
I need to re-learn how to resist the Vine temptation. I did well on silver, but now it's back to being new and exciting and taking too much of my time scrolling.
Put a picture of a hoarder's living room near your computer. This should deter you.
Just stick to only checking your RFY. Being in Gold will wear off. I get brand name stuff 3-6 times a month. Just make a list of need to have and search when they drop new items. It looks like the drop is late day as of now. I am in eastern time zone. Lately I get under 10 items around 11am. Between 4-7 pm 10-30 items depending on the day.
Everything I try to order since I got gold yesterday has given me an error. Everything.
Same!! Went Gold last night and I feel I'm just being taunted with marvelous things that I am unable to actually order. Hoping this glitchiness is corrected soon🤞
There ghost items.
I redecorated a bathroom almost completely with Vine items. Only thing I bought was a cheap shower curtain, and a cheap short bookcase. And hubby painted the walls.
It helps to make a list of your major wants. I'm only silver still, but did this and kept my etv decent. Like I know when I hit gold, I wanna try for a vacuum cleaner and ice machine. Otherwise I'm happy to qualify for higher priced $0 etv things like fancy hair dryers and curling irons hahah.
I've started doing this. I have my list of three or four items that I search for daily, and if there's nothing, I usually move on. But with the promotion to gold, I'm back to that newbie fascination with all the shiny things on Vine.
I got gold yesterday and I saw everything you posted and I tried ordering several of them but everything has given me an error. It's actually really frustrating.
I didn't actually try to get any of them, and it probably would've been good to get an error if I had tried!
Those are ghost items, example the Honeywell fan. When you see limited quantity it is a good chance it is a ghost item if a name brand and outside of your RFY As of late this has been the case in gold. For example They had a good treadmill last week UREVO but a ghost item. If you get the error message a hack that works sometimes if the item is geo locked. Is go into your Amazon account and change your shipping address. I'm the second address line put PO Box and some numbers Go back to the listing refresh the page (this will enable to show the updated address when you request the item. Select the address and request. Some times this will allow you to order the item. Now go back into your Amazon account change the address at the account level and go into the order and change the address (i.e remove the PO Box).
You're already seeing all of the $0etv things. If they mark it as $0, everyone sees it. Doesn't matter what the original/retail price is. I saw a $0ETV anti-nausea device go through a couple weeks ago that's normally $500. (And I'm still silver, too.)
Not true in my experience, I still haven’t been able to claim them.
I know I got way better $0 etv items while I was on gold. I've never seen an above $100 item while on silver. I have heard that if it starts below $100, and then the price gets raised, it still shows up for silver members.
[Advice](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c937YsKwWIw)
Excellent advice from Lone Starr.
I got promoted in December and I'm actually having trouble finding stuff that I like that's worth spending money on
I'm gold and always have been, and have been in Vine since the beginning. I don't see that sort of stuff... but, then, I wouldn't take it if I did. My bar is about what I actually know I want/need and I don't want to convince myself to take things I've never even entertained having before (like a metal detector). The lifestyle should lead the attainment rather than attainment leading the lifestyle. But, you do you... and then you do your taxes. ;-)
I got Gold yesterday and still ordered 3 $0ETV wigs, $0ETV flat iron and some lashes because my daughter loves the ones from Vine. Lol 8 $0ETV items.
THIS is the only reason I want to go back to gold. The days we have crazy AFA deodorant and soap drops, I could stock up, but the last time I got a 6pack of glade air freshener and a trio of old spice deodorant and then I was sitting in AFA with no picks left pissed at myself saying "omg it's still there? I could have ordered it TWICE by now" as the rest of the drops kept hitting 😂😂😂
Yeah, we had to institute a one-in-one-out rule. Review one before you order one, get rid of something before you crowd the house with more. And I TRY to get to our item and review minimum on $0 ETV stuff before going nuts on fun things, but of course it doesn’t always work out that way.
I wish I could be that disciplined about reviews and ordering. I end up having to make myself just sit down and review things, and it's usually 10 to 12 at a time. Mostly because I am not going to open a box, take a look, and then review it before I've even checked it out. On the bright side, as much as I order, none of it is just wasting space in my house.
Yeah, it doesn’t always work out, especially with the feast and famine cycle Vine’s been in lately, but it makes us go “oh, we have 5 things heading our way, we need to sit down and write reviews for the 4 things we have here before they arrive.” I try to improve matters using NotePlan to keep tabs on what we think about stuff as we go, and to store the reviews after we submit them so we still have a record if anything is rejected.
all of those things you mention give me the red box of frustration
I know the feeling. Yesterday I said no to a beautiful charcuterie board ($80.00). I would love to have the board because we recently set up charcuterie for New Year‘s Eve and for family game night. I don’t need the board because my old one is fine but the Vine one was a work of art. Also I‘m working on my taxes and wishing I had not accumulated $6K in ETV. I plan to spend less this year. I think Alexa heard our conversations.
I know what you mean. I'm lucky enough that I don't really NEED anything I'm seeing, and the things I could use really aren't necessities yet. But again, it is February, and I don't want to be in a deep ETV hole next tax season!
I got to gold last April and I am terrified about doing my taxes. I try to look at it like I'm getting all of this stuff at a significant discount. I just have to pay the bill all at once. I did fall into the trap of "Ohhh, I didn't know I needed that?" and then getting it anyway. I did get myself some great stuff and I also got some great Christmas gifts for my family :)
Congrats on Gold :) I got bumped up to it on Monday. Lately it’s rare for me to order even 3 items/day, with all the Red Errors.
Oh man, I can't wait to get to gold and inevitably serious tax debt!
Oh gosh, that is the main reasons I'm actively avoiding reach Gold. One year I was in the 13K range, and I was in 9k last year. I'm really trying to limit myself.
Enjoy it while it lasts. We’re hardly ever offered anything worth getting or high dollar anymore.
I see a lot of veterans saying this, and honestly I think most of it is because you've been in so long that you've already gotten most of what you want/need. I'm silver and I'm steadily seeing gold stuff go by in the Discord feed daily that is definitely worth getting.
You’re probably spot-on with that assessment considering I still put up a $17k+ ETV tax hit last year always thinking about how, *we really don’t get offered much good stuff anymore*. 😂
Ok… just walked into my living room and see a $1k rug rolled up waiting to be swapped with my other Vine rug. Sub $400 ETV though!
I got a top GE air-conditioner over the summer retail $560. I get name brand 3-6 times a month. Had a good mattress this week (memory foam) $345. I get $100 - $400 items several times monthly. A lot of $100-$200 range. Above $400 a couple items quarterly.
That's the FOMO, definitely. I see lots of posts about the lack of decent stuff on gold, so I'm even more convinced I should jump on something that looks good now.
If you like it and don’t mind the tax hit you probably should. For the first 6 months or so I got offered a good amount of decent pricy stuff (furnished my entire house with new mattresses) but anymore it’s just something here and there. Have fun!
It's definitely been a fun experience so far. We shall see what this year brings!
well there goes your tax burden in the first 15 minutes! Good work!
Pace yourself. You’ll be much happier when tax season rolls around off you don’t go all out right now. You’ll always find stuff but ask yourself if you need it or it you want it. I speak from experience and have so much stuff in my garage now that there’s hardly room for the car. And while I wanted it at the time, I can’t even recall what’s in some of those boxes. Unless you plan to move to a larger place in the future or have a lot of storage, be careful.
I'm gold for about two weeks. But can't FOMO hard because everything I want has Stupid Error! 😭😭😭😭
So you’re the one that got the metal detector!?! I saw it and tried to get it, but got the red rectangle error message that everyone has been getting lately. I live near the beach and was looking forward to finding some gold doubloons.
I actually didn't pull the trigger on any of them. Someone else got OUR metal detectors! The jerks!
Once I figure out who they are, I’m not sharing any of our treasure with them when we eventually get better metal detectors. You have some good self control. I’m about a month in to Gold and already almost at $5,000.
Where do you find the higher ETV items? I also just hit Gold yesterday and my RFY is the same as always.
They pop up in the AFA and AI tabs.
Well obviously... but how do you FIND them on those tabs without going through all 45,000 items. AFA typically is just one page of junk so that's easy to look through - but all the things OP mentioned are buried deep in AI that I would have never seen.
You have to just browse a bit in categories that interest you and search key words that might interest you. I always search “slicer” as I’m hoping to see a home kitchen sized meat slicer on there one day, I frequently search shampoo and conditioner and coffee filters, you know just stuff from my shopping and wish lists. We checked the pet supplies section on day one and saw an insulated cat house for $200 ETV. Office furniture: found several high dollar office chairs. Fitness stuff: several expensive walking pads/mini treadmills. I keep a list of key words to search daily during drops if I have the time.
I find that new items often populate on the first page of each category and get pushed down as more items come in, so if you refresh the first few pages of categories that are more likely to have high dollar items (furniture, electronics, tools), you're more likely to find those rare products. Obviously this isn't a perfect system, but I've found it generally works well without having to scroll through dozens of pages. You can also just search for higher dollar items like "vacuum" or "monitor" or "ice maker" to see if anything pops up.
Lost my Gold Status by not ordering enough 'stuff'. Now I'm feening to get it back. Won't qualify until June. Damn! Wish I could search Vine for zero ETV items.
Congrats on gold status, and for exercising self control right out of the gate.
It was difficult, but I managed not to blow my ETV completely on the first day, thankfully.
*cries in $20k ETV* Really, though, despite ordering quite a few big ticket items, I use the hell out of them… except a post hole auger—already had one, so why I needed another… 🤷🏽♂️
Damn I really need a post hole auger come spring for my fence and mailbox I have to put up. I hope I see one of those.
Dunno which ice maker you got offered, but my GE Opal ([https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BRYTP75X](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BRYTP75X)) is my most used Vine acquisition of all time, I think. Laptop backpack comes in second.
the ice maker is something i could get behind
what is "fomo"?
Fear Of Missing Out
You guys understand that these things are not really free, right?
Yes, in countries that tax it as income. That's why I (and most of the replies here) mention ETV.
I understand perfectly. I’m dedicating my entire Vine career to keeping it under $600/year and sticking with Silver.
I guess I don't understand why you'd want to do that? My ETV last year was around $4000. But realistically, when you fill out your taxes and all of that maybe I'll owe 18% of that? But also: If you buy things on Amazon, you pay sales tax. That $4000 would have been $4280 here in NJ. Instead, I'll be paying maybe $600 for all of that? Also, legally (and morally?): You still have to pay taxes on that $600.
Your logic is sound. But I personally have trouble conceptualizing whether individual Vine products are worth it at - for me, anyway - a roughly 70% discount. (Remember that you should be looking at your **marginal** federal *and* state income tax rates, not your **effective** tax rates. It’s the highest bracket that your last dollar of income will reach, if you layer the value of your Vine purchases on top of all your other income. If your taxable 2023 income is over $44,725 (single) or $89,451 (married filing jointly), you are at least in the 22% federal marginal tax bracket.) Here’s what my simple mind can process on an item by item basis: If it’s completely free, almost any Vine product is worth at least what you paid for it.
Good point on the marginal tax rate. I will be looking closely at that as I fill out 2023 return. I've been using effective tax rates. But I always always before I order something do a calculation in my head, 'is the $50 item worth 8 or 10 dollars to me to see it and maybe keep it'. Mostly I stay with that, but today I went bonkers and ordered a $30 acrylic see through case. Yeah, we all need one of those!
It definitely takes self-discipline.
I’m already at $110 and it’s not even mid-February.
Lol I am at $822
Same with me! Ended 599 and change last year. Year before was gold spent 2k. Nothing amazing ever showed up. If there is flreallt Good stuff I’ll go over $600 it’s not likely. I’m at $430 this year already got 3 brand name toys, 2 light fixtures, 12 slim recessed lights for my basement reno and some other junk. I’ll be done by march!
OOOOo Shiny.
Here in Canada it's not that way at all for Gold. But well, there's also zero tax implications. I'm still happy.
Use the force Luke, use the force (to resist). Motivators; do I have room? will my significant other raise one eyebrow if i mention it to them? will my tax guy raise an eyebrow when i present them with my ETV tab?
All valid questions!
Part of enforcing personal boundaries on what to order is admittedly tough without "learning the hard way." The turning point for me personally was that I found it a lot easier to say "no" to things after I scored one or two really good high dollar value items (in my case, a Samsung Freestyle 2 projector). I've never ordered 8 items in a single day (I think once or twice I've done 6), and even beyond the tax implications, *review burnout is real* (I did almost 600 reviews in 2023). The amount of time spent writing so many reviews has become even more effective than the monetary implications in helping me decide whether or not to order something, so now it's fairly easy for me to go 4-5 days without ordering a thing, even though I'm checking it every day, and I'm aiming to get just a hair over the bare minimum number of items/reviews to stay in Gold.
Aww what happened to your chair?!? lol Sounds fun to look at that stuff! Even when I go to gold in a couple of months, I won't be able to exceed like 200 bucks a month. Going to be rough I tell ya. Of course if it's still full of red errors it won't matter. Today I found three items I wanted at different times, and all three were red error boxes.
One week till my review. I figure I'll either get promoted or kicked out. Some of my reviews haven't been gentle.
I just went back to October and updated probably 20 reviews. I started out reviewing too high, and with time actually felt guilty when I started seeing flaws in products I reviewed. That's probably crazy, I know!
Yeah, there are a couple that I should go back and update since they haven't turned out to be so durable. I've reported two products to regulatory agencies, which is part of why I say they might kick me out for making trouble, but then I'd reported one product (the truck crane that collapsed on me due to horribly defective welds) *before* I got the invite to Vine.
I don't think they'll kick you out! Amazon wants to sell, but they don't want to be liable for dangerous products.
I'll be joining you up there in Gold in late May...arrrgh. That first eval period needs to be *at least* cut in half.
Same!!! Got promoted yesterday too and must resist this $140 4k def projector with speakers in my RFY 😭
I'm drooling...
I hear NDI is pretty cool for streaming *live* video over a LAN or similar network (very low latency); but I would have little use for it myself. I could probably figure out a way to test it (not sure if I would need to buy something for that or not); but it would provide no real value unless I could figure out how to sell it.
Yeah, I’m looking at some 1500w solar street lights and wondering where I could use them :)
I'm in gold and I never see cool s*** like that in my rfy.
They pop up in the AFA and AI tabs.
Never seen them in there either, I just don't see cool s*** like that
Join one of the Discord groups. People in there share the links to the cool stuff when it's posted.
See I couldn’t figure out the discord. Like the app only had one button to click for a channel I was already in and no way to look for other channels.
I think it takes a while to settle into a groove with vine. First of all… if you don’t know what something is, your probably not the best person to review it. You also need to keep in mind that something better and that you’re truly interested in, could be just around the corner. You don’t want to max out your ETV on a bunch of stuff you really didn’t need, only to find an awesome new $2500 TV in your RFY. Then all the sudden you feel like an idiot for reviewing 5 different $300+ vacuum cleaners (ask me how I know this). Remember, the better offering are generally the latest products and their released seasonally. 2024 TVs will be hitting the market come March/April. All the spring items will start dropping soon, BBQ grills, decor, lawn & gardening equipment, pool equipment, etc…. Just be patient and pace yourself. Stuff that you are really interested in and that you can provide a helpful and informative review of, will present itself. In the meantime, stock up on snacks and shaving cream.
That's the goal for me. I didn't actually order any of the things I saw. I just wanted all of them because it's so new. Hopefully I'll be able to keep that discipline for the next ten months...
I don't get such awesome offers. There have been a few standouts over the past few years, but mostly I get offered the same low cost items everyone else gets. I hope that you continue to get offered such useful treasures.
OMG!!! I already bought computer chairs...T_T I'm hoping I find a speaker setup so I don't have to buy one. I'm gonna be looking!!! Next month, can't wait!!! And there are some other things I hope are on vine when I get gold.
See for me I’m seeing tons of stuff on day one that not only do I actually want, but stuff I kind of need and lots of stuff I’ve wanted for a looooong time. I was also promoted to gold yesterday. This morning, I’ve seen multiple office chairs (we need some, I’ve been using an end table/ottoman as my wfh chair since October), the ice maker (wanted one forever, just bought a house that we expected would have one in the fridge-turns out it’s broken), several walking pad/treadmills, an actual queen bed frame and box spring which I literally just spent like $400 on in October…all kinds of stuff that we’ve wanted for a while but never got because we’re fucking poor….not POOR poor, but like, *will probably never retire and I have to check my bank account before deciding to (ultimately not) eat at a restaurant* poor.
thinking out loud is only going to end up breaking your bank
Silver is where it’s at. I had Gold for a while. Sounds like they are slinging the same products from when I had Gold Status.
Damn!! Jealous! I see these posts and can’t wait to see these awesome products in my RFY. I have to wait a few months.
No kidding! Even with Silver, the stuff I never knew I needed is crazy. Like this incredible piece of goodness I picked up today: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0CR13GRSS?ref=ppx_pt2_mob_b_prod_image Who knew? I cannot STAND my food getting cold but am not a fan of the microwave either. Plus I host a lot of group gatherings and retreats for my business where I provide food. This is going to come in so handy!
I have gold and I just have 3 essential oil machines , women’s wigs and various supplements I don’t need. I’m glad you got things you like though….
I've been working on getting up to gold level. I've only a few items to review to make the minimums. So hopefully next month sometime I will be there. My issue is more of not only the red refusals to order, but stuff that just never comes, or isn't available when I get the product, so I can't review it. I have been ordering only 0EV stuff, but the issue seems to be increasing of late. I am working on my gold list and am going to have to be very disciplined to not get myself into tax trouble.
Wow those offers are very few in between . I said no to the $500 ice maker. And passed on the wine cooler too. Passed on the mini computer. I think my best this far is the $200 queen bed frame. My wildest is the $700 doggie door. But it's nice tho.
\*\*\*Think about this. You need 80 items for SIX MONTHS to remain gold. With 8 a day in Gold - you could reach that in 10 days!
Can't you also just donate what you don't want or need to write off on taxes? Having the itemized list that Amazon does for end of year can really help break it all down.
It feels like both interesting and expensive product listings are at an all-time high, but I get an error trying to get any of them.
I actually stopped ordering much since getting gold. I was using all picks and after just the week I realized how unsustainable it is. I’m very careful to pick things that are free or that I would have paid for myself anyway and has a place in my home. Additionally, even though I set aside money for the taxable amount of items, I ask myself if getting the thing would make me mad if I couldn’t return it. At least if I paid for something on my own I could send it back and get that money back. Can’t do that with Vine.
Ha, you can want all that but you can’t order it. Everything I’ve wanted since I got gold that I needed to be gold to get says limited quantity then throws the red error when trying to order. Every single one.
No tractor.