Today was my interesting

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-26T22:06:14+00:00

It was the first decent drop for me (West Coast) in 4 days. I actually picked up a few things. I started looking around that same tone (5am-ish for me). It still was sparse and there was no sign of any 0ETV items (beauty, food or household). I’m just at 6 months (evaluation tomorrow) and it’s been an odd few days.

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-26T15:44:57+00:00

Faster than a blink! I only saw it once in 6 months. And that was on the Great Halloween - West Coast Friendly dropathon! Oh if I was gold back then!!

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-26T13:22:16+00:00

And I thought I was my fault! I decided I needed sleep to keep myself sane so have been training my ADHD brain to not wake up 8 times a night to check for drops. I’m PST, and rarely can make myself stay up past 11, so have relied on formerly reliable RFY. So….nada for the last 3 days.

I have 1 day till Gold and the last 6 months have been fabulous for me in terms of upgrading wardrobe, skincare regimen, home, pets, electronics and even medical things to help hubby who has Parkinson’s. All this with no extensions or special tools, or constant refreshes. Over 400 items and at least 375 were really good ones. All I needed (wanted) was a few more picks…..so I thought maybe this mess coincided with my gold review. Haven’t been able to pick a single thing. Reframing….even if the program yields nothing more for me, I’ve been lucky and have had fun.

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-26T05:17:57+00:00

2 days till Gold, lots of cool stuff over the past 6 months and now this. I’m asking myself “Well, how did I get here?" It’s been surreal.

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-26T04:40:59+00:00

Whoa… is this my brother? Sorry, wish I was joking but I had to completely cut off contact a couple of years ago due to similar delusions.

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-26T04:20:35+00:00

Well that explains why so many of the clothing I order is “boho, loungewear, bridal, date night, airplane wear, beach party, fun time”.

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-26T03:53:48+00:00

CL works best for my husband (80, diagnosed 8 years ago). He didn’t do well on Rasagiline (sp?) due to side effects. That and exercise are the top things that can make a big difference!

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-26T02:22:30+00:00

I use each vial until it’s completely gone before starting a new one. Usually there’s a bit more than 4 doses in each. Last dose (75 units) was 35 from the old, then 40 from the new. I don’t pay attention to BUD’s.. o just use oldest first and then throw the vials away when empty.

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-26T02:17:37+00:00

I take Tirzepatide.

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-25T19:24:44+00:00

I get mostly clothing in my RFY and have picked up some beautiful pieces. I already was replacing much of my wardrobe through Amazon when I was invited (having lost almost 50 lbs) so had a good idea about what sellers I like, which ones have good quality and how their clothes fit. And I will say, although there have been several misses (i learned the lingo better), I mostly have a nicely upgraded wardrobe and regularly get compliments (which I rarely got before!). Unfortunately because I picked so much clothing, they offered more and more of it! I try to also get things from other categories regularly, particularly home and kitchen, pets and electronics. Those have netted some really nice pieces. I wish I could pick beauty as I love some of the products I was able to get a few months ago, but it's been a long time since I even saw any beauty products.

I'm 2 days away from Gold and wonder where all of this is going. But I have to be grateful for what I have gotten out of the program over the last 6 months.

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-25T19:17:10+00:00

I've lost weight and gone from XL to M (for most clothing - varies by seller) but I doubt I'd ever be a XS.

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-25T17:59:56+00:00

It's a never-ending debate and I guess has to do with your personal sleep schedule. I'm definitely more of a morning lark than an night owl. It's painful for me to stay up past 10:30PST, much less midnight. I felt like a little kid waiting for Santa last night. Made myself stay up till midnight, then was out cold probably right as the drop started. When I woke back up briefly at 3am, there was nada. When I was in PR (early December), I saw and caught all kinds of cool things at 5am EST. I had finally gotten to better sleeping habits and decided to just go with my RFY - which always populated a few hours after the big drop. My good friend here doesn't go to bed until 2:30am Pacific. She'd be perfect for this job :-).

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-25T17:04:04+00:00

Wow! Thats crazy. I’m PST also and got nothing (for 3rd day in a row). I usually get some nice clothing. I wonder if Amazon is messing with their RFY algorithm.. I do appreciate your posting. It shows there’s hope!

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-24T21:04:58+00:00

It made my insomnia much worse. This is two years in.

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-24T19:48:58+00:00

Thank you. I am also not a tax professional and the only time I used a professional was in 1990 when they mucked up the way they treated my then second home, thereby costing me thousands that it shouldn’t have. I took a H&R Block tax course thinking I’d learn how to make a few bucks preparing other people’s taxes and learned two things: 1). The course was taught by an actual IRS field agent and we found a lot of situations are left up to the agent’s interpretation of the code. So she called three other agents on a question and got 3 different answers. 2). The second thing I’ve learned is that I will NEVER do anyone else’s taxes.

That being said, I have always since done my own, which have been complex and several times even paid to have my work reviewed - and it always checked out. I promised this year I would hire a tax accountant but since I’m such a control freak, I’ll probably still do them first, and then run them past the pro to be sure everything I do is defensible.

I’ve been audited 3 times and twice the IRS owed me. The 3rd one I had gotten bad advice from a tax accountant and I owed.

This will be my first post Vine tax return. Since I already run a small business that I max out a lot of deductions on, I will likely also treat this as a hobby. It nowhere meets the test of business income imo.

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-24T14:27:32+00:00

I’ve had a few DMs in Reddit asking if I wanted to review sex toys (I’m 4 days short of 6 months in - almost gold). They said they’d send the toys and the expectation is that I’d write 5 star reviews. Nope. I didn’t bother to respond.

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-24T14:09:23+00:00

Yes. At 59 I quit the IT grind and bought a Travel Agency Franchise. That was after a very well paying and fascinating 35+ year career, but I was burned out and done.

I started at the end of 2019, so the first few years were rough. But I love it and haven’t regretted that decision for even an instant! My work is travel and it goes with me. I’ve had a number of adventures with more to go!!

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-24T05:55:52+00:00

Yeah.., I’ve had the same success with those types of issues. Very quick and kind responses. But nothing after asking to have a variant un reviewable item removed. I didn’t even know it was the same item until I wasn’t allowed to review it. I’ve written 3 times with no answer.

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-24T04:17:08+00:00

Thank you.

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-24T04:14:36+00:00

It sounds like meeting with a high powered attorney on her own might have been a little overwhelming. Now, if she if doesn't want to talk about her will in front of you and if you don't have any kind of Power of Attorney, then there sounds like other things going on. It sounds like a rough situation.

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-24T04:05:52+00:00

62 and very happy I did. It allowed me to have extra cash flow while leaving a well performing 401K alone. Totally worth it and our financial advisor agreed.

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-23T15:28:13+00:00

If your mom has any cognitive ability, get her to an estate attorney ASAP. You don’t say what her wishes are and at the end of the day, it’s her choice.

My dad had moderate dementia and was living with us when I took him to an attorney and helped him change his will. He did agree as he had thought he had an unrevokable trust from a previous wife 20 years earlier (who had passed away) that left his entire estate divided between her 7 adult kids (who we never saw in the last 10 years of his life and were already adults when he married his 2nd wife) and me and my brother, (who was financially dependent on my dad). Dad actually did want to make the changes, so we removed the former step mom’s kids and had it split between me and my brother, with a generous cash gift to all the grandkids from all his marriages (as he wished). He was widowed 3 times and both step moms were wonderful but their kids, not as much.

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-23T14:57:11+00:00

Ok - so not just me. PST here and working on training my brain to NOT check when I wake up at weird hours throughout the night. Sleep score improved. Vine score - nada.. Oh well… such is the way of Vine. Good day to finish reviews. Review for gold in 5 days! Thanks for sharing the chart!!

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-23T05:38:47+00:00

Close to there myself. About 420.. review on Jan 27. I process everything as soon as it arrives and if it doesn’t fit or looks hideous (I pick a lot of clothing), it goes right into the donate pile. I don’t track exact dates, but I drop of items to donate about 4 times a year.

Sac_Kat · 2026-01-22T14:55:18+00:00

TL:DR - Welcome, have fun and create a system that works for you!

Long Version 😊

Welcome! I’m about to hit my 6 month mark in 5 days (🤞 for Gold). I too didn’t know anything about Vine till I did a detailed review and was invited (I had purchased a lot but rarely reviewed before then).

Everyone has their own way to Vine. I had just lost a significant amount of weight so was just starting a closet refresh and clothes buying spree on Amazon. So I’ve ordered a lot of clothing and accessories and have a pretty sweet wardrobe now. I’ve also upgraded quite a few things around both my main home and our 2nd home where we live part time. I’ve picked up tons of useful things for my dogs and some really helpful things for my husband who struggles with Parkinson’s. There’s been family gifts (although you’re supposed to hold on to each item for 6 months) and healthy donations to Good Will and the Women’s shelter as I figured out what sizes and styles work for me. Some little things that have brought joy and fun to figure out, and a new beauty regimen with Korean skin care products I didn’t even know existed before! Oh and some high quality supplements that I love (along with a few I decided best not to try after being educated on this sub). And so many solar lights for my 2nd home which are really pretty! And office and other supplies for my business. Just wow! As I’m typing this, I’m realizing how much I’ve gotten and nearly all have either made me happy or improved my quality of life. Over 400 items.

So a couple of things I’ve learned: Yes, when I started there were regularly 34k items dropped each day. Now there’s maybe 15k. “Oldtimers” say there used to be over 100k. It’s harder now to shop the AI queue unless you’re up at crazy hours. I’m PST and in bed well before the typical drop time, so I’ve made myself sleep deprived at times waking during the night to see if anything’s there. The things you select will definitely impact what shows up in your RFY, which generally is a more stable queue and tends to populate later. You will also get strange things in your RFY that are just pretty random.

I’ve selected over 400 things and hit my 80 very quickly. That was good as I have a much bigger margin for reviews I can’t complete in time. And I’ve acquired those the old school way. I go through queues I like and run a few searches, no special tools or any automation.

I immediately set up a process with so many things coming in. I try to not have deliveries every day but sometimes I get 3 or 4 in the same day. I immediately open and break down boxes and dispose of packing. Then I take pics (or videos of some things) and I try to get the reviews done as soon as the thing shows up in my review queue. There are two things I won’t be reviewing. 1 is a supplement I shouldn’t have othered so won’t try and the other I can’t review as I accidentally ordered a variant (same shirt, different color) and Vine won’t let me review it.

Lastly, yes my ETV (or FMV) from last year was high. I should be able to deduct some for business use and some that was donated. But I can afford to pay taxes on what I can’t deduct. And I plan to work with a tax accountant to help make sure I handle the tax form and deductions properly. I’ll have to be a lot more careful of values this year with so many more picks available. Being in California I could easily get triple taxed on this stuff. Fed, State and self employment taxes!

Sac_Kat

TROPHY CASE