The Money Mustache Community
Around the Internet => Antimustachian Wall of Shame and Comedy => Topic started by: JAYSLOL on August 06, 2017, 10:25:25 AM
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I went around to a few garage sales yesterday, and while it's not uncommon here to go to a garage sale at a ~$1M home, one of the places I went to yesterday was in a whole different league. This was a brand new 8000sqf home with 7 garage bays and one hell of a view and the last assessment was at ~$3M. I'm not bashing them for it, or think it's wrong for them to have a garage sale, I just find it odd/funny that they figured the best use of their Saturday was to sell a couple hundred dollars worth of junk.
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I went around to a few garage sales yesterday, and while it's not uncommon here to go to a garage sale at a ~$1M home, one of the places I went to yesterday was in a whole different league. This was a brand new 8000sqf home with 7 garage bays and one hell of a view and the last assessment was at ~$3M. I'm not bashing them for it, or think it's wrong for them to have a garage sale, I just find it odd/funny that they figured the best use of their Saturday was to sell a couple hundred dollars worth of junk.
Sounds like Christmas for Mustacians!
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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I went around to a few garage sales yesterday, and while it's not uncommon here to go to a garage sale at a ~$1M home, one of the places I went to yesterday was in a whole different league. This was a brand new 8000sqf home with 7 garage bays and one hell of a view and the last assessment was at ~$3M. I'm not bashing them for it, or think it's wrong for them to have a garage sale, I just find it odd/funny that they figured the best use of their Saturday was to sell a couple hundred dollars worth of junk.
Sounds like Christmas for Mustacians!
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Actually I find that in general the richer the sellers are, the more more money they want for their crap. This actually wasn't the case with these people, they had fairly reasonable/average prices for things, but in general the richer they are the greedier they are when selling.
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I'm sure there are many here who will vigorously disagree, but I find it hard that anybody, who isn't dirt poor, or places zero value on their time, would waste their time holding a garage sale. I have watched too many friends and relatives drop ridiculous amounts of prep time, dragging all manners of crap out of attics, basements, etc. cleaning and pricing the junk, advertising, setting up their wares in the driveway, and dealing with the public, to end up with a few hundred bucks, at best. Any nearly valueless crap of mine is harvested in it's natural state in the attic, garage, or wherever, and dropped at the donation dock at the thrift store. Easy, quick and hassle free.
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I'm sure there are many here who will vigorously disagree, but I find it hard that anybody, who isn't dirt poor, or places zero value on their time, would waste their time holding a garage sale. I have watched too many friends and relatives drop ridiculous amounts of prep time, dragging all manners of crap out of attics, basements, etc. cleaning and pricing the junk, advertising, setting up their wares in the driveway, and dealing with the public, to end up with a few hundred bucks, at best. Any nearly valueless crap of mine is harvested in it's natural state in the attic, garage, or wherever, and dropped at the donation dock at the thrift store. Easy, quick and hassle free.
I totally agree with you, even for the average North American family that lives in the suburbs, having a garage sale to make a couple hundred bucks is hardly worth the time on a purely financial basis. On the flip side, some people use it as an excuse to meet their neighbors. I have a garage sale once or twice a year, but I generally make between $500-$1500 in the day (my record is $2300), it's more of a side hustle for me than just getting rid of junk.
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I'm sure there are many here who will vigorously disagree, but I find it hard that anybody, who isn't dirt poor, or places zero value on their time, would waste their time holding a garage sale. I have watched too many friends and relatives drop ridiculous amounts of prep time, dragging all manners of crap out of attics, basements, etc. cleaning and pricing the junk, advertising, setting up their wares in the driveway, and dealing with the public, to end up with a few hundred bucks, at best. Any nearly valueless crap of mine is harvested in it's natural state in the attic, garage, or wherever, and dropped at the donation dock at the thrift store. Easy, quick and hassle free.
And, if the thrift store is run by a 501(c)3 charity, then if you get an itemized receipt with the values correctly calculated, you can probably deduct it as a charitable gift on an itemized tax return.
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I'm sure there are many here who will vigorously disagree, but I find it hard that anybody, who isn't dirt poor, or places zero value on their time, would waste their time holding a garage sale. I have watched too many friends and relatives drop ridiculous amounts of prep time, dragging all manners of crap out of attics, basements, etc. cleaning and pricing the junk, advertising, setting up their wares in the driveway, and dealing with the public, to end up with a few hundred bucks, at best. Any nearly valueless crap of mine is harvested in it's natural state in the attic, garage, or wherever, and dropped at the donation dock at the thrift store. Easy, quick and hassle free.
And, if the thrift store is run by a 501(c)3 charity, then if you get an itemized receipt with the values correctly calculated, you can probably deduct it as a charitable gift on an itemized tax return.
SIL just cannot let go of anything she doesn't consider absolutely worthless without getting something for it. Basically, she is only willing to donate rags, everything else goes back in the house for the next garage sale.
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I'm sure there are many here who will vigorously disagree, but I find it hard that anybody, who isn't dirt poor, or places zero value on their time, would waste their time holding a garage sale. I have watched too many friends and relatives drop ridiculous amounts of prep time, dragging all manners of crap out of attics, basements, etc. cleaning and pricing the junk, advertising, setting up their wares in the driveway, and dealing with the public, to end up with a few hundred bucks, at best. Any nearly valueless crap of mine is harvested in it's natural state in the attic, garage, or wherever, and dropped at the donation dock at the thrift store. Easy, quick and hassle free.
And, if the thrift store is run by a 501(c)3 charity, then if you get an itemized receipt with the values correctly calculated, you can probably deduct it as a charitable gift on an itemized tax return.
SIL just cannot let go of anything she doesn't consider absolutely worthless without getting something for it. Basically, she is only willing to donate rags, everything else goes back in the house for the next garage sale.
Yeah, but the market value of rags is diddly-squat. So that's what she ends up getting to deduct. To get the sizable deductions, you have to donate something good: something the right buyer would pay good money to purchase.
Now here's where paddedhat's logic gets really important... it takes time and effort to find the right buyer for the lion's share of what gets put out in the average garage sale that is actually worth something. I once sold a used toilet for $20 at a community garage sale because I was already there hobnobbing with the neighbors, but I didn't make significant money on a per-hour basis. Nor was I trying to sell anything of actual value. My goal was more to get stuff out of my garage (and I succeeded).
If you've got something like tools, rare books, art, an old rug, an old chair, or a coin collection you're simply not going to get fair market value at a garage sale. People come to garage sales expecting to scoop stuff up for next to nothing. So expecting to get one-third of the fair market value for used shoes, DVDs, or whatever is just plain unrealistic. In my opinion the return on invested time is far better donating things that are high value to the right buyer, instead of wasting the time to find that buyer, provided the donor is in a professional caliber tax bracket (pre-FIRE). That individual will have a higher dollar value per hour and the deduction will also be worth more.
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I'm sure there are many here who will vigorously disagree, but I find it hard that anybody, who isn't dirt poor, or places zero value on their time, would waste their time holding a garage sale. I have watched too many friends and relatives drop ridiculous amounts of prep time, dragging all manners of crap out of attics, basements, etc. cleaning and pricing the junk, advertising, setting up their wares in the driveway, and dealing with the public, to end up with a few hundred bucks, at best. Any nearly valueless crap of mine is harvested in it's natural state in the attic, garage, or wherever, and dropped at the donation dock at the thrift store. Easy, quick and hassle free.
Well, I have held yard sales for our old stuff because I find that having people come to my house to take things off my hands is actually more convenient than dropping stuff off at a charity or thrift store. We have a small car so it can be a problem moving large items like bikes. And with a yard sale you don't have to pack everything up, it can just all be spread out on a big tablecloth or something. I keep my prices rock-bottom (and old clothes are always free) so I get rid of everything, and all it takes is me or my kids sitting in a lawn chair reading the newspaper for a few hours on Saturday morning (plus putting a free ad on Craigslist the night before.)
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I'm sure there are many here who will vigorously disagree, but I find it hard that anybody, who isn't dirt poor, or places zero value on their time, would waste their time holding a garage sale. I have watched too many friends and relatives drop ridiculous amounts of prep time, dragging all manners of crap out of attics, basements, etc. cleaning and pricing the junk, advertising, setting up their wares in the driveway, and dealing with the public, to end up with a few hundred bucks, at best. Any nearly valueless crap of mine is harvested in it's natural state in the attic, garage, or wherever, and dropped at the donation dock at the thrift store. Easy, quick and hassle free.
I used to do a yard sale once a year, and I never made less than $1,000. Granted, I used to be a bit of an extreme couponer as well, so this was a way for me to clear out all the extra stuff I had gotten for free throughout the year that we didn't really need. For me, it was more of a way to generate some nice extra income once a year. Now that I had kids, though, I don't do them anymore.
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For some people, the amount of money raised from the yard sale is not the primary consideration and most of the pleasure is in the process of setting up and selling and the interaction with buyers. Like Marie Antoinette playing shopkeeper. Having less stuff and more money at the end is an integral part of the game without having an impact on their real life situation.
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I used to do a yard sale once a year, and I never made less than $1,000. Granted, I used to be a bit of an extreme couponer as well, so this was a way for me to clear out all the extra stuff I had gotten for free throughout the year that we didn't really need. For me, it was more of a way to generate some nice extra income once a year. Now that I had kids, though, I don't do them anymore.
Interesting. I recall glancing at the Extreme Couponing shows and wondering why anybody could be nearly orgasmic, since they had rows of shelving in the cellar, and owned thousands of bottles of shampoo, and other stuff. Makes sense to yard sale it. Oddly enough, here that isn't allowed. The local town limits many things about yard sales, and one is that there can be no new goods offered for sale. It's probably a pretty good idea here, since we live in a very heavy tourist traffic area, and yard sales are nothing but a PITA since they often create traffic jams.. Could be worse though, we used to live in the mountains a few hours from NYC. The city crowd somehow believed that they were the only vehicles on the road, and would just stop in the middle of a lane, shut the car off and get out to shop at a yard sale. I once went absolutely mental on a guy who was stopped at the crest of a blind hill, while shopping. I guess the fact that you could really hurt somebody who slams into the back of your parked car, is less important than finding a good deal on junk?
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We have a gated community of 12 homes down the street. Totally out of scale in the area -- homes between 8K and 10K square feet. About 12 years ago they had a community yard sale and it was free comedy. People lined up at the gate in the dark like Willy Wonka was opening his chocolate factory. The gates opened, people ran in. At the time there was a prominent Major League Baseball player living in there and his wife was right out of Real Housewives central casting. She had nothing but junk laid out but the funny thing was that she had all sorts of Nordstrom and Saks shopping bags to put the purchases into to give the unclean masses. Her husband was making $8 million a year at the time and yet she spent her Saturday making maybe a couple of hundred bucks, mostly from stuff she clearly had gotten as free giveaways at baseball games she attended.
Unfortunately this was before social media. Otherwise......
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I used to participate in yard sales up on Hillbilly Mountain and people actually paid for some of our old crap, but these were the days when people thought baseball cards were valuable. (Selling my collection led to a lot of food purchasing. Score.) Unless you are dirt poor -- and as long as you itemize your tax return -- donating your crap to charity gets you a much, much better return for your money. Plus, it's less time consuming.
The only positive of a yard sale really is that you get to hang out with your friends and drink beers in public if your local law enforcement is lenient.
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Sometimes I get confused on this forum
People want to brag about who has the oldest and highest mileage car
People want to brag about foraging for food
People want to brag about washing their plastic sandwich bags to reuse them
And then a thread where people say it's a waste to have a garage sale to make some money?
Having a garage sale is a nice motivational tool to declutter.
Steps to a successful garage sale
1) put out an ad as this prevents you from saying "maybe next week"
2) Go through your closets and nooks finding things to get rid of (hint: play music if you think decluttering is tedious)
3) Brew up a nice batch of tea or coffee the morning of
4) Lay out all of your stuff
5) Sit outside and talk with neighbors who pass by and people who come to look at your stuff
6) Earn some money in the mean time
7) Pack the leftovers in a plastic bag and take to Goodwill to receive tax write off.
Regarding being dirt poor - I would venture to say that there are probably hundreds of houses near me that have a garage sale each year and it would not be far fetched to say that many of their household incomes were over $175k/yr.
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I went around to a few garage sales yesterday, and while it's not uncommon here to go to a garage sale at a ~$1M home, one of the places I went to yesterday was in a whole different league. This was a brand new 8000sqf home with 7 garage bays and one hell of a view and the last assessment was at ~$3M. I'm not bashing them for it, or think it's wrong for them to have a garage sale, I just find it odd/funny that they figured the best use of their Saturday was to sell a couple hundred dollars worth of junk.
Sounds like Christmas for Mustacians!
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Actually I find that in general the richer the sellers are, the more more money they want for their crap. This actually wasn't the case with these people, they had fairly reasonable/average prices for things, but in general the richer they are the greedier they are when selling.
Interesting, I've had the opposite experience. In my experience rich off people tend to underestimate the value of things that are small expenses to them. I've often gotten stuff thats in good shape for cheap or even free from rich neighborhoods.
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Sometimes I get confused on this forum
People want to brag about who has the oldest and highest mileage car
People want to brag about foraging for food
People want to brag about washing their plastic sandwich bags to reuse them
And then a thread where people say it's a waste to have a garage sale to make some money?
Having a garage sale is a nice motivational tool to declutter.
Yeah, I'm a bit bemused as well. We participated in our community yard sale this year. Didn't make a ton of money (we priced everything really low, and didn't have any big-ticket items, and didn't have a whole lot of stuff anyway), but still consider it worthwhile. Why?
--We made a few bucks
--We got rid of a bunch of stuff (all the leftovers went to the thrift store) and cleared up space where all the junk was stored (square footage isn't free!)
--Our kids got to run a lemonade/cookie stand
--A bunch of people got to save money on stuff
--A bunch of stuff was saved from the landfill
So you could count it as a way to evangelize mustachianism in a small way :)
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Sometimes I get confused on this forum
People want to brag about who has the oldest and highest mileage car
People want to brag about foraging for food
People want to brag about washing their plastic sandwich bags to reuse them
And then a thread where people say it's a waste to have a garage sale to make some money?
Having a garage sale is a nice motivational tool to declutter.
Steps to a successful garage sale
1) put out an ad as this prevents you from saying "maybe next week"
2) Go through your closets and nooks finding things to get rid of (hint: play music if you think decluttering is tedious)
3) Brew up a nice batch of tea or coffee the morning of
4) Lay out all of your stuff
5) Sit outside and talk with neighbors who pass by and people who come to look at your stuff
6) Earn some money in the mean time
7) Pack the leftovers in a plastic bag and take to Goodwill to receive tax write off.
Regarding being dirt poor - I would venture to say that there are probably hundreds of houses near me that have a garage sale each year and it would not be far fetched to say that many of their household incomes were over $175k/yr.
If your goal is to have a nice time socializing with neighbors, then do as you will. If your goal is to maximize your time and money, then you donate the stuff from your garage sale and receive the tax deduction. A lot of people on this forum work both a regular job and a side hustle which is a much more efficient use of their time for the money than a garage sale. And most people on the forum have other ways that they socialize with neighbors, such as participating in free community events, potluck dinners, going to the park, etc.
I'm not being dismissive of your opinion. I'm just trying to explain our rationale.
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For some people, the amount of money raised from the yard sale is not the primary consideration and most of the pleasure is in the process of setting up and selling and the interaction with buyers.
Yep - I was only on the selling-side once, and that was a fun day actually :)
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Sometimes I get confused on this forum
People want to brag about who has the oldest and highest mileage car
People want to brag about foraging for food
People want to brag about washing their plastic sandwich bags to reuse them
And then a thread where people say it's a waste to have a garage sale to make some money?
Having a garage sale is a nice motivational tool to declutter.
Steps to a successful garage sale
1) put out an ad as this prevents you from saying "maybe next week"
2) Go through your closets and nooks finding things to get rid of (hint: play music if you think decluttering is tedious)
3) Brew up a nice batch of tea or coffee the morning of
4) Lay out all of your stuff
5) Sit outside and talk with neighbors who pass by and people who come to look at your stuff
6) Earn some money in the mean time
7) Pack the leftovers in a plastic bag and take to Goodwill to receive tax write off.
Regarding being dirt poor - I would venture to say that there are probably hundreds of houses near me that have a garage sale each year and it would not be far fetched to say that many of their household incomes were over $175k/yr.
Yeah, I'm scratching my head over this as well. Decluttering and making a few hundred dollars is worthy of ridicule now? I guess when the 'overheard at...' threads are slow, the self-righteousness has to come out somewhere.
For what it's worth, the suburb where I grew up and the apartment complex I live in now had designated yard sale days for the whole community. There were some spendy spenders who could spend, sure, but nobody is 'dirt poor.'
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but in general the richer they are the greedier they are when selling.
Im not sure that's true, I think the richer they are the more likely they are selling items that are intrinsically worth more than your ikea bookshelf for $5
That being said, these types of garage sales are strange, just donate it and write it off your taxes - probably 'worth' more to you that way, and less of a hassle
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We moved two months ago and so for the past three+ months we have been going through stuff and decluttering. I didn't even consider a garage sale as part of our strategy for the main reason that it is not an efficient use of time. My time is very limited between working, my toddler, my husband, moving, and pregnancy. Instead of a garage sale (which often times seem from third-hand observation to not be very successful) we donated some stuff to Goodwill, sold some stuff on Craigslist (what a pain!), gave away some free stuff on Craigslist, and just threw other stuff out in front of the house with a "Free" sign on it.
At this point I am totally sick of selling stuff on Craigslist. I love it as a buyer, but so many people flake out and/or want to negotiate a great deal down to something not even worth my time to answer the door, it sours my perspective as a seller.
It gets down to what your goal ultimately is though. Are you out to make extra $ or to rid your house of unwanted items? The strategy you employ will be fairly different for those two differing goals.
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We moved two months ago and so for the past three+ months we have been going through stuff and decluttering. I didn't even consider a garage sale as part of our strategy for the main reason that it is not an efficient use of time. My time is very limited between working, my toddler, my husband, moving, and pregnancy. Instead of a garage sale (which often times seem from third-hand observation to not be very successful) we donated some stuff to Goodwill, sold some stuff on Craigslist (what a pain!), gave away some free stuff on Craigslist, and just threw other stuff out in front of the house with a "Free" sign on it.
At this point I am totally sick of selling stuff on Craigslist. I love it as a buyer, but so many people flake out and/or want to negotiate a great deal down to something not even worth my time to answer the door, it sours my perspective as a seller.
It gets down to what your goal ultimately is though. Are you out to make extra $ or to rid your house of unwanted items? The strategy you employ will be fairly different for those two differing goals.
Yes, Craigslist IS the double-edged sword. My wife gets really pissed at all the flakers. I always remind her that when you're using a free service, anyone (and their mother) are using it for free - for some folks that means no motive to actually have manners. I try my best to see it as an opportunity to make some decent money; it does get really nerve-wracking waiting around for the good buyers but they normally do exist and show up if your price is within reason. We were thinking about doing a garage sale, but literally after all of our big items sold on Craigslist (to the tune of ~ $2,800), I don't see the point.
By my best estimates, we would make a grand total of $50-$75 with a garage sale. I think if you have any "quality" items, a craigslist ad along with some well taken pictures and legible writing go a long way to actually recouping some of your money. I'd much rather individually list good stuff and sell separate than put everything in the yard and try to sell at once. Whatever's left (the things not worth listing) will get donated or put outside for free.
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If you give stuff to charity, who decides what you can deduct from the taxes?
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If you give stuff to charity, who decides what you can deduct from the taxes?
Usually I see them hand out a blank donation sheet for you to fill out on your own on the honor system.
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If you give stuff to charity, who decides what you can deduct from the taxes?
Usually I see them hand out a blank donation sheet for you to fill out on your own on the honor system.
yup we keep a ledger of items with FMV (based on donation charts) for audit purposes
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On the flip side, we've encouraged our kids to do garage sales and bake sales and such as ways to earn money for things they want. We didn't need the money, and boy was it a PITA, but it was a way for a 4-12 yr old kid to earn some money (and, umm, be persuaded to part with things that they were loath to just toss or give away).
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If you give stuff to charity, who decides what you can deduct from the taxes?
Usually I see them hand out a blank donation sheet for you to fill out on your own on the honor system.
yup we keep a ledger of items with FMV (based on donation charts) for audit purposes
Here's a handy guide from Goodwill for calculating donation values: https://sfgoodwill.org/donate/donate-goods/estimate-donation-calculator/ (https://sfgoodwill.org/donate/donate-goods/estimate-donation-calculator/)
I just record every item I donate in a ledger and then fill out the blank form with the items and values when I get it from the places I donate to, so it's all copacetic at tax time.
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Sometimes I get confused on this forum
People want to brag about who has the oldest and highest mileage car
People want to brag about foraging for food
People want to brag about washing their plastic sandwich bags to reuse them
And then a thread where people say it's a waste to have a garage sale to make some money?
Having a garage sale is a nice motivational tool to declutter.
Steps to a successful garage sale
1) put out an ad as this prevents you from saying "maybe next week"
2) Go through your closets and nooks finding things to get rid of (hint: play music if you think decluttering is tedious)
3) Brew up a nice batch of tea or coffee the morning of
4) Lay out all of your stuff
5) Sit outside and talk with neighbors who pass by and people who come to look at your stuff
6) Earn some money in the mean time
7) Pack the leftovers in a plastic bag and take to Goodwill to receive tax write off.
Regarding being dirt poor - I would venture to say that there are probably hundreds of houses near me that have a garage sale each year and it would not be far fetched to say that many of their household incomes were over $175k/yr.
If your goal is to have a nice time socializing with neighbors, then do as you will. If your goal is to maximize your time and money, then you donate the stuff from your garage sale and receive the tax deduction. A lot of people on this forum work both a regular job and a side hustle which is a much more efficient use of their time for the money than a garage sale. And most people on the forum have other ways that they socialize with neighbors, such as participating in free community events, potluck dinners, going to the park, etc.
I'm not being dismissive of your opinion. I'm just trying to explain our rationale.
So you tell me people don't have time because of their side hustles and then tell me that those same people have community events, potlucks and go to the park?
What if the community event is a garage sale
Bring toys to play on the lawn/park
Potluck is cookies and lemonade from previous posters children
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Potluck is cookies and lemonade from previous posters children
definitely read "poser" children
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I'm sure there are many here who will vigorously disagree, but I find it hard that anybody, who isn't dirt poor, or places zero value on their time, would waste their time holding a garage sale. I have watched too many friends and relatives drop ridiculous amounts of prep time, dragging all manners of crap out of attics, basements, etc. cleaning and pricing the junk, advertising, setting up their wares in the driveway, and dealing with the public, to end up with a few hundred bucks, at best.
I agree. And after doing all that hard work to get items ready for the sale, people show up and ask if they can have stuff for free. We get too many people around here, coming to all the sales, to see what people will give away to them. They refuse to spend even one dime. They even drive through the alley in trucks and yell out "we'll take all that off your hands for free".
Total waste of time.
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I live in a HCOLA. Some friends sold their home of 35 years for nearly $1M. They are moving out of state where they can more easily afford care for both of them, as she has Alzheimer's. They packed up what they wanted to take, their kids took what they wanted and their DIL and I held an Estate Sale to sell off the rest. We made $2500 in two days and the most expensive thing we sold was a dining set for $175.00.
$2500 in cash is nothing to sneer at!
I agree with SeaEhm completely.
I also disagree with the snarky comments about "rich" people.
I love Estate Sales. I'm happy giving old stuff a new life. Further, I avoid any sale that advertises kid's stuff. I find people with small children spend all their money on their kids and not much else. YMMV.
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I'm sure there are many here who will vigorously disagree, but I find it hard that anybody, who isn't dirt poor, or places zero value on their time, would waste their time holding a garage sale. I have watched too many friends and relatives drop ridiculous amounts of prep time, dragging all manners of crap out of attics, basements, etc. cleaning and pricing the junk, advertising, setting up their wares in the driveway, and dealing with the public, to end up with a few hundred bucks, at best.
I agree. And after doing all that hard work to get items ready for the sale, people show up and ask if they can have stuff for free. We get too many people around here, coming to all the sales, to see what people will give away to them. They refuse to spend even one dime. They even drive through the alley in trucks and yell out "we'll take all that off your hands for free".
Total waste of time.
Absolutely. I find it hard to believe that some folks are surprised by this concept appearing on MMM. I guess being frugal with time, and time being your most valuable asset, doesn't add up for some people.
When it was time to downsize, as our kids left for universities, we were faced with the question of "do we hold a yard sale to get rid of this shit?". First, we tend to be minimalist, so there are no closets full of shoes, baseball card collections, or similar volumes of stuff in my life. Second we had watched friends go through this process. Some were real collectors who put a huge effort into it, and regretted the fact that it was a huge waste of time. One family spent a month of weekends to get ready, then had a two car garage and a four car driveway full of tables piled high in sale goods. In the end they made about $700. They then spent time breaking the whole circus down, and more time donating and disposing of the crap that nobody would pay for. In the end it was well over 100 hours of time, for less than minimum wage.
We took a different route. First it's a 52 mile round trip to the local Salvation Army for us, so we had little interest in long expensive trips to give our low value stuff away. Second, screw craigslist. I won't waste time waiting for some chucklenut to maybe show up to offer me half price on a $10 cardboard IKEA dresser. We just slowly dribbled everything away with a FREE sign at the end of the driveway. The sign was a piece of high-vis pink posterboard with FREE in big black letter, taped to an old real estate sign. I would drag an old set of particle board shelves, some left over construction scraps (short 2x4s, scrap Romex wire, short pieces of plumbing pipe) an ugly lamp, and a used toaster to the edge of the road, pop the sign up, and forget about it. Unless something was truly useless crap, it was ALWAYS gone in a few hours. Not only was it easy and effective, but people will grab garbage that they absolutely wouldn't think of paying a dime for. In the end I saved at least $100 and half a day of my life, buy not having to haul a big load of useless crap to the landfill, and pay the dump fee.
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Sometimes I get confused on this forum
People want to brag about who has the oldest and highest mileage car
People want to brag about foraging for food
People want to brag about washing their plastic sandwich bags to reuse them
And then a thread where people say it's a waste to have a garage sale to make some money?
Having a garage sale is a nice motivational tool to declutter.
Steps to a successful garage sale
1) put out an ad as this prevents you from saying "maybe next week"
2) Go through your closets and nooks finding things to get rid of (hint: play music if you think decluttering is tedious)
3) Brew up a nice batch of tea or coffee the morning of
4) Lay out all of your stuff
5) Sit outside and talk with neighbors who pass by and people who come to look at your stuff
6) Earn some money in the mean time
7) Pack the leftovers in a plastic bag and take to Goodwill to receive tax write off.
Regarding being dirt poor - I would venture to say that there are probably hundreds of houses near me that have a garage sale each year and it would not be far fetched to say that many of their household incomes were over $175k/yr.
If your goal is to have a nice time socializing with neighbors, then do as you will. If your goal is to maximize your time and money, then you donate the stuff from your garage sale and receive the tax deduction. A lot of people on this forum work both a regular job and a side hustle which is a much more efficient use of their time for the money than a garage sale. And most people on the forum have other ways that they socialize with neighbors, such as participating in free community events, potluck dinners, going to the park, etc.
I'm not being dismissive of your opinion. I'm just trying to explain our rationale.
So you tell me people don't have time because of their side hustles and then tell me that those same people have community events, potlucks and go to the park?
What if the community event is a garage sale
Bring toys to play on the lawn/park
Potluck is cookies and lemonade from previous posters children
*sigh*
None of those community activities involve work or having to stay in one place for the entire day after setting up lots of tables and pricing and labeling goods for sale. I don't see why this is such a difficult concept.
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but in general the richer they are the greedier they are when selling.
Im not sure that's true, I think the richer they are the more likely they are selling items that are intrinsically worth more than your ikea bookshelf for $5
That being said, these types of garage sales are strange, just donate it and write it off your taxes - probably 'worth' more to you that way, and less of a hassle
I've sold a $4200 set of reclining sofas at a garage sale, Royal Doulton china, a brand new solid wood bedroom set, professional audio equipment and vast amounts of brand name tools and power equipment etc. Just because some rich lady that lives in a giant house paid $89.99 for a tablecloth from a high end shop, when you can buy the same tablecloth for $24.99 on amazon, and then asks $50 for it at a garage sale doesn't make it worth "intrinsically more". I go to A LOT of garage sales, and see the same thing every week, usually mundane items like a tape measure - .25 to .50 cents at an average persons garage sale, but I've been to a sale at a very expensive house and they want $4! Hell, even the kids selling lemonade, I went to a sale in a fancy neighbourhood where the kids were selling lemonade at $2 a cup! No, this was not the kids screwing up the pricing, they asked their mom when I asked them how much. This is extremely common around here for wealthier people to want as close to retail as possible for their stuff.
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Sometimes I get confused on this forum
People want to brag about who has the oldest and highest mileage car
People want to brag about foraging for food
People want to brag about washing their plastic sandwich bags to reuse them
And then a thread where people say it's a waste to have a garage sale to make some money?
Having a garage sale is a nice motivational tool to declutter.
Steps to a successful garage sale
1) put out an ad as this prevents you from saying "maybe next week"
2) Go through your closets and nooks finding things to get rid of (hint: play music if you think decluttering is tedious)
3) Brew up a nice batch of tea or coffee the morning of
4) Lay out all of your stuff
5) Sit outside and talk with neighbors who pass by and people who come to look at your stuff
6) Earn some money in the mean time
7) Pack the leftovers in a plastic bag and take to Goodwill to receive tax write off.
Regarding being dirt poor - I would venture to say that there are probably hundreds of houses near me that have a garage sale each year and it would not be far fetched to say that many of their household incomes were over $175k/yr.
If your goal is to have a nice time socializing with neighbors, then do as you will. If your goal is to maximize your time and money, then you donate the stuff from your garage sale and receive the tax deduction. A lot of people on this forum work both a regular job and a side hustle which is a much more efficient use of their time for the money than a garage sale. And most people on the forum have other ways that they socialize with neighbors, such as participating in free community events, potluck dinners, going to the park, etc.
I'm not being dismissive of your opinion. I'm just trying to explain our rationale.
So you tell me people don't have time because of their side hustles and then tell me that those same people have community events, potlucks and go to the park?
What if the community event is a garage sale
Bring toys to play on the lawn/park
Potluck is cookies and lemonade from previous posters children
*sigh*
None of those community activities involve work or having to stay in one place for the entire day after setting up lots of tables and pricing and labeling goods for sale. I don't see why this is such a difficult concept.
Regarding the bolded part - *sigh* I feel the same way as you.
Wake up, take like 10-15 minutes to place items on the ground or on a blanket on the ground. When someone asks how much you just make up a price. When you are done, you put it in a bag and haul it to Goodwill or you call one of those collection agencies to come pick it up.
You know you can set the hours for your own garage sale, right? Typically garage sales are most popular during the mornings and are finished before 11.
Potluck dinners isn't work?
*sigh*
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Sometimes I get confused on this forum
People want to brag about who has the oldest and highest mileage car
People want to brag about foraging for food
People want to brag about washing their plastic sandwich bags to reuse them
And then a thread where people say it's a waste to have a garage sale to make some money?
Having a garage sale is a nice motivational tool to declutter.
Steps to a successful garage sale
1) put out an ad as this prevents you from saying "maybe next week"
2) Go through your closets and nooks finding things to get rid of (hint: play music if you think decluttering is tedious)
3) Brew up a nice batch of tea or coffee the morning of
4) Lay out all of your stuff
5) Sit outside and talk with neighbors who pass by and people who come to look at your stuff
6) Earn some money in the mean time
7) Pack the leftovers in a plastic bag and take to Goodwill to receive tax write off.
Regarding being dirt poor - I would venture to say that there are probably hundreds of houses near me that have a garage sale each year and it would not be far fetched to say that many of their household incomes were over $175k/yr.
If your goal is to have a nice time socializing with neighbors, then do as you will. If your goal is to maximize your time and money, then you donate the stuff from your garage sale and receive the tax deduction. A lot of people on this forum work both a regular job and a side hustle which is a much more efficient use of their time for the money than a garage sale. And most people on the forum have other ways that they socialize with neighbors, such as participating in free community events, potluck dinners, going to the park, etc.
I'm not being dismissive of your opinion. I'm just trying to explain our rationale.
So you tell me people don't have time because of their side hustles and then tell me that those same people have community events, potlucks and go to the park?
What if the community event is a garage sale
Bring toys to play on the lawn/park
Potluck is cookies and lemonade from previous posters children
*sigh*
None of those community activities involve work or having to stay in one place for the entire day after setting up lots of tables and pricing and labeling goods for sale. I don't see why this is such a difficult concept.
Regarding the bolded part - *sigh* I feel the same way as you.
Wake up, take like 10-15 minutes to place items on the ground or on a blanket on the ground. When someone asks how much you just make up a price. When you are done, you put it in a bag and haul it to Goodwill or you call one of those collection agencies to come pick it up.
You know you can set the hours for your own garage sale, right? Typically garage sales are most popular during the mornings and are finished before 11.
Potluck dinners isn't work?
*sigh*
It's your right to waste your time. That kind of freedom is what America is all about. However, when you waste your time, that's time you could have spent on a real side hustle. You'll also make less money on selling your stuff at a garage sale than you would have gotten by writing it off on your taxes (assuming that you itemize your taxes.) It's your choice.
Time is the most valuable commodity in anybody's life.
A reminder to the lurkers and newbies: You cannot become successful without modifying your behavior. That's just how it is.
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It's your right to waste your time. That kind of freedom is what America is all about. However, when you waste your time, that's time you could have spent on a real side hustle.
#SideHustleAllDayEveryDayNoSleep
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I wonder if some of the yard sale hate comes because most mustachians are pretty good about not acquiring stuff they don't need, so they don't have the need to hold a yard sale to get rid of said stuff.
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Wake up, take like 10-15 minutes to place items on the ground or on a blanket on the ground. When someone asks how much you just make up a price. When you are done, you put it in a bag and haul it to Goodwill or you call one of those collection agencies to come pick it up.
You know you can set the hours for your own garage sale, right? Typically garage sales are most popular during the mornings and are finished before 11.
Potluck dinners isn't work?
*sigh*
Things must be different where you are. Around here, dropping your blankie on the ground an putting a few items on it, is something a toddler does, while mom is holding a sale. Most sales in this area involve hundreds of items, a half dozen or more folding tables. Advertising, road signs, a town permit, and happen over a two day period. If you advertise, "8 AM start, no early birds, you can count on a few idiots poking around at seven AM. After two days of sales, and you are right, there is little interest after noon, you need to deal with the garbage that nobody will buy, get the tables back to their owners, and remove all your signs. There is simply no way a typical sales as I describe is just a "10-15 minute affair" more like 20-30 hours worth of work.
Whitetrashcan has it all figured out, and it's the most important few sentences on this thread
Time is the most valuable commodity in anybody's life.
A reminder to the lurkers and newbies: You cannot become successful without modifying your behavior. That's just how it is.
Fact is, with little exception, the vast majority of the possessions that surround us are essentially worth little to nothing. Schlepping them to stangers, at pennies on the dollar, is generally a VERY poor use of your time. The problem is that few of us actually measure that time. We put a huge input of time into the transaction and give it no value, since we end up with a few twenty dollar bills in hand.
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It's your right to waste your time. That kind of freedom is what America is all about. However, when you waste your time, that's time you could have spent on a real side hustle.
#SideHustleAllDayEveryDayNoSleep
#YouCanLeadAHorseToWater
Have a nice day.
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I went around to a few garage sales yesterday, and while it's not uncommon here to go to a garage sale at a ~$1M home, one of the places I went to yesterday was in a whole different league. This was a brand new 8000sqf home with 7 garage bays and one hell of a view and the last assessment was at ~$3M. I'm not bashing them for it, or think it's wrong for them to have a garage sale, I just find it odd/funny that they figured the best use of their Saturday was to sell a couple hundred dollars worth of junk.
Sounds like Christmas for Mustacians!
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Actually I find that in general the richer the sellers are, the more more money they want for their crap. This actually wasn't the case with these people, they had fairly reasonable/average prices for things, but in general the richer they are the greedier they are when selling.
I'm an avid garage saler, and I am always befuddled by high prices. You'll probably just haul the stuff to the thrift store after so it's in your interest to sell it all. Unless an item is valuable enough to sell on craigslist.
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I'm definitely on team Anti-Yard-Sale.
Growing up, my parents ran one yard sale when I was in fourth grade. It was a shitload of planning and setup and I don't know how much they made (probably the oft-mentioned "a few hundred"), but more than half the stuff didn't sell and ended up cluttering the basement or going to Goodwill. It was a very inefficient use of time and stress for them.
We had neighbors that would have one every summer. My parents were shocked that these people bought so much stupid shit that they had enough lying around to do that once a year.
If I have something worth more than $50 I want to dump, it goes on eBay. If it's hard to ship/move, it goes on Craigslist. If it's very small/light/easy to ship, maybe lower the eBay threshold to $20. Anything less than that, and it just goes in the Goodwill pile.
Of course, the real trick is simply not being in a situation where you have a bunch of extra junk. I personally cannot fathom having enough stuff (especially things worth anything) that I want to go away that a yard sale makes sense.
If I'm getting rid of something, the value tends to be pretty close to $0 (worn out, broken, or worthless in the first place). Or it's valuable but specialized (nobody is going to buy a 2011-era Core i5 2500K CPU for $50 or electronic medical record tablets for $100 at a yard sale even though those are good prices).
I wonder if some of the yard sale hate comes because most mustachians are pretty good about not acquiring stuff they don't need, so they don't have the need to hold a yard sale to get rid of said stuff.
DING DING DING!
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There's a big difference between a garage sale and an estate sale.
If you live a Mustachian, minimalist lifestyle, you don't accumulate. You follow some sort of one-in, one-out philosophy. If I have something I know I can sell for $50 on Craigslist, I'll try to do so. Otherwise it's a lot of little trips to Goodwill -- probably six or eight a year. Here in Florida, we don't have basements or attics and we put two cars in our two-car garage. Thus, no accumulation. We had a yardsale once, spent the whole day sitting in the front yard while people went through stuff, made about $200. And the bulk of that was for a dinette set that -- were this not pre-Internet -- would have sold on Craigslist. Vowed never again and we haven't.
An estate sale, however, is another matter. Seven years after my mom died (at 51) my then-58-year-old dad had an estate sale. My now-wife and I helped out. He put a pricetag on everything in the house and made around $20K. This was pre-Internet and an ad in The Washington Post attracted the masses. He had a high-end grandfather's clock that went, along with a collection of Hummel figurines (thankfully he dumped those when they still had value), an antique piano, etc. At one point, he gave me a paper bag full of money and a deposit slip and told me to count it out and go to the bank.
When you're 27 like I was at the time -- this was 20 years ago -- that has a lasting impact. I've put little value on anything that's not mobile, high-quality, and functional ever since. Everything else is unnecessary.
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I'm definitely on team Anti-Yard-Sale.
Growing up, my parents ran one yard sale when I was in fourth grade. It was a shitload of planning and setup and I don't know how much they made (probably the oft-mentioned "a few hundred"), but more than half the stuff didn't sell and ended up cluttering the basement or going to Goodwill. It was a very inefficient use of time and stress for them.
We had neighbors that would have one every summer. My parents were shocked that these people bought so much stupid shit that they had enough lying around to do that once a year.
If I have something worth more than $50 I want to dump, it goes on eBay. If it's hard to ship/move, it goes on Craigslist. If it's very small/light/easy to ship, maybe lower the eBay threshold to $20. Anything less than that, and it just goes in the Goodwill pile.
Of course, the real trick is simply not being in a situation where you have a bunch of extra junk. I personally cannot fathom having enough stuff (especially things worth anything) that I want to go away that a yard sale makes sense.
If I'm getting rid of something, the value tends to be pretty close to $0 (worn out, broken, or worthless in the first place). Or it's valuable but specialized (nobody is going to buy a 2011-era Core i5 2500K CPU for $50 or electronic medical record tablets for $100 at a yard sale even though those are good prices).
I wonder if some of the yard sale hate comes because most mustachians are pretty good about not acquiring stuff they don't need, so they don't have the need to hold a yard sale to get rid of said stuff.
DING DING DING!
My dad needs to implement your eBay rule...he's selling and listing books for sale that he might only make $1 on. It's not worth the time and effort.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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I'm definitely on team Anti-Yard-Sale.
Growing up, my parents ran one yard sale when I was in fourth grade. It was a shitload of planning and setup and I don't know how much they made (probably the oft-mentioned "a few hundred"), but more than half the stuff didn't sell and ended up cluttering the basement or going to Goodwill. It was a very inefficient use of time and stress for them.
We had neighbors that would have one every summer. My parents were shocked that these people bought so much stupid shit that they had enough lying around to do that once a year.
If I have something worth more than $50 I want to dump, it goes on eBay. If it's hard to ship/move, it goes on Craigslist. If it's very small/light/easy to ship, maybe lower the eBay threshold to $20. Anything less than that, and it just goes in the Goodwill pile.
Of course, the real trick is simply not being in a situation where you have a bunch of extra junk. I personally cannot fathom having enough stuff (especially things worth anything) that I want to go away that a yard sale makes sense.
If I'm getting rid of something, the value tends to be pretty close to $0 (worn out, broken, or worthless in the first place). Or it's valuable but specialized (nobody is going to buy a 2011-era Core i5 2500K CPU for $50 or electronic medical record tablets for $100 at a yard sale even though those are good prices).
I wonder if some of the yard sale hate comes because most mustachians are pretty good about not acquiring stuff they don't need, so they don't have the need to hold a yard sale to get rid of said stuff.
DING DING DING!
Baby Stuff?
Estate Sale? (happens when you die, even to minimalists)
Moving Cities?
No truck to haul to Goodwill?
But more on point, did your parents have motivation to get rid of junk? That's the primary reason for sales, to remove stuff from your house. Most of the angst is from people parting with possessions, it has nothing to do with the sale itself. The clues are all there; weeks of time is resistance to parting. Cluttering the basement means they didn't really want to part with it. "Shitload of Planning" is a procrastination technique.
All the stress and angst was from pre-sale activities, not the sale itself. Donating to goodwill would have resulted in the same angst, which is why the stuff ended back in your basement...
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Wake up, take like 10-15 minutes to place items on the ground or on a blanket on the ground. When someone asks how much you just make up a price. When you are done, you put it in a bag and haul it to Goodwill or you call one of those collection agencies to come pick it up.
You know you can set the hours for your own garage sale, right? Typically garage sales are most popular during the mornings and are finished before 11.
Potluck dinners isn't work?
*sigh*
Things must be different where you are. Around here, dropping your blankie on the ground an putting a few items on it, is something a toddler does, while mom is holding a sale. Most sales in this area involve hundreds of items, a half dozen or more folding tables. Advertising, road signs, a town permit, and happen over a two day period. If you advertise, "8 AM start, no early birds, you can count on a few idiots poking around at seven AM. After two days of sales, and you are right, there is little interest after noon, you need to deal with the garbage that nobody will buy, get the tables back to their owners, and remove all your signs. There is simply no way a typical sales as I describe is just a "10-15 minute affair" more like 20-30 hours worth of work.
Whitetrashcan has it all figured out, and it's the most important few sentences on this thread
Time is the most valuable commodity in anybody's life.
A reminder to the lurkers and newbies: You cannot become successful without modifying your behavior. That's just how it is.
Fact is, with little exception, the vast majority of the possessions that surround us are essentially worth little to nothing. Schlepping them to stangers, at pennies on the dollar, is generally a VERY poor use of your time. The problem is that few of us actually measure that time. We put a huge input of time into the transaction and give it no value, since we end up with a few twenty dollar bills in hand.
Yea - garage sales are a little different here. It's not nearly the extravaganza that happens in your area. The last two neighborhoods I have lived in hold an annual community garage sale. Maybe I am spoiled because I can get away with the 15 minute garage sale prep. 25-30 hours of preparation and selling? Pass. Not worth my time. Would rather spend 5 hours reading a thread about how spending time doing a garage sale is a waste of time, the most precious commodity (not sarcasm)
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Yep, garage sales are a waste of time unless you have an entire day to sit around outside and haggle. Plus putting up signs, lugging stuff to the curb etc. Like others on this thread, I craigslist or eBay stuff that is valuable, donate or give away the rest.
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its interesting that all of you guys think the big house means the owner is in fact actually wealthy.
Also note, if the owner is indeed high income wealthy, you can divide by 0.55 or so to calculate the tax reported dollars they'd have to earn to get an equivalent amount net to them.
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I'm definitely on team Anti-Yard-Sale.
Growing up, my parents ran one yard sale when I was in fourth grade. It was a shitload of planning and setup and I don't know how much they made (probably the oft-mentioned "a few hundred"), but more than half the stuff didn't sell and ended up cluttering the basement or going to Goodwill. It was a very inefficient use of time and stress for them.
We had neighbors that would have one every summer. My parents were shocked that these people bought so much stupid shit that they had enough lying around to do that once a year.
If I have something worth more than $50 I want to dump, it goes on eBay. If it's hard to ship/move, it goes on Craigslist. If it's very small/light/easy to ship, maybe lower the eBay threshold to $20. Anything less than that, and it just goes in the Goodwill pile.
Of course, the real trick is simply not being in a situation where you have a bunch of extra junk. I personally cannot fathom having enough stuff (especially things worth anything) that I want to go away that a yard sale makes sense.
If I'm getting rid of something, the value tends to be pretty close to $0 (worn out, broken, or worthless in the first place). Or it's valuable but specialized (nobody is going to buy a 2011-era Core i5 2500K CPU for $50 or electronic medical record tablets for $100 at a yard sale even though those are good prices).
I wonder if some of the yard sale hate comes because most mustachians are pretty good about not acquiring stuff they don't need, so they don't have the need to hold a yard sale to get rid of said stuff.
DING DING DING!
Baby Stuff?
Estate Sale? (happens when you die, even to minimalists)
Moving Cities?
No truck to haul to Goodwill?
But more on point, did your parents have motivation to get rid of junk? That's the primary reason for sales, to remove stuff from your house. Most of the angst is from people parting with possessions, it has nothing to do with the sale itself. The clues are all there; weeks of time is resistance to parting. Cluttering the basement means they didn't really want to part with it. "Shitload of Planning" is a procrastination technique.
All the stress and angst was from pre-sale activities, not the sale itself. Donating to goodwill would have resulted in the same angst, which is why the stuff ended back in your basement...
I haven't had kids, but I don't see what's so special about "baby stuff." That can be sold on eBay/Craigslist, donated to Goodwill, or given away like anything else no longer needed. Estate sales I get, I don't think that's what's being talked about here. I did mention moving as one potential scenario where it might make sense (though for me personally it probably still wouldn't). If it would take a truck to get it to Goodwill, it's unlikely to get sold at a yard sale. That's probably more of a "leave on the curb the day before trash night and watch it magically disappear by morning" item (which I have done a handful of times, always successful), or maybe a Craigslist item.
I was in fourth grade when my parents did the yard sale, so I of course don't know/remember all the details. Most of the nonsense planning seemed to be stuff like "oh which table with this on it should go where?" or other silliness. I don't specifically know how long any of it took.
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Another reason no more garage sales for me, is I feel it makes my home and family unsafe. I've had people come around, wanting to know if we have electronics in our home, one person was asking about gold or silver. I feel they're just wanting to know what kind of valuables we have in our home. That was a huge red flag for me and I shut down my garage sales altogether. I have children who live with me and I have to think about their safety. Every time our neighborhood does a garage sale day, we have an increase in crime in the area over the next few weeks.
And no, i'm not saying all garage sale customers are criminals. I've gone to these myself, but I'm just saying, gotta be careful when you have strangers coming around your home.
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Another reason no more garage sales for me, is I feel it makes my home and family unsafe. I've had people come around, wanting to know if we have electronics in our home, one person was asking about gold or silver. I feel they're just wanting to know what kind of valuables we have in our home. That was a huge red flag for me and I shut down my garage sales altogether. I have children who live with me and I have to think about their safety. Every time our neighborhood does a garage sale day, we have an increase in crime in the area over the next few weeks.
And no, i'm not saying all garage sale customers are criminals. I've gone to these myself, but I'm just saying, gotta be careful when you have strangers coming around your home.
Yep, I agree that is a real concern. I go to a lot of garage sales and I'm also one of those guys that asks about coins and gold, because I buy n sell them, but it's amazing the number of people that are like "oh yeah, I've got a huge box of silver eagles, but not sure I want to sell them" and I'm like, dude you should NOT be telling a total-stranger that at a garage sale.
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I just give stuff away because we have plenty of money and I'm helping somebody else out that way.
In my dense neighborhood I can put something I don't want to take to Goidwill on the curb on the night before trash pickup and inevitably somebody comes by and picks it up, because there are people that cruise the neighborhood for that purpose.
Sometimes people don't come prepared and they try to shove a chair a neighbor puts out through the window of their rusty Golf...
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I just give stuff away because we have plenty of money and I'm helping somebody else out that way.
In my dense neighborhood I can put something I don't want to take to Goidwill on the curb on the night before trash pickup and inevitably somebody comes by and picks it up, because there are people that cruise the neighborhood for that purpose.
Sometimes people don't come prepared and they try to shove a chair a neighbor puts out through the window of their rusty Golf...
One time when I did this with a no longer needed couch, someone was literally already loading it into their truck by the time I came back out with the couch cushions. It was bizarre. The system works.
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Yea - garage sales are a little different here. It's not nearly the extravaganza that happens in your area. The last two neighborhoods I have lived in hold an annual community garage sale. Maybe I am spoiled because I can get away with the 15 minute garage sale prep. 25-30 hours of preparation and selling? Pass. Not worth my time. Would rather spend 5 hours reading a thread about how spending time doing a garage sale is a waste of time, the most precious commodity (not sarcasm)
Yea, I would admit that it's a odd cultural thing here. At one point, a few Saturdays back, the main street in out little town was at a standstill, and we slowly crawled past the cause. There was a yard sale that actually had a professional food trailer set up, like the kind you see at the county fair. Just great, bad enough that we have to deal with idiots that block traffic, and can't park, but now we have idiots selling funnel Cakes and fries at their freakin' yard sale.
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Yea - garage sales are a little different here. It's not nearly the extravaganza that happens in your area. The last two neighborhoods I have lived in hold an annual community garage sale. Maybe I am spoiled because I can get away with the 15 minute garage sale prep. 25-30 hours of preparation and selling? Pass. Not worth my time. Would rather spend 5 hours reading a thread about how spending time doing a garage sale is a waste of time, the most precious commodity (not sarcasm)
Yea, I would admit that it's a odd cultural thing here. At one point, a few Saturdays back, the main street in out little town was at a standstill, and we slowly crawled past the cause. There was a yard sale that actually had a professional food trailer set up, like the kind you see at the county fair. Just great, bad enough that we have to deal with idiots that block traffic, and can't park, but now we have idiots selling funnel Cakes and fries at their freakin' yard sale.
That.... is extremely weird. Wow.
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An estate sale, however, is another matter. Seven years after my mom died (at 51) my then-58-year-old dad had an estate sale. My now-wife and I helped out. He put a pricetag on everything in the house and made around $20K. This was pre-Internet and an ad in The Washington Post attracted the masses. He had a high-end grandfather's clock that went, along with a collection of Hummel figurines (thankfully he dumped those when they still had value), an antique piano, etc. At one point, he gave me a paper bag full of money and a deposit slip and told me to count it out and go to the bank.
When you're 27 like I was at the time -- this was 20 years ago -- that has a lasting impact. I've put little value on anything that's not mobile, high-quality, and functional ever since. Everything else is unnecessary.
Your interesting story is far from typical. The wife and I both lost our moms within a few weeks, a couple years back. At that point I talked to two auctioneers that I knew pretty well. My local guy, in a rural area of PA., told me that the average set of household goods, from a typical home in the area, was bringing around $900 at the time. It was so valueless that he would only sell the stuff if it was delivered to a local fire hall where he did his regular weekly auctions. The other auctioneer, in the mother's home town gave much that same story, but said $1500-1600 was more typical. He also refused to auction contents in the home, unless he sold the real estate at the same time, since it was a money loser. The Hummels are interesting too. My grandmother had a great collection. When she passed her boys tried to hand them out to any family member that wanted them. I did an ebay search on one just like I remembered as a kid. It didn't get a bid, and had a $0.99 starting bid figure. A quick look around at closed sales pretty much confirmed that they are now pretty worthless.
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The Hummels are interesting too. My grandmother had a great collection. When she passed her boys tried to hand them out to any family member that wanted them. I did an ebay search on one just like I remembered as a kid. It didn't get a bid, and had a $0.99 starting bid figure. A quick look around at closed sales pretty much confirmed that they are now pretty worthless.
I had a similar experience when I moved from Hillbilly Mountain to the Flatlands. I tried selling my extensive mint-on-card and mint-in-box Star Wars toy collection to raise money and I discovered that all this stuff I had purchased as an "investment" in my financially ignorant past was worth practically nothing. I purchased one action figure twenty-two years ago and it's actually worth less today than what I paid for it back then. Unless you are just collecting stuff for the fun of it, it's a massive waste of time and money.
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$0.99 starting bid figure. A quick look around at closed sales pretty much confirmed that they are now pretty worthless.
Unless you are just collecting stuff for the fun of it, it's a massive waste of time and money.
There's all these isolated cases of people making a find and selling for big money, so people have inflated idea of what things are worth.
There's a few high end collectors who do well, and if you hustle you can make a living with collectibles, but it would just be another job.
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An estate sale, however, is another matter. Seven years after my mom died (at 51) my then-58-year-old dad had an estate sale. My now-wife and I helped out. He put a pricetag on everything in the house and made around $20K. This was pre-Internet and an ad in The Washington Post attracted the masses. He had a high-end grandfather's clock that went, along with a collection of Hummel figurines (thankfully he dumped those when they still had value), an antique piano, etc. At one point, he gave me a paper bag full of money and a deposit slip and told me to count it out and go to the bank.
When you're 27 like I was at the time -- this was 20 years ago -- that has a lasting impact. I've put little value on anything that's not mobile, high-quality, and functional ever since. Everything else is unnecessary.
Your interesting story is far from typical. The wife and I both lost our moms within a few weeks, a couple years back. At that point I talked to two auctioneers that I knew pretty well. My local guy, in a rural area of PA., told me that the average set of household goods, from a typical home in the area, was bringing around $900 at the time. It was so valueless that he would only sell the stuff if it was delivered to a local fire hall where he did his regular weekly auctions. The other auctioneer, in the mother's home town gave much that same story, but said $1500-1600 was more typical. He also refused to auction contents in the home, unless he sold the real estate at the same time, since it was a money loser. The Hummels are interesting too. My grandmother had a great collection. When she passed her boys tried to hand them out to any family member that wanted them. I did an ebay search on one just like I remembered as a kid. It didn't get a bid, and had a $0.99 starting bid figure. A quick look around at closed sales pretty much confirmed that they are now pretty worthless.
That seems to have been my experience, also. When my mom died, we hired someone to sell off the valuables. She found buys for the antique furniture and electronics, but that was it. She refused to try and sell the rest of the stuff, so I took it into my home and sold it on facebook garage sales. But it took a very, very long time! The main issue were "buyers" who would try to get stuff for very cheap, or free. Whenever a seller gives in to these people, he makes it harder for other sellers. I didn't give in to them, in fact, I blocked low ballers on facebook garage sales. There were eventually some things I had to give away, but I gave them to family and friends only. My mom's Norman Rockwell plates had no value at all (as my mom had previously believed), so I gave those to a friend. My mom had been convinced they were highly valuable and even hid them in her home. But there are thousands sold on ebay starting at $1.00.
She also collected Haviland china, but nobody buys them even though they are very old, almost antique.
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I suspect that this is all the result of the big generational shift in the value of "stuff". I've seen multiple articles written about how Millennials don't value stuff and don't want stuff, and so the bottom has dropped out of the antiques market. Anecdotally, my sister and I don't want stuff and our older generation will have to figure out what to do with the lovely things they have accumulated over their lives (antiques, expensive china and silverware, etc.). find it fascinating because I can't explain why we both came to the same conclusion that we want a more minimalist lifestyle when we grew up with a family that went to antique stores and restored old phonographs and whatnot. It isn't that I don't value that stuff, it is just that I don't want any of it for myself. Why? not sure. Why this is a trend for our entire generation? I have no idea.
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I suspect that this is all the result of the big generational shift in the value of "stuff".
Insightful post on a topic that is scaring the hell out of segments of the consumer good sector of our economy. There are entire sports (golf) product lines ( Harley motorcycles) and other categories of consumerism, that are basically screwed, as millennials show zero interest in being associated with them. The antiques market is pretty amazing also. I dealt with a few pieces from my mom's estate that the auctioneer/appraiser lamented, "ya know, a decade ago I was getting 4-5 times what that piece brings today, I'll sell it if you want. But, you're probably best off finding a friend, or relative, that might want it".
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One factor could be that in the current generation nobody will stay with one company in one city anymore. Mobility is necessary for the employee of today and relocating with boxes full of stuff sucks.
Also, if you move, you normally remove a lot of clutter first. So less linear careers -> more moving -> more decluttering -> less stuff and wanting stuff.
That's my hypothesis, any social studies student interested in proving it?
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I suspect that this is all the result of the big generational shift in the value of "stuff".
The antiques market is pretty amazing also. I dealt with a few pieces from my mom's estate that the auctioneer/appraiser lamented, "ya know, a decade ago I was getting 4-5 times what that piece brings today, I'll sell it if you want. But, you're probably best off finding a friend, or relative, that might want it".
I keep hearing that antiques are losing value, hopefully they're referring to the ugly ones, not the well made ones. Also, it breaks my heart how much nice hardwood is probably being wasted
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I'm not an expert, but in my experience antiques are not losing value if the term antique is being used correctly, as in ~100 year old or older high-quality, hand-made items of real collector value. These are (generally) not losing value, the problem i see is people have been using "antique" and "vintage" VERY loosely these days. I mean, seriously i see people post stuff for sale all the damn time now like "antique fisher price toys!" and you look at the photos, and its like from the '70s. "Vintage baseball cards!" Nope, those are from the late '90s, moron, nice try. Not saying newer things can't have collector value, but mass-produced commercialized made-to-be-collectables ("Collectors Edition" right on the box!!) are not antiques.
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I suspect that this is all the result of the big generational shift in the value of "stuff". I've seen multiple articles written about how Millennials don't value stuff and don't want stuff, and so the bottom has dropped out of the antiques market. Anecdotally, my sister and I don't want stuff and our older generation will have to figure out what to do with the lovely things they have accumulated over their lives (antiques, expensive china and silverware, etc.). find it fascinating because I can't explain why we both came to the same conclusion that we want a more minimalist lifestyle when we grew up with a family that went to antique stores and restored old phonographs and whatnot. It isn't that I don't value that stuff, it is just that I don't want any of it for myself. Why? not sure. Why this is a trend for our entire generation? I have no idea.
I suspect that part of it is an obsession with the newest stuff from the current generation. People on the forum are largely immune to the trend, but most Millennials see stuff as quickly obsolete and disposable. Hence very few people repairing stuff anymore and people getting new smartphones every six months.
There's actually a lot of older technology that still perfectly fine to use. I still play video game systems from fifteen years ago because they work perfectly, they are a lot of fun, you can get games for it for $2 a piece on eBay, and they never require any hardware or software upgrades. Plus nobody spies on me while I'm playing the games, because the system isn't connected to the internet. Millennials tend to laugh at me about it, but I feel pretty good about my choice.
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I'll brain dump some more, since this thread has turned to page 2. At Estate Sales, Everything is being sold, and it usually happens inside and out. The recent Estate Sale I referenced above is a good example of some of my observations.
Household items like sheets, linens and towels and all types of kitchenware sell very well, as do children's games and toys in decent condition. Partyware sells, as do small appliances. Office supplies. Outdoor furniture and garden stuff sell in the summertime. Man stuff like tools, radios, small motors, paint and heavy duty cleaning stuff sell. Got a pressure washer? Gone. Bicycles? Ditto.
Any category that's unique to Estate Sales does well. Cleaning supplies (including laundry detergent and window cleaner), disposable kitchen storage (foil, ziplocs, foil, wax paper, paper towels). Anything bulk that's identifiable as coming from Costco such as what's left of TP, paper towels, cleaning wipes, and kleenex multi-packs sell, even if it's been opened. And OMG, food pantry staples sell, as long as they're not bulging cans of weird stuff.
Desks, bookcases and storage-type furniture sell. Kid's stuff like highchairs, pack'n plays, baby baths, changing tables, bassinets will all sell if condition is good and price is low.
Books, clothes, upholstered furniture and collectibles totally blow. So do Christmas decorations in the middle of summer. If you have them to get rid of, price them super cheap. Use category signs, such as "All Books 2/$1.00" and "All Clothes $1.00". We did sell little girl's party dresses for $5.00 each, but we hung them from the canopy, with a price tag on each one.
Now, the difference between a yawner and a blowout is a series of steps.
- Organization - group like things together.
- Get shit off the floor. Beg and borrow all the tables you can lay your hands on. The higher up, the higher the price, I say.
- Pricing - Tag as much as is humanly possible. Use the smallest Avery-type return address labels and cut them in thirds. They're cheaper than the Dollar Store price tags and more customize-able. For linens, wrap sets with blue or masking tape and write the description and price right on the tape.
- Pricing, Part 2 - If you can't price it, print out signs to the effect of "The more you buy, the more you'll save. Bring your selections to the check-out table." It lets people know your prices will be reasonable.
- Lots of great signs. (My dollar store sells neon color posterboards 2/$1 and sets of punch-out letters for a buck apiece.)
- Use Open House type A-Frames if you can get your hands on them. I store the library's book sale signs between sales and make good use of them for other purposes, in exchange for storing them. I just tape the Estate Sales right over them. Know a realtor or better still, a former realtor? Borrow theirs, but take good care of them.
- If you have expensive things, print out an ad for the same item on EBay (or wherever). Attach it to the item. Show their price, then your lower price. This works well for high-end stuff. People will pay more if they know the value. We did this for high-end cookware and it worked well.
- Place ads everywhere they're free. Craigslist, NextDoor, FB, etc. Include pictures wherever possible, especially if you have good stuff.
- Have an obvious entry/check-out point. I use the kind of pop-up canopy that you see at every soccer game, and NO, it's not for sale, sorry. This is where your check-out table will be, plus a chair, also NFS, but you won't be sitting in it much.
- You and your helper(s) should all wear the same color shirt. Makes people think you're pros, and that you're everywhere. We use leftovers from an annual community event that gives out free t-shirts. Nobody reads them but they see the color. We used red this time, but neon green works well, too.
- Have plenty of change. Also make sure you keep lots of water and quick snacks on hand, because you'll be too busy to eat.
- Have bags and boxes for people to load their stuff into.
- Have a FREE box and replenish it as the day goes on.
- Bargain back! Have fun with this and feel free to defend your prices. Sometimes I ask people what price will make them happy. Then I say, "Well (double that) is the price that will make me happy. Can we meet in the middle?" Works so often it's hilarious.
- Have a plan for what to do with the leftover stuff. My favorite strategy is to make signs that say "50% Off Everything". Use them on the last day or in the last few hours of a one-day sale. What little is left goes to GW.
Is this a shit-ton of work? Yes, but sometimes it's the best option. In the last few years, we did it when my parents died (sold the house that day, too), when we cleaned out my MIL's houses prior to sale (sold one to a neighbor a couple of weeks later, kept the other.) We did another when we were selling DH's house and consolidating both of our households. Then, last month I did the one described above. It's a lot shitload of work, but we made over $2k at each one, sometimes much, much more*. More important, we got rid of shit, and it went to people who will use and enjoy it.
Amusing note - I sold a bunch of nice golf gear to a couple of millennials. I congratulated them on shopping at an Estate Sale. They were so darn cute, I wanted to hug 'em. Of course, I told them about MMM. Oh, and one of my helpers was the owner's millennial grandkid who was really into the sale. When I asked about it, they said their dad took them to estate/garage sales every other Friday after school. Love it!
Random sidebar- I bought a lot of 14 small Hummel figurines, still in boxes, at an Estate Sale that was being held at an Open House (which is a great way to sell a house, BTW) a couple of months ago. They were new in boxes, but afterwards, I wondered why the hell I bought them. DH was very amused, because he was sure I wasted ten bucks.
I put them on the check-out table at this sale and sold them for $5.00 each. Sonofagun, they all went. I did give someone a discount for purchasing multiples, but I turned my $10 into a $50 profit, for the win. Still, collectibles don't sell. My theory is that these sold because they were new in box and only $5.00.
TL;DR: Garage sale with random crap? Don't bother. Estate sale? Might well be worth your time.
*When we did the Estate Sale at my MIL's second home, we found over $11k IN CASH stashed in various places throughout the house. Probably would have missed that if we had just hired someone to haul it all away or dumped everything. Just sayin'.
Oh, and we got $11k cash for her car, too.
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If your goal is to have a nice time socializing with neighbors, then do as you will. If your goal is to maximize your time and money, then you donate the stuff from your garage sale and receive the tax deduction.
Doesn't this assume you itemize?
I don't have a mortgage so I use the standardized deduction. Donating to charity will not gain me a tax deduction, it will just declutter. I donate anyway, but that's because my expected hourly return form a garage sale is low.
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I'm not an expert, but in my experience antiques are not losing value if the term antique is being used correctly, as in ~100 year old or older high-quality, hand-made items of real collector value. These are (generally) not losing value, the problem i see is people have been using "antique" and "vintage" VERY loosely these days. I mean, seriously i see people post stuff for sale all the damn time now like "antique fisher price toys!" and you look at the photos, and its like from the '70s. "Vintage baseball cards!" Nope, those are from the late '90s, moron, nice try. Not saying newer things can't have collector value, but mass-produced commercialized made-to-be-collectables ("Collectors Edition" right on the box!!) are not antiques.
Interesting point. There is also the issue of reproductions. When the MIL passed, she had a great Cape Cod that was full of interesting "antiques" including things like a spinning wheel, huge brass log holder and tool set for the fireplace, a brass whiskey still, and similar items. Nobody in the family gave much thought to a house full of antiques, but everybody was pretty shocked to hear an appraiser walk through and note that except for one or two pieces, everything was fake, and nothing older than 1950.
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I'm not an expert, but in my experience antiques are not losing value if the term antique is being used correctly, as in ~100 year old or older high-quality, hand-made items of real collector value. These are (generally) not losing value, the problem i see is people have been using "antique" and "vintage" VERY loosely these days. I mean, seriously i see people post stuff for sale all the damn time now like "antique fisher price toys!" and you look at the photos, and its like from the '70s. "Vintage baseball cards!" Nope, those are from the late '90s, moron, nice try. Not saying newer things can't have collector value, but mass-produced commercialized made-to-be-collectables ("Collectors Edition" right on the box!!) are not antiques.
Great point. When I think antique I think "handsome solid wood furniture" but the reality is they try to pass of a lot of junk as antiques. Antique store often means "junk store"
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Garage sales just aren't worth the time. I've tried them a couple of times, but didn't make more than a couple of hundred bucks -- just not worth the time and effort invested. I now regularly clean out bags of stuff and drop it at the charity on my way to work. I get a receipt, they get the cash from my stuff. And that cash gets cycled back into my community in the form of grants to other non-profits I want to support. Boom.
When I have nicer, unique items (furniture, skis, tools) I advertise them on Craigslist or local Facebook selling sites. People rarely dicker on price as long as I am reasonable about it to begin with.
I also don't lift heavy stuff anymore and I don't have a truck. I'd rather call a charity that really needs my stuff and let them do the hauling.
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I'm not an expert, but in my experience antiques are not losing value if the term antique is being used correctly, as in ~100 year old or older high-quality, hand-made items of real collector value. These are (generally) not losing value, the problem i see is people have been using "antique" and "vintage" VERY loosely these days. I mean, seriously i see people post stuff for sale all the damn time now like "antique fisher price toys!" and you look at the photos, and its like from the '70s. "Vintage baseball cards!" Nope, those are from the late '90s, moron, nice try. Not saying newer things can't have collector value, but mass-produced commercialized made-to-be-collectables ("Collectors Edition" right on the box!!) are not antiques.
Goddamn I hate it when I'm right. So yesterday a lady posted on the local FaceBook buy and sell group asking if anyone bought old coins and bills, I do so I wrote to her and asked what she had. It was a mostly worthless pile of paper money from South America and Southeast Asia, they were all from the 1980s to 1990s, too old to take to a currency exchange, too new and not in good enough condition to have much collector value. She proceeded to argue with me and tell me that she got "an offer of $50 each bill" (complete bs) and that I didn't know what I was talking about and that "these are ANTIQUES!" (No, they aren't) Didn't matter how much actual knowledge I had about them, she didn't want to hear it, I'm still pissed about the whole thing, how can someone be both completely uninformed AND so sure of themselves? Mostly posting to vent about the whole thing
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Goddamn I hate it when I'm right. So yesterday a lady posted on the local FaceBook buy and sell group asking if anyone bought old coins and bills, I do so I wrote to her and asked what she had. It was a mostly worthless pile of paper money from South America and Southeast Asia, they were all from the 1980s to 1990s, too old to take to a currency exchange, too new and not in good enough condition to have much collector value. She proceeded to argue with me and tell me that she got "an offer of $50 each bill"
Then, tell her to take it back to the person who offered her $50 for each bill. If she can get that, shouldn't be a problem for her to just go back to whoever gave her that offer.
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Goddamn I hate it when I'm right. So yesterday a lady posted on the local FaceBook buy and sell group asking if anyone bought old coins and bills, I do so I wrote to her and asked what she had. It was a mostly worthless pile of paper money from South America and Southeast Asia, they were all from the 1980s to 1990s, too old to take to a currency exchange, too new and not in good enough condition to have much collector value. She proceeded to argue with me and tell me that she got "an offer of $50 each bill"
Then, tell her to take it back to the person who offered her $50 for each bill. If she can get that, shouldn't be a problem for her to just go back to whoever gave her that offer.
Yep, that's exactly what I told her, and how I know she was full of shit, because she eventually offered the bills to me for $20 for all when it was clear I knew what I was talking about, but even that is too much, so I declined.
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how can someone be both completely uninformed AND so sure of themselves? Mostly posting to vent about the whole thing
You just described half of the adult population in the USA, when it comes to what really matters like, politics, the economy, the environment, and science. You said it was just a rant, and I doubt you're surprised in the least that this dolt was playing the same game when it comes to a bunch of worthless paper? I'm sure it was incredibly frustrating, but it's become epidemic. We are degrading into a society where our "individualism" has now extended to the delusion that our thoughts and beliefs are of tremendous value, and correct, regardless of reality. Facts, science, education................. all meaningless. All that matters is that you have a belief, and there is a large group of easily accessible dolts out there that agree with you. It could be as simple as telling a neighbor, or mentioning on a chat that, "I have a guy coming to the house to look at a bunch of old foreign paper money I have had laying around since the 80s". If another dolt says, "oh, don't let him rip you off! Some of those bills are worth big money. Nothing to get $50 for the right one!" That's all it takes. One dolt has a thought, another confirms, and it's settled fact.
I just had this happen with a contractor who did some work for me. He decided, out of the blue, that I needed to be educated about how global warming was a hoax. He opens with "Al Gore uses 20x the electric of a typical home in his neighborhood". Well, in the world of dolts, that's all he needed. He knew Gore was in the media of late. His favorite source of propaganda told him about Al's electric bill, and he has a reaffirmation of what he, and any other intelligent person, already knew. Trying to present this dolt with any scientific rationale would be a waste of time. The same situation would occur if you met with your seller, and presented her with a current published guide, listed her notes as essentially worthless. She would immediately dismiss it as being wrong, and a tool you were using to defraud her. I can't count how many times I've heard the line, "well, if I can't get what it's worth, I'll just hold on to it". The rural area I lived most of my life in was full of cool old things, cars, trucks, tractors, etc... rotting away in the yard, since the dolt owner was waiting for somebody to show up and give then what "It's worth".
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how can someone be both completely uninformed AND so sure of themselves? Mostly posting to vent about the whole thing
You just described half of the adult population in the USA, when it comes to what really matters like, politics, the economy, the environment, and science. You said it was just a rant, and I doubt you're surprised in the least that this dolt was playing the same game when it comes to a bunch of worthless paper? I'm sure it was incredibly frustrating, but it's become epidemic. We are degrading into a society where our "individualism" has now extended to the delusion that our thoughts and beliefs are of tremendous value, and correct, regardless of reality. Facts, science, education................. all meaningless. All that matters is that you have a belief, and there is a large group of easily accessible dolts out there that agree with you. It could be as simple as telling a neighbor, or mentioning on a chat that, "I have a guy coming to the house to look at a bunch of old foreign paper money I have had laying around since the 80s". If another dolt says, "oh, don't let him rip you off! Some of those bills are worth big money. Nothing to get $50 for the right one!" That's all it takes. One dolt has a thought, another confirms, and it's settled fact.
I just had this happen with a contractor who did some work for me. He decided, out of the blue, that I needed to be educated about how global warming was a hoax. He opens with "Al Gore uses 20x the electric of a typical home in his neighborhood". Well, in the world of dolts, that's all he needed. He knew Gore was in the media of late. His favorite source of propaganda told him about Al's electric bill, and he has a reaffirmation of what he, and any other intelligent person, already knew. Trying to present this dolt with any scientific rationale would be a waste of time. The same situation would occur if you met with your seller, and presented her with a current published guide, listed her notes as essentially worthless. She would immediately dismiss it as being wrong, and a tool you were using to defraud her. I can't count how many times I've heard the line, "well, if I can't get what it's worth, I'll just hold on to it". The rural area I lived most of my life in was full of cool old things, cars, trucks, tractors, etc... rotting away in the yard, since the dolt owner was waiting for somebody to show up and give then what "It's worth".
You nailed it, paddedhat. But then, I expect you might believe me to be a dolt too, so what's a person to do, lol? Believing that one is the only person of rational intelligence in a sea of "dolts" is no way to enjoy this journey we're all on. You may consider me an idiot, someone else may think me a savant. Who is right? Does it matter? For that matter, if JAYSLOL knew they were going to be right, why didn't they trust their gut, take a pass and do something more enjoyable with their time? (Rhetorical question.)
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how can someone be both completely uninformed AND so sure of themselves? Mostly posting to vent about the whole thing
You just described half of the adult population in the USA, when it comes to what really matters like, politics, the economy, the environment, and science. You said it was just a rant, and I doubt you're surprised in the least that this dolt was playing the same game when it comes to a bunch of worthless paper? I'm sure it was incredibly frustrating, but it's become epidemic. We are degrading into a society where our "individualism" has now extended to the delusion that our thoughts and beliefs are of tremendous value, and correct, regardless of reality. Facts, science, education................. all meaningless. All that matters is that you have a belief, and there is a large group of easily accessible dolts out there that agree with you. It could be as simple as telling a neighbor, or mentioning on a chat that, "I have a guy coming to the house to look at a bunch of old foreign paper money I have had laying around since the 80s". If another dolt says, "oh, don't let him rip you off! Some of those bills are worth big money. Nothing to get $50 for the right one!" That's all it takes. One dolt has a thought, another confirms, and it's settled fact.
I just had this happen with a contractor who did some work for me. He decided, out of the blue, that I needed to be educated about how global warming was a hoax. He opens with "Al Gore uses 20x the electric of a typical home in his neighborhood". Well, in the world of dolts, that's all he needed. He knew Gore was in the media of late. His favorite source of propaganda told him about Al's electric bill, and he has a reaffirmation of what he, and any other intelligent person, already knew. Trying to present this dolt with any scientific rationale would be a waste of time. The same situation would occur if you met with your seller, and presented her with a current published guide, listed her notes as essentially worthless. She would immediately dismiss it as being wrong, and a tool you were using to defraud her. I can't count how many times I've heard the line, "well, if I can't get what it's worth, I'll just hold on to it". The rural area I lived most of my life in was full of cool old things, cars, trucks, tractors, etc... rotting away in the yard, since the dolt owner was waiting for somebody to show up and give then what "It's worth".
Yep, you absolutely nailed it. I think everyone including myself are guilty of this kind of thinking from time to time, I mean, EVERYONE thinks they are the good driver and that everyone else on the road is terrible sometimes, right? I try to work on that, and I think one of the most important things we can try to instil in the next generation is the ability to consult instead of debate and the ability to admit when we are wrong.
And actually when i was messaging back and forth with that seller, i sent her screenshots of an identical bill to one that she had, but in mint condition that sold on eBay for $5. This is how the conversation went her: "But mine is ANTIQUE!" Me: "No, yours is WORN, it's the same year as the one i sent you" Her "But my 90 year old grandpa had it since he was little" Me: "Well, he's a fucking time traveller then" (ok fine, i didn't actually say this), what i actually said was "Sorry thats not what you want to hear, but i always give my honest opinion on a collection wether its worth a lot or a little. I don't low-ball people, but i also know enough to not to overpay"
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^^And I think you gave her an most excellent and diplomatic answer.^^ Still not sure why you went to her anyway. Thrill of the hunt, perhaps? I totally suffer from that disease.
And hey, since you clearly know more on this topic, may I please ask a couple of questions? 《Pause...Okay then, here goes...》
I collect the coins from the library's passive book sale and dump them in a Coinstar machine once a month. It weeds out the silver coins, which is nice, but also the foreign currency. I've got a pile of random coins from all over the world, including a few euros, plus some silver dimes and quarters. What can I do with this stuff? I'd love to convert it to spendable US currency for the library.
Next, MIL used to be a world traveler and has a box containing neatly labeled packets of coins and small bills from all over the world. We've just been ignoring it, and idly wondering about donating it to a teacher or school. I am positive it's just old (but not antique) random, low-value, well circulated currency. Any thoughts beyond continuing to ignore it?
Thanks!
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You nailed it, paddedhat. But then, I expect you might believe me to be a dolt too, so what's a person to do, lol? Believing that one is the only person of rational intelligence in a sea of "dolts" is no way to enjoy this journey we're all on. You may consider me an idiot, someone else may think me a savant. Who is right? Does it matter? For that matter, if JAYSLOL knew they were going to be right, why didn't they trust their gut, take a pass and do something more enjoyable with their time? (Rhetorical question.)
Well, we have argued about issues in the past, and I have no interest in doing so again. That said, you have no basis for assuming that I find myself the only rational person is any setting. In fact, on many threads here, where there is a lot of high caliber input on topics like finance, I am very clear that I am no match for many contributors. OTOH, paying attention to what they have said, and directly asked a few for additional advice on PMs, has quite literally, directly resulting in a personal net worth that I would of never imagined possible just 5-6 years ago. Now the opposite of that, in keeping with the topic at hand, are the many friends and relatives I know that don't invest, since only "fools play the market, and it never ends well unless you are rich". They KNOW this, and find zero need, nor suffer from any intellectual curiosity, that might cause then to educate themselves to the contrary.
I do however believe that the point I make is becoming an issue at a crisis level, in the states, and even though it is a point of ridicule for everybody from foreign nations to or comedians, it's far from amusing. The fact that I was totally unaware that JAYSOL presented the seller with verifiable values, as I suggested, and she would not allow it to affect her "knowledge" on the topic, confirms my observations on the topic. Oddly, between posts I grabbed the mail. I found a new Atlantic magazine with the front cover headline of "How America Went Haywire", an article about how America lost it's mind, and a critical mass of us are untethered from reality.
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You nailed it, paddedhat. But then, I expect you might believe me to be a dolt too, so what's a person to do, lol? Believing that one is the only person of rational intelligence in a sea of "dolts" is no way to enjoy this journey we're all on. You may consider me an idiot, someone else may think me a savant. Who is right? Does it matter? For that matter, if JAYSLOL knew they were going to be right, why didn't they trust their gut, take a pass and do something more enjoyable with their time? (Rhetorical question.)
Well, we have argued about issues in the past, and I have no interest in doing so again. That said, you have no basis for assuming that I find myself the only rational person is any setting. In fact, on many threads here, where there is a lot of high caliber input on topics like finance, I am very clear that I am no match for many contributors. OTOH, paying attention to what they have said, and directly asked a few for additional advice on PMs, has quite literally, directly resulting in a personal net worth that I would of never imagined possible just 5-6 years ago. Now the opposite of that, in keeping with the topic at hand, are the many friends and relatives I know that don't invest, since only "fools play the market, and it never ends well unless you are rich". They KNOW this, and find zero need, nor suffer from any intellectual curiosity, that might cause then to educate themselves to the contrary.
I do however believe that the point I make is becoming an issue at a crisis level, in the states, and even though it is a point of ridicule for everybody from foreign nations to or comedians, it's far from amusing. The fact that I was totally unaware that JAYSOL presented the seller with verifiable values, as I suggested, and she would not allow it to affect her "knowledge" on the topic, confirms my observations on the topic. Oddly, between posts I grabbed the mail. I found a new Atlantic magazine with the front cover headline of "How America Went Haywire", an article about how America lost it's mind, and a critical mass of us are untethered from reality.
Easy, paddedhat. Though we may disagree on some issues, I KNOW you're not a dolt. I am somewhat less certain of my own standing on the Dolt-O-Meter, depending on the topic being discussed and who's minding the meter. I was responding to the topic at hand. I don't have enough bandwidth to solve this obviously complex issue, but I do have enough to recognize its futility. It's a lovely day out, can we all go outside and play? If that confirms my Dolt Status in your estimation, well at least that would make me a Dolt who's FIRE ;-). Things could always be worse.
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Perfect. This thread has reduced my Mustachian guilt for not putting forth the effort to do a yard sale as we declutter this summer. We donate all our junk and sell the more valuable items on Craigslist or Amazon.
To be honest, though, I take a strange pleasure in wheeling & dealing, so I worry I am missing out on some entertainment. I used to love visiting yard sales and haggling, especially back when I had next to no money and truly needed a deal. Now I enjoy the idea of hanging out in the yard with my game face on, striking deals with my cheapskate neighbors. Maybe some day we'll make it happen.
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^^And I think you gave her an most excellent and diplomatic answer.^^ Still not sure why you went to her anyway. Thrill of the hunt, perhaps? I totally suffer from that disease.
And hey, since you clearly know more on this topic, may I please ask a couple of questions? 《Pause...Okay then, here goes...》
I collect the coins from the library's passive book sale and dump them in a Coinstar machine once a month. It weeds out the silver coins, which is nice, but also the foreign currency. I've got a pile of random coins from all over the world, including a few euros, plus some silver dimes and quarters. What can I do with this stuff? I'd love to convert it to spendable US currency for the library.
Next, MIL used to be a world traveler and has a box containing neatly labeled packets of coins and small bills from all over the world. We've just been ignoring it, and idly wondering about donating it to a teacher or school. I am positive it's just old (but not antique) random, low-value, well circulated currency. Any thoughts beyond continuing to ignore it?
Thanks!
Yep, thrill of the hunt is right, its a full blown addiction for me, haha.
I'd bring the silver into a coin shop, make sure they know you know it's silver and ask them what they pay compared to spot price. If they don't give you a specific amount or percentage (personally i wouldn't accept less than 95% of spot, but your local market may vary), then go somewhere else. As for the random foreign coins, you are probably right, they will likely most fall into the too new or too worn to be collectable, but also too old or of too small value to efficiently convert into USD category. I usually go one of 2 routes with this stuff, either sell in small batches (50 - 100 coins per box/lot) at auction (put them in an old wooden box or jewelry box to make them look cooler and more valuable. Or i post them online and see what kind of offers you get. You can always pm me if you have a question about a specific coin, and keep an eye out for anything that may be older, more rare or silver/gold among the foreign coins, you never know! Pretty much all countries have had gold and silver as coinage at some point, and most have been producing commemorative gold and silver coins to this day, so keep an eye for those.
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Perfect. This thread has reduced my Mustachian guilt for not putting forth the effort to do a yard sale as we declutter this summer. We donate all our junk and sell the more valuable items on Craigslist or Amazon.
This is the right way to get rid of things. If you want some cheap entertainment and a few laughs, host a garage sale. The last garage sale I had, was a combination sale with a friend. She was selling music CDs for a dollar, most were new, unopened. This guy comes around and whines that he usually gets CDs for a quarter. He wanted Elvis Greatest hits. But it would cost 75 cents more than what he wanted to pay. He haggled and whined; she wouldn't give in. Then he drove off in a nice, new truck.
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^^And I think you gave her an most excellent and diplomatic answer.^^ Still not sure why you went to her anyway. Thrill of the hunt, perhaps? I totally suffer from that disease.
And hey, since you clearly know more on this topic, may I please ask a couple of questions? 《Pause...Okay then, here goes...》
I collect the coins from the library's passive book sale and dump them in a Coinstar machine once a month. It weeds out the silver coins, which is nice, but also the foreign currency. I've got a pile of random coins from all over the world, including a few euros, plus some silver dimes and quarters. What can I do with this stuff? I'd love to convert it to spendable US currency for the library.
Next, MIL used to be a world traveler and has a box containing neatly labeled packets of coins and small bills from all over the world. We've just been ignoring it, and idly wondering about donating it to a teacher or school. I am positive it's just old (but not antique) random, low-value, well circulated currency. Any thoughts beyond continuing to ignore it?
Thanks!
Yep, thrill of the hunt is right, its a full blown addiction for me, haha.
I'd bring the silver into a coin shop, make sure they know you know it's silver and ask them what they pay compared to spot price. If they don't give you a specific amount or percentage (personally i wouldn't accept less than 95% of spot, but your local market may vary), then go somewhere else. As for the random foreign coins, you are probably right, they will likely most fall into the too new or too worn to be collectable, but also too old or of too small value to efficiently convert into USD category. I usually go one of 2 routes with this stuff, either sell in small batches (50 - 100 coins per box/lot) at auction (put them in an old wooden box or jewelry box to make them look cooler and more valuable. Or i post them online and see what kind of offers you get. You can always pm me if you have a question about a specific coin, and keep an eye out for anything that may be older, more rare or silver/gold among the foreign coins, you never know! Pretty much all countries have had gold and silver as coinage at some point, and most have been producing commemorative gold and silver coins to this day, so keep an eye for those.
Thank you, JAYSOL! I only have 9 quarters and 5 dimes so far. It's not a lot, but every little bit helps the library.
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Ok ok ... I'm going to admit this here ... we are having a garage sale over an entire weekend (ugh) we won't make a ton of cash but it helps get rid of some things and I sent letters to all the neighbors to see if they would have sales too so I can advertise it as a block sale.
My husband likes the idea of a garage sale to get rid of things... but the ton of work not so much lol...
I will be organized, I will have everything tagged and on tables and prices are always "To sell". And afterwards we'll see lol... but I can imagine I won't mind lazing around the weekend on my front porch saying hello to people and seeing if they will take some stuff off my hands ...
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After having a yard sale last year, I'm in team "just give it all to Goodwill." We didn't need to spend a bunch of time pricing stuff because it was easy enough to make a few signs saying "Books 50¢", "Clothes $2", etc., and there wasn't much to price after that. Even so, I did spend a good portion of a nice day sitting outside waiting for people to come through and buy stuff, all for on the order of $100 when all was said and done.
Even for the stuff we did manage to sell, we would have done almost as well financially by giving it to Goodwill. The reason is simple: Goodwill charges more than most garage sales. Goodwill might charge $2-3 for a book that we had priced at 50¢, or $6 for a shirt that we had priced at $2. When you donate to Goodwill, you get to deduct the thrift store value. $2 times my tax bracket is pretty darn close to 50¢.
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I'm debating about the yard sale . I going through separation, and decluttering. Not like I have a single thing that is worth a lot of money, but a steadily increasing pile of stuff by the door. Most of it pretty pragmatic stuff (folding chair, adult and kids books, puzzles and kid's games, toys household items, small electronics and cords, etc. I might do a yard sale, in the laziest way possible (though I will use tables), and then take it to charity. It would be nice to make a few bucks regardless.
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I have done garages sales, moving sales, estate sales, put a free sign in yard, Craigslist to sell, dump at thrift store or thrift store picks up with truck. It really depends on how much time you have, what effort you feel like putting into it, etc. I have also done this for a few friends that were hoarders and downsizing. Basically they moved out and I sold what was left in the house with the provision they could not come to the sale and I was pricing stuff. WE spent a week when we first retired pricing stuff and the day of the sale had 3 people selling. I made them 1800 and they were very happy. The rest went to charity. I also helped a good friend have 4 moving sales and she was happy with the outcome. When my parents downsized my Mom and I had sales every summer for 2 years and then the rest to charity. I was a SAHM during that time and it was fun. Fast forward to when I went back to work f.t. and had little kids so just gave stuff away. It depends if you enjoy it and how much time yo have at the moment.
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Has anyone considered that perhaps these "super-rich" people got that way because the recognize the value of a dollar? Warren Buffett got rich a nickel at a time. One dollar for a used item is a dollar they wouldn't otherwise have.
Food for thought.
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Drifterrider ... that is my theory ... one million things sold $1 is still one million dollars :)
That being said - yard sale this weekend netted about $250 which was fine. Did get rid of a lot of clutter AND had picked up some stuff on side of road that was sold for some $$ the rest was left on the side of the road with a free sign (and was gone this morning!)
So I suppose I could have done other stuff this weekend but I was fine with making some money and hanging out at home (not spending money)!
I wouldn't do them every year but what I did like was that we had a bunch of repeat buyers from previous years ... that was hilarious who all bought more stuff. And to cap it off was the final sale on Sunday an older man (mid 50) came on his bike (Mustachian for sure!) and bought a full size solid wood bed frame and rails for $20 AND CARRIED IT HOME ON HIS BIKE!!! ... that was stellar!!!
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Thanks JAYSLOL, had not thought to put my pile of random Euro coins on ebay. I and half my coworkers all have small piles of coins from across the pond that you really cant do anything with. Can you do a bulk random set of coins or do you have to make a pretense of them being collectible?
re garage sales: I have never had the necessary volume of 'stuff' required to have one. CL or Goodwill for the win.
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It's always hit or miss with auctions, sometimes I put together a box of say just coins from Mexico, and they sell great, sometimes not. I've also just lumped in a ton of coins together and sold them like that, again sometime they sell well sometime not so much. I use a local auction house rather than eBay
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Some people just want to do it for the fun of it. I have some friends and relatives who are very well-to-do, but either have had or want to have yard sales. If anything, it's them having some fun with the idea, being eco-friendly by reselling vs. throwing away, or even being frugal.
I know it's not the mustachian way, but someone who owns a 10k sqft house can still be frugal, it's just in a different ballpark. They may buy a lightly used boat instead of a new one, or one a few feet shorter with a swim platform to get the same overall length as a bigger one would be, or other things like that. They may do/buy things that mustachians would consider to be a trajedy, but if they manage to spend less than their peers, they are still embracing the concept of frugality.
It's not that different than some of my side hustles. I don't make a fortune flipping broken computers that I find for sale/free, but I do hone my skills and have something to do when I get the urge to build/disassemble a computer. If I factor in my time, it's 100% not worth it. But I enjoy doing it, and if I can make ~$30-$50 each then why not! Economically it really has zero impact, but it gives me a little bit of extra fun money, and is almost a game to see how much I can make now. YTD I'm up ~$534, but have ~$150 of computer inventory and another $150 worth of peripherals (external hard drives mostly) plus a large box of misc. electronics that I'm going to sell. I also got a really cool Lenovo Yoga 2 touchscreen tablet/laptop thing that I fixed in 20 mins (software issue) and have been using for the last 6 months. So really I'm probably up a little over $1k for something I do when I'm bored and can do in front of the TV.
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Spending 200$ on a blender instead of 600$ does not make you frugal. I can acknowledge there is some range or grey area on the frugality meter simply being better than your peers does not make you frugal. You may run 12min/mile while your friend does 20min/mile; in comparison you are faster but you are not fast.
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Spending 200$ on a blender instead of 600$ does not make you frugal. I can acknowledge there is some range or grey area on the frugality meter simply being better than your peers does not make you frugal. You may run 12min/mile while your friend does 20min/mile; in comparison you are faster but you are not fast.
It’s just kind of funny when you think about it though - apparently the wealthy can’t win here. It’s weird if they have a garage sale, but if they just throw it in the trash instead then it would 100% show up on the “most anti mustachian thing you witnessed today” thread.
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Spending 200$ on a blender instead of 600$ does not make you frugal. I can acknowledge there is some range or grey area on the frugality meter simply being better than your peers does not make you frugal. You may run 12min/mile while your friend does 20min/mile; in comparison you are faster but you are not fast.
It’s just kind of funny when you think about it though - apparently the wealthy can’t win here. It’s weird if they have a garage sale, but if they just throw it in the trash instead then it would 100% show up on the “most anti mustachian thing you witnessed today” thread.
I don't actually think it's anti-mustachian for them to have a garage sale, I just happen to think it's funny (this goes under the "and comedy" part of the forum) they would chose to do so. And there's a much better option, donate the junk to charity and get a tax write off which for the type of person with a $3m home is probably worth as much or even more than what they'd make at a garage sale anyways.
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I don't go to garage sales because the only things I would buy there I already have too many of. Kids clothes we get oodles of hand me downs, both grandmas enjoy buying, and the odd 90% off clearance item I find. Toys, we get far too many for Christmas and birthdays. Kitchen gadgets I have no desire for.
I tried helping my mom with a garage sale as a teen and hours of work ended in an overcast day and we sold one old puzzle for a quarter. We have very little that anyone would buy, and because we have been given so much from others I would feel guilty to make money off it. So anything that survived my boys gets handed to a friend if they want it or taken to Goodwill. If it is too big to fit in the car then it goes by the curb with a Free sign and I have never had something not taken.
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Spending 200$ on a blender instead of 600$ does not make you frugal. I can acknowledge there is some range or grey area on the frugality meter simply being better than your peers does not make you frugal. You may run 12min/mile while your friend does 20min/mile; in comparison you are faster but you are not fast.
It’s just kind of funny when you think about it though - apparently the wealthy can’t win here. It’s weird if they have a garage sale, but if they just throw it in the trash instead then it would 100% show up on the “most anti mustachian thing you witnessed today” thread.
Wealthy people can absolutely be frugal see www.mrmoneymustache.com (http://www.mrmoneymustache.com). You were saying people can be considered frugal for buying a boat that is smaller and second hand. I say that is wrong.
I know it's not the mustachian way, but someone who owns a 10k sqft house can still be frugal, it's just in a different ballpark. They may buy a lightly used boat instead of a new one, or one a few feet shorter with a swim platform to get the same overall length as a bigger one would be, or other things like that. They may do/buy things that mustachians would consider to be a trajedy, but if they manage to spend less than their peers, they are still embracing the concept of frugality.
Buying 20$ dish towels from Williams Sonoma vs 40$ dish towels from Saks is not being frugal.
"...Embracing the concept..."
(http://i.imgur.com/TUPDUkA.gif)
If a wealthy person sells things at a yard sale, on CL or donates them for the tax benefit - GREAT!!! If someone owns a 10k sqft home and a boat* I am going to basically exclude them from being frugal; they might be great people, a huge asset to the community all while being smart about the nickles and dimes but over all they are not frugal.
boat* if the boat is objectively cheap and/or can be pulled behind a bike then I might be open to qualifying my statement. Similarly with the home size; if it were inherited or you run an Amazon fulfillment center out of four fifths of it then maybe a qualification should be added.
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Wealthy people can absolutely be frugal see www.mrmoneymustache.com (http://www.mrmoneymustache.com).
ROFLMAO