October 15, 2016
2 new photos uploaded just now (October 15, 2016 at 01:33PM).
If this post is fresh, take a look at my photostream here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/
If this post is old, look at the latest photo from this upload batch here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/30342112675
May 1, 2016
Here is a list of what we got the first 3 times we went yardsaling this year (NOT yesterday’s huge take):
20160305: 2016 Expedition #1: (Spontaneous expedition #1–just one sale):
* $~3.50: spray paint (5 cans that averaged about $0.70/can)
* $0.20: watches (2), Powerpuff Girls, pink & blue
* $0.80: hand cleaner (8), Citrus Lotion with pumice, Gent-l-kleen, 2 fl oz
* $1.00: mug, plastic, Skull, purple
* $1.00: towel hanging ring, chrome, MintCraft
* $1.00: candy cigarettes, Victory
* $1.00: candy cigarettes, Stallion
* $0.50: duct tape, glow-in-the-dark, Firefly, IPG, 1.88 x 10yards, 077922994304
* $FREE: string, kite
* $FREE: grids (2), square
* $FREE: case, leather, 14.25×8.125×4
******************************
20160402: 2016 Expedition #2: (Spontaneous expedition #2–just one sale):
* $5.00: hoe, flat, longer handle
* $5.00: hoe, flat, shorter handle
* $1.00: laser pointer toy, Interactive Pet Laser Toy, Animal Planet, 2201020 (2294965), 694202230466, 2015 Discovery Communications LLC, 1800-374-2744 (EV:$20.99)
* $0.25: action figure, Star Wars, Jar-Jar Binks, 2 bendable joints, 5″ high, LucasFilm LTD, 0325
* $0.25: action figure, Batman, rubber cape, malleable, 6″ high, “Warning, Do not throw out of water” (s06) Possibly some sort of water toy
* $0.25: action figure, The Flash, 5.5″ “Warning, Do not throw out of water” (s06) Possibly some sort of water toy
* $0.25: action figure, Sinestro, 4.5″, 5 bendable joints, (s04)
* $0.25: action figure, Superman, 4″, 8 bendable joints, 287908
* $0.25: action figure, Superman, push button for swinging arms, 4.375″
******************************
20160416 – 2016 Expedition #3: (Dedicated expedition #1–a 6 hr quest):
* $10.00: fan (2), black, floor standing, Lasko, 5 blades, 21.5″ diameter, Type 18P, Black 1827/1829/1823
* $7.00: jack, hydraulic, blue, 20″
* $5.00: tool, Bypass Lopper, Corona FL3460, red, 33″ (EV:$30.41)
* $5.00: accordian, Schylling, red,
* $5.00: litter box, blue, covered, with door flap, 21.75×17.5×18.75
* $5.00: microphones (2), one doesn’t work, but get to keep the 1/4″-to-XLR adapter (12′). 1/8″ jack
* $5.00: Digital picture frame, 7″, Panimage by Panidigital, 512MB internal memory,
* $5.00: lights, silver orbs (3), QVC, I/O merch spheres, 3 balls, 8″, 6″, 4.5″, 20130430, SKU H199995 848 000 . Purchased from Laura & Pat Johnson, 5201 Chowan Ave, Alex. 22312-2025
* $3.00: boombox, Sony, CFD-222, cassette, cd, radio, ~22.5″
* $3.00: boombox, Vextra, VX973, cassette, cd, radio, silver, manufactured 201005, ~16×10″, does not have that good of a sound
* $3.00: boombox, Sony, red circlular, ZS-E5, cd, radio, aux-in, no battery cover, 10.833 diameter
* $2.50: bowling ball, Tigger, COT7061 VIZ-A-BALL, with Brunswick blue case,
* $2.50: bowling ball, pink, Brunswick Axis GEV1195
* $2.00: boxes (2), plastic, G.I. Joe, Name Rank Serial No. stickers, army green, 13.5×6.25×4.785
* $2.00: box, storage, combination, 10x7x7.5″, Vaultz Lock It Up, VZ00102, barcode 826030001028, http://www.vaultz.net (EV:$19.99)
* $2.00: clippers, hedge, red handle, 21″, 9″ nose
* $2.00: snow shovel, metal, black, Klondike True Temper, 24×10″
* $2.00: snow shovel, plastic, orange, with metal lip, 18×13″
* $1.50: pantyhose (2), nude, Hanes, Silk Reflections, Size AB, (EV:$8.00 price tag)
* $1.00: seeds, lima beans, Dunecraft, Peace Out Bean, 2012, Chagrin Falls, OH 44022, barcode 810017015474
* $1.00: tapestry, tie-dye, mostly purple, green heart in middle, “Heal The World. Cook dinner tonight. Penzy’s Love To Cook, Cook To Love, 94051, 27.5×27.5″
* $1.00: top, large, plays music, colorful
* $1.00: timer, lamp, Timex, Model No: 12-8800719, barcode 031323126917
* $1.00: blacklight fixture, 18″, black, automatic power-on, VEI, model # V801, prod date 201307
* $1.00: chair, camping, blue, low to ground It’s slightly broken, but still works (at least when we tested it at the yardsale).
* $1.00: decoration, Indian, wood, 10×8″
* $1.00: toy, turtle, stuffed, hard shell, Cloud-b, Reg PA-11308 (CN), 15×11”, date: 201111
* $1.00: toy, My Little Pony, g2, 2002, Strawberry Swirl, Glitter Pony with tinsel in her hair, front hoof has magnet on bottom and heart on ankle, had a picture frame keychain attached to it http://www.strawberryreef.com/Ind…/Name/strawberryswirl.html
* $1.00: toy, My Little Pony, g2, 2002, pink body, ice cream cutie mark, blue and white hair, front hoof has magnet on bottom (EV:$12.17)
* $0.50: toy, Smurfs, Crazy, 2013, McDonald’s
* $0.50: wax cubes, Better homes, butterscotch maple cream, 2.5oz, 6 cubes, barcode 877991003064
* $0.50: power outlet splitter, 6, 3-prong, Intermatic, Model No. EG63TIB/PT-10-3M, Clamping Voltage 400V L-N, N-G, 15A, 125VAC, 1875W, E115217, Date code: 00 09
* $0.50: power outlet splitter (2), 3, 2-prong to 3-prong, Leviton, Polarized Triple Outlet Grounding Adapter, 802-00698-W, still in packages, barcode 078477794012
* $0.50: bread pans (2@0.25ea), 9×5, metal
* $0.25: toy, My Little Pony, Apple Jack, real hair tail, 2.5×3.125″
* $0.12: lightbulb, green, Sylvania, 25W, 046135117145
* $0.10: reading glasses, brown, small
* $FREE: intercoms, Realistic, FM Wireless Room Monitor System, Cat No 43-208
* $FREE: bowling balls, duck pins, black with orange & yellow swirls, with case,
* $FREE: toy, Smurfs, Vanity, 2011, McDonald’s
* $FREE: charger, battery, GE, Charge 4, Nickel-cadmium. Model BC-4, barcode 4316812648. Includes 6 D batteries, 8 C batteries (EV:$12.99 price tag)
June 15, 2013
SUMMARY:
Got up around 7:25AM, made it out driving by 7:54AM, and went out until 12:57pm for a total of 5h3m hours (AGAIN?!) (3h24m spent driving, 1h39m spent at sales).
Spent $26.25 plus ~$15.52 gas for 56.6 miles of driving (14 mpg @ $3.84/G), for a total cost of $41.77.
We drove to 40 yard sales, stopping at 25 (62%) of them.
We made 17 purchases (31 items) for a total estimated value of $320.02, leading to a profit/savings of $278.25.
So in essence, we multiplied our initial investment by 7.6X.
(Also, if you think about it, the profit counts for even more when you consider that we have to earn $317 on the job, pre-tax, in order to take home the $278 in cash that we saved here. How long does $278 of disposable income take to earn, vs the 5 hrs we spent here?)
Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $55.10/hr as a couple or $27.55/hr per person.
COMMENTARY/ANECDOTES:
Clint’s back hurt, so Carolyn drove this time. Clint did the navigating, gathering of stats, and counting how many yardsales we hit and drove by. Usually the situation is the opposite.
Twice, Carolyn took 4 seconds to notice the light turning green (left turn green arrow, the rarest of all greens!). She needs to pay more attention. I’d have beeped if I were behind her :)
We saw the solar system floor puzzle we bought last year.
“Yardfishing” looked like an interesting game, but we didn’t buy it.
We passed on some items, too: Simon & Garfunkel vinyl, a banjo that was also a tambourine for $3, smallest cello ever (it seemed way smaller than a normal cello). We also almost got a gavel after talking about how we didn’t have a gavel during a recent hangout, but decided against it in the end.
Carolyn missed $20 “cat walk” thing because she wouldn’t get out of the car, sitting in it, for like TEN minutes. Carolyn… If I’m at a sale that long, that means its good… So get out and join me! (She does this sometimes.)
“He puts the kid in skid.” – Clint’s comment about a kid who was running towards the street, who skidded and fell over. Carolyn was laughing for awhile about that comment.
Every year, we are reminded that “If the signage sux, so does the sale!” Particularly true today. If there is a mis-spelling, or a lack of arrows creating an ambiguity — it’s a virtual guarantee that the actual stuff at the sale will be shitty as well. Stupid people don’t have good stuff. Smart people do.
Awesome kitty cat pet session interupted by rustling in the bamboo. (It was a seal-point himalayan.) That cat was so friendly. The old lady told us how the cat was missing for 3 years and then she got it back because of its microchip. Her house was built in the 1700s, before Mount Vernon. Some of the windows did indeed look old.
THE BOOTY:
//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js
Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.
* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person).
Have a random image:
May 18, 2013
SUMMARY:
Got up around 7:45AM, made it out driving by 8:25AM and went out until 1:28PM for a total of 5h3m (3h16m spent driving, 1h47m at sales).
Spent $97.75 plus ~$14.58 gas for 54.3 miles of driving (12.7 mpg @ $3.41/G), for a total cost of $112.33.
We drove to 52 yard sales, stopping at 26 (50%) of them. We made 27 purchases (51 items) for a total estimated value of $770.52, leading to a profit/savings of $658.19.
So in essence, we multiplied our initial investment by 6.86X.
(Also, if you think about it, the profit counts for even more when you consider that we have to earn $770 on the job, pre-tax, in order to take home the $658 in cash that we saved. How long does $770 of disposable income take to earn, vs the 5 hrs we spent here?)
Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $130.33/hr as a couple or $65.17/hr per person.
COMMENTARY/ANECDOTES:
[Yes, writing in the 3rd person, because Carolyn & I co-authored this.]
Clint had shaved his facial hair into a handlebar mustache the day before… He had also added some fake blood coming from his ear all the way down his neck. This is something he does while drinking with friends. But then he decided to go yardsaleing like that. Also: Clint was wearing a Celtic Frost shirt with a prominent pentagram on it.
The best part was when we went to a church bazaar. Walking inside of a church, interacting with youth volunteers, all while visibly “bleeding” and wearing a pentagram and handlebar mustache. Fun times.
Despite going go 26 yard sales, only two people total commented on the fake blood. Both were female. The one asked questions about who Celtic Frost was, and what kind of music they were. When we were walking away, she said, “Have a Celtic day!”
Also, a few people commented on Carolyn’s glow-in-the-dark Misfits shirt.
This whole expedition was amazing in that it was amazing that we even got out of bed… Friends came over at like 7:30PM, we were drinking by 11:30PM, and up until 4:15AM or so! Somehow Clint roused out of bed at 7:45AM WITHOUT EVEN FEELING TIRED.
When we got the bowling balls, and the car ramps, we arranged them in the trunk in such a way that the bowling balls kept rolling around inside the ramps. It was funny how much noise they made. Every time the car accelerated or decelerated…. You had a 1-second bowling ball roll sound. One would think it was the sound of damage being done if one did not know what was causing it.
We had to use Carolyn’s phone to navigate at one point because we’re dorks and didn’t think about how you could cross over Rolling Road and go straight. Derp.
There was a really nice-looking blue acoustic guitar for $50 that we didn’t buy. It was the nicest shade of blue I’ve ever seen on a guitar in person.
There were tons of Walking Dead graphic novels that we missed by 2 minutes.
There was a pair of the original Hulk Hands for $10. We could have completed our set, and we called Sean to see if he would be interested in the other one, but we all passed. They were being sold by a single-mom woman who was being kicked out of her rented house in 30 days, and she had all kinds of cool stuff (the swords, lizard costume gloves). Clint spent a long time talking to her, and she thought he was in his 20s. Nope… I’m 39, ma’am. (I didn’t actually call her ma’am.) She had all the Dragon Ball Z action figures that Clint bought to prank his DragonBall-Z-loving co-worker by hiding them all over his cube. (Only to receive an announcement 2 hours later that they were replacing our cubes with pathetic little kiosks.)
Clint saw the fur rug and asked for the price. When the man said $10, Clint consulted with Carolyn. She got out and looked at it, and they decided to go ahead and get it, so Clint paid for it. While Carolyn picked it up and started taking it to the car, the man yelled at Carolyn that she didn’t pay for it, and she pointed at Clint and said, “He paid.” Then the guy was like “Oh, I thought you meant that other rug…” He decided to go ahead and let us have it for $10. I wonder if Clint being bloody and handlebar-mustached had any effect on the negotiation of the situation.
click through for the booty… (more…)
October 6, 2012
SUMMARY:
Got up around 10:30AM, made it out driving by 11:15AM, and went out until 1:30PM, for a total of 2 hours, 15 minutes. 1 hour, 1 minute of that was spent driving.
Spent $14.30 plus ~$5.08 gas for 15.4 miles of driving (11.5 mpg @ $3.79/G), for a total cost of $19.38.
We made 23 purchases (24 items) for a total estimated value of $182.05, leading to a profit/savings of $162.67.
So in essence, we multiplied our $19.38 investment by 9.4X.
(Also, if you think about it, the profit counts for even more when you consider that we have to earn $181 on the job, pre-tax, in order to take home the $162.67 in cash that we saved. How long does $162.67 of disposable income take to earn, vs the 2.25 hrs we spent here?)
Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $72.30/hr as a couple or $36.15/hr per person.
COMMENTARY/ANECDOTES:
There was some event called the mile-long yard sale that we checked out. Not a lot of parking, and way more walking. It had its moments, but on average each person’s sale was kinda crappy. The ones in front of the single family homes were predictably better than the apartment-peoples’ stands in front of the school. Someone was selling TONS of old Batman comics for 25 cents each. So tempting, but I know I’d never get around to reading them. Damn you, internet! But they actually had good taste in music, selling a lot of albums I own (Ween, They Might Be Giants)…. I ended up buying a couple cds… Such a rare thing these days.
THE BOOTY:
Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.
2012 STATS SO FAR:
TOTAL EXPEDITIONS: 16
TOTAL HOURS: ~61:03
TOTAL MILES DRIVEN: ~644.9
TOTAL MONEY SPENT: $589.14
TOTAL ITEMS BOUGHT: 388-526 (depending on how you count multiple-item purchases: purchases vs items)
TOTAL ESTIMATED VALUE: $5,199.84
* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person). (more…)
September 29, 2012
SUMMARY:
Hadn’t gone for almost 2 months! Lost our steam.
This was an unplanned expedition — we woke up late, around 11:30AM, and decided to go to Burger King and a yardsale that was posted for Ravensworth Rd.
We ended up finding a few bonus sales that were never posted online.
As our main point was to get food and go to the Dollar Store, we only counted the time and mileage that deviated from our plan. This made the calculations a bit more complicated than usual, and there was some estimating involved.
We spent about 1 hour, 4 minutes yardsaleing.
Spent $2.00 plus ~$2.05 gas for 6 miles of driving (12mpg*0.8mi + 9.6mpg*1.7mi + 12.5mpg*2.7mi + 9.9mpg*0.8mi, all @ $3.79/G), for a total cost of $4.05.
We made 32 purchases/gets (41 items) for a total estimated value of $511.86, leading to a profit/savings of $507.81.
So in essence, we multiplied our $4.08 investment by 126X.
(Also, if you think about it, the profit counts for even more when you consider that we have to earn $558 on the job, pre-tax, in order to take home the $507.81 that we saved. How long does $507.81 of disposable income take to earn, vs the 1 hour we spent today?)
Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $479.87/hr as a couple or $239.93/hr per person. Absolutely crazy, record-breaking numbers today. But a lot of the stuff was valuable stuff nobody really wants or can use. Funny how that works out.
COMMENTARY/ANECDOTES:
Unattended yardsale that just had a sign out that said “free stuff”. Crazy amount of stuff. Where most of our stuff came from.
Guy’s pack-rat brother died of an aneurysm, so he flew out from San Francisco and basically had a yard full of junk. As we arrived late, he was pretty much giving everything away. Including 2 trombones. We took 1.
THE BOOTY:
CB STUFF!
2012 STATS SO FAR:
TOTAL EXPEDITIONS: 15
TOTAL HOURS: ~58:48
TOTAL MILES DRIVEN: ~629.5
TOTAL MONEY SPENT: $569.76
TOTAL ITEMS BOUGHT: 365-502 (depending on how you count multiple-item purchases: purchases vs items)
TOTAL ESTIMATED VALUE: $5,017.79
Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.
* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person). (more…)
August 25, 2012
SUMMARY:
Got up around 7:00AM, made it out driving by 7:28AM and went out until 1:55PM for a total of 6 hours, 27 minutes (4hr8min in car, 2hr19min out of car).
Spent $21.60 plus $18.32 gas for 78.3 miles of driving (14.4 mpg @ $3.37/G), for a total cost of $39.92.
We made 24 purchases (26 items) for a total estimated value of $285.93, leading to a profit/savings of $246.01.
So in essence, we multiplied our $39.41 investment by 7.2X.
(Also, if you think about it, the profit counts for even more when you consider that we have to earn $271 on the job, pre-tax, in order to take home the $246 in cash that we saved. How long does $246 of disposable income take to earn, vs the 6.5 hrs we spent here?)
Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $38.15/hr as a couple or $19.08/hrper person.
COMMENTARY/ANECDOTES:
Guest yardsaler Catherine T of The House Of Happy joined us for yardsaleing this week! She filled our car! She bought an office chair for $15 that they were trying to sell for $30, which cost $60 new. She was looking for trinkets and such to bring to Pennsic, and found several. In fact, she is quoted as saying: “Best yard sailing trip EVER! You guys are SERIOUS yard sailors.” … She got a lot of things. Unfortunately we did not document HER purchases, just our own. She did get some interesting things we never would have bought, like a small hand saw for working with bamboo, the aforementioned office chair, an inflateable sowrd for 10 cents, $3 for some camping dishes (3-4 plates, 4 bowls, 2 cups, all metal), as well as some metal trays, which she collects… She was also interested in this drafting table at the upstairs-church recurring-yardsale, but had no way to transport it.
We also stopped off at the Wheel-Of-Fortune-spinner-lady’shouse to see if she had the spinner, but nobody was home. Extra newspapers seemed to indicate she was on vacation.
THE BOOTY:
Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.
2012 STATS SO FAR: TOTAL EXPEDITIONS: 14 TOTAL HOURS: 57:44 TOTAL MILES DRIVEN: ~623.5 TOTAL MONEY SPENT: $566.08 TOTAL ITEMS BOUGHT: 332-460 (depending on how you count multiple-item purchases: purchases vs items) TOTAL ESTIMATED VALUE: $4,465.93
* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person). (more…)
July 28, 2012
COMMENTARY/ANECDOTES:
IT’S A SMALL WORLD. Lady at a sale remembered us! She said that SHE had had a yard sale (this wasn’t her house), and told us that we had bought the Wheel Of Fortune board game from her, but that she found the spinner, which is the whole crux to the game.We got her address in case we are ever in that area so we can come and get it.
Now — is there an Android app (that DOESN’T expire after a trial period, and is free) that makes location-based alerts, so that if we get within 1 mile of her house, it will remind us that she has our spinner? Becuase it’s not worth making a special trip for, and how the hell are we going to remember this?
FREE ICE CREAM AND GAS! We went to a random Exxon we never would have gone to, and it was customer appreciation day! They gave us a $10 gas card AND free ice cream and water
Also, read my blue comments by the cd-player for a funny haggling anecdote.
SUMMARY:
Got up around 7AM, made it out driving by 7:39AM, and went out until 11:36AM, for a total of 3 hours 47 minutes (subtracting the 10min we spent at K-Mart picking up my prescription because it was on the way).
[Driving time was 2hr41min [71%]. Saleing time was 1hr6m [29%]….. There weren’t a lot of sales, and we expanded our usual radius just to get to the ones we did get to, so we spent a decent amount driving].
Spent $44.25 plus ~$11.31 gas for 47.8miles of driving (13.4 mpg @ $3.17/G), for a total cost of $55.56. … But really $30.56. Our numbers are all wrong this week because we ended up getting the $25 mattress for free. I don’t feel like editing them. The year-end summary will be correct, of course.
We made 20 purchases (22 items) for a total estimated value of $218.49, leading to a profit/savings of $162.93. .. Or maybe $25 more than that due to the mattress being free.
So in essence, we multiplied our $55.56 investment by 3.9X. Or something.
(Also, if you think about it, the profit counts for even more when you consider that we have to earn $179 on the job pre-tax in order to take home the $162.93 in cash that we saved. How long does $179 of disposable income take to earn, vs the 4 hrs we spent here?)
Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $43.07/hr as a couple or $21.53/hr per person.
(Carolyn paid $10.00. Clint paid $5.00. Rest was from our ever-decreasing change jar.)
THE BOOTY:
Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.
2012 STATS SO FAR:
TOTAL EXPEDITIONS: 13
TOTAL HOURS: 51:17
TOTAL MILES DRIVEN: ~553.8
TOTAL MONEY SPENT: $576.16
TOTAL ITEMS BOUGHT: 308-434 (depending on how you count multiple-item purchases: purchases vs items)
TOTAL ESTIMATED VALUE: $4,160.03
* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person). (more…)
July 21, 2012
SUMMARY:
Short expedition! We only had 5 stops planned, but a scheduling error (don’t go to estate sales first; they open late!) basically turned it into 6 stops.
Got up around 7:20AM, Carolyn made breakfast, and we made it out driving by 7:56AM, until 9:40AM, for a total of 1 hour, 44 minutes.
Spent $7.55 plus ~$5.17 gas for 23.6 miles of driving (13.5 mpg @ $2.96/G), for a total cost of $12.72.
We made 15 purchases for a total estimated value of $95.32, leading to a profit/savings of $82.60.
So in essence, we multiplied our $12.72 investment by 7.5X.
(Also, if you think about it, the profit counts for even more when you consider that we have to earn $91 on the job pre-tax in order to take home the $82.60 in cash that we saved. How long does $91 of disposable income take to earn, vs the 1.75hrs we spent here?)
Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $47.65/hr as a couple or $22.83/hr per person.
COMMENTARY/ANECDOTES:
At the last sale, the lady there could tell we knew our shit, and asked us if her prices were fair, because Carolyn counter-offered on the shower cap. Yea, it was an $18 shower cap, but that’s for fools who are willing to pay $18 for a shower cap. The more fools there are, the higher prices climb! Carolyn offered $0.50 because she didn’t want to pay $1. After all, she usually just uses a brown towel when henna’ing her hair. Now she has a ridiculous cap instead. It’s fun. But anyway, I gave her an honest assessment of her prices, which weren’t bad. $1 microbead pillows? $10 digital camera of lower resolution than the $3 one we just bought, but with memory card and non-broken zoom? Seemed legit. Perhaps I should have bought the camera, since our GE camera fucking sucks, and is rejecting freshly charged pairs of batteries 90% of the time.
(Clint spent $6.00 in bills, and Carolyn only spent from our change jar.)
THE BOOTY:
Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.
* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person). (more…)
July 14, 2012
SUMMARY:
Got up around 7:20AM, made it out driving by 8:00am and went out until 1:12PM. Subtracting the 20 minutes we spent in BJs, this worked out to a a total of 4 hours, 52 minutes. [Driving time was 3hr21min [69%]. Saleing time was 1hr31m [31%]. More time spent driving due to the derecho storm making it harder to get from point A to point B.] DERECHO-DAMAGE PICTURES AT END OF THIS POST!
Spent $47.00 plus ~$11.09 gas for 41.2 miles of driving (11.0 mpg @ $2.96/G), for a total cost of $58.09.
We made 24 purchases (31 items if you count each piece of wood) for a total estimated value of $361.37, leading to a profit/savings of $303.28.
So in essence, we multiplied our $58.09 investment by 6.2X.
(Also, if you think about it, the profit counts for even more when you consider that we have to earn $333 on the job pre-tax in order to take home the $303.28 in cash that we saved here. How long does $333 of disposable income take to earn, vs the 4.9 hrs we spent here?)
Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $62.32/hr as a couple or $31.16/hr per person.
COMMENTARY/ANECDOTES:
After storm yardsaling is crazy. We took lots of storm damage pictures.
Sleepy Hollow Road was completely closed due to a big tree and downed powerlines. Fortunately we know the backroads like the back of our hand around this area — so we got pictures from BOTH sides of the blocked road.
We were getting free cabinet-wood from a curbside (to use as sunblockers/attic flooring), when a random guy came and did the same thing. He was looking for a piece of wood to put his generator on because his ground was wet. He had just bought the generator last week from Costco for $600. What foresight!
We saw a woman putting up estate sale signs… So we followed her until she got back to the estate sale. Clint’s Dollar Store keychain-LED-flashlight came in handy: It was the only way to see in the basement. Looking through old tools in a pitch dark utility room feels very dramatic. We felt like emergency response rescue workers… Except we were rescuing old junk instead of people.
Neither Clint nor the general public realized “if the light is out, treat it like a 4 way stop”. Seven Corners was PARTICULARLY INSANE. It sounded like New York City. Constant beeping. Everyone was just going. That was around 9AM. By 12PM people were catching on to how to treat these intersections, and behaving better.
We stopped at BJ’s, which was having an open house. Spent 20 minutes or so and left without buying anything. The prices there didn’t really seem that spectacular. For the same cost, you can get 24 Yuengling beers in bottles instead of cans. Whoop-de-friggin’-doo.
post-derecho haul
THE BOOTY:
Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.
* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person). (more…)
July 7, 2012
SUMMARY:
We had 7AM yardsales promising FRICKIN‘ LASERS, so we got up early, around 6:25AM, and made it out driving by 7:05AM, yardsaleing until 11:45AM. But then I had to go back out for 30 minutes (and 6.8 more miles) to fix a purchase I’d been screwed on. The lasers-dude gave me the wrong power cord! When I came back, they were discussing the movie Evil Bong. They liked it.
So the total time yardsaleing was 5 hours, 10 minutes. (2hr51min [55%] driving, 2hr19min [45%] yardsaleing.)
Spent $30.75 plus ~$15.09 gas for 61.5 miles of driving (14.1 mpg @ $3.46/G), for a total cost of $45.84.
We purchased 24 items for a total estimated value of $257.56 229.06, leading to a profit/savings of $211.72 183.22.
So in essence, we multiplied our $45.84 investment by 5.6 5.0X.
(Also, if you think about it, the profit counts for even more when you consider that we have to earn $232 on the job to earn the $211.72 in cash that we saved. How long does $211.72 of disposable income take to earn, vs the 5 hrs we spent here?)
Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $40.98/hr $35.46/hr as a couple or $20.49/hr $17.73/hr per person. We’ve definitely done better in the past.
COMMENTARY/ANECDOTES:
Yardsale regret: Tiny $3 dvd/mp3 player. We walked away, and then Carolyn said it could be used on vacations, so Clint went back to get it and it was already in the hands of these other guys. Must remember that next time!
That fucking fan again!!! This is like the 3rd week in a row. Clint suggested offering half-price and Carolyn said at this point she should go and tell them to give her the fan for free.
Bitch who screwed us on the electronic dartboard! See comments below.
Susan & Angel’s yardsale. I forgot to mention that we went to a yard sale some friends were throwing. It was quite out of the way from our normal circuit, but it let us see some parts of town we’d never quite seen, and let us get into some interesting bonus sales (including one of our pimp ice buckets). Angel was only bringing her stuff out by the time we were leaving, and a smashing time was had by all.
THE BOOTY:
Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.
2012 STATS SO FAR:
TOTAL EXPEDITIONS: 10
TOTAL HOURS: 40:54
TOTAL MILES DRIVEN: ~441.2
TOTAL MONEY SPENT: $449.79
TOTAL ITEMS BOUGHT: 247-366
(Note: these stats do not reflect the subtracting of $28.50 from the total estimated value, due to being screwed on the dartboard.)
* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person).
June 30, 2012
SUMMARY:
Got up around 7:10AM, made it out driving by 7:49AM and went out until 1:08PM, for a total of 5 hours, 19 minutes.
(3 hours, 1 minute driving [57%]; 2 hours, 18 minutes shopping [43%]. We actually got out the car a lot this week, and didn’t spend such a high percentage of our time driving.)
Spent $57.74 plus ~$15.44 gas for 58.9 miles of driving (13.2 mpg @ $3.46/G), for a total cost of $73.18. Expect gas to be 20% of your expenditures when yardsaleing.
We made 33 purchases (42 items) – for a total estimated value of $510.47, leading to a profit/savings of $437.29.
So in essence, we multiplied our $73.18 investment by 6.98X. Our average is closer to 8.0X, but we’re not complaining. We got so much stuff this week.
(Also, if you think about it, the profit counts for even more when you consider that we have to earn $481 on the job to earn the $437.29 in cash that we saved. How long does $481 of disposable income take to earn, vs the 5 hrs we spent here?)
Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $82.25/hr as a couple or $41.12/hr per person.
COMMENTARY/ANECDOTES:
We had set this up to go to a sale advertised on Craigslist as having a 2-person kayak for sale for $10, but no. There was no sale there at all. WTF. Maybe we forgot to check the date, but yeah. That sucked.
All of the quarters in the change thing were spent.
Carolyn spent $16.
THE BOOTY:
Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.
2012 STATS SO FAR:
TOTAL EXPEDITIONS: 9
TOTAL HOURS: 35:44
TOTAL MILES DRIVEN: ~379.7
TOTAL MONEY SPENT: $403.95
TOTAL ITEMS BOUGHT: 223-342
(depending on how you count multiple-item purchases: purchases vs items)
TOTAL ESTIMATED VALUE: $3,255.79
* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person). (more…)
June 23, 2012
SUMMARY:
Got up around 7:05AM. Carolyn made breakfast AND lunch to take again, so we didn’t make it out driving until 7:41AM.
In the tride and true pattern of “bad week follows good week”, we did not have many stops, and were back home by 10:25AM.
So the total time was only 2 hours, 44 minutes. And of that time, 2 hours, 17 minutes were driving. Yes: only 27 minutes (16%) at actual sales. The rest (84%) was just driving around, basically.
I was in an extremely foul mood from friend-drama the previous night, so I lacked the motivation to get out at most sales, and tried to convince Carolyn to go while I sat in the car. So we drove by most of the yard sales without going in, thus only 27 minutes at the sales. But they weren’t that great-looking either.
Spent $30.00 plus ~$9.75 gas for 38.1 miles of driving (14.1 mpg @ $3.61/G), for a total cost of $39.75.
We bought 7 items – for a total estimated value of $228.25, leading to a profit/savings of $188.50.
So in essence, we multiplied our $39.75 investment by 4.74X. Not as high as previous weeks, which is indicitive of this being a bad week.
(Also, the profit counts for even more when you consider that we have to earn $207 on the job [prior to taxes] in order to actually take home the $188.50 in cash that we saved.)
Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $82.55/hr as a couple or $41.28/hr per person.
COMMENTARY:
Worst Salesman Ever. This guy wanted $5 for a fan, so Carolyn offered $3, and he said, “Let me think about it for 2 minutes while I tell you about this fan. It was broken, but it still worked, so I tied it together, and it still works. How about $4?” By this time, Carolyn was like, “Nevermind”, and walked away. The guy called after her like, “OK, $3!”, and she was like “No, I don’t want it anymore.” Haha. He talked her out of even paying her offered amount for it. And he had another yard sale the following week, with the fan still there! AND OH! THE WEEK AFTER THAT HE WAS THERE WITH THE FAN YET AGAIN! Three weeks of him trying to sell it. This is a rare tidbit for me to add, as I usually complete these blog posts prior to the following week’s expedition. In this case, I’m 8 days behind, so there you go: Built-in 1-week-later & 2-week-later updates. The dude STILL HAD THE FAN on June 23rd!
THE BOOTY:
Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.
2012 STATS SO FAR:
TOTAL EXPEDITIONS: 8
TOTAL HOURS: 30:25
TOTAL MILES DRIVEN: ~320.8
TOTAL MONEY SPENT: $330.77
TOTAL ITEMS BOUGHT: 190-300 (depending on how you count)
TOTAL ESTIMATED VALUE: $2,745.32
* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person).
June 16, 2012
SUMMARY:
Instead of our usual 7-9 planned stops, we had 19! NINETEEN!!! Suffice to say.. We missed 6 of them. Mostly due to our GPS dying and not being able to find anything around Telegraph Rd., with it’s stupid construction. Got up around 8AM, had breakfast PLUS Carolyn packed some sandwiches so we wouldn’t have to stop to eat lunch.
Made it out driving by 8:25AM, and went out until 2:58PM (!!) for a total of 6 hours, 33 minutes [a record for this year].
(Time breakdown: Driving: 3hr 44min [57%]. Saleing: 2hr 49min [43%].)
Spent $75.75 plus ~$17.57 gas for 69.1 miles of driving (14.2 mpg @ $3.61/G), for a total cost of $93.32.
We made 41 purchases, getting 75 items (wayyy more items if you were to count each piece of sandpaper and the 20 various My Little Pony combs and non-pony toys, but no, NOT doing that).
The total estimated value for all these items is $919.72 (!!!), leading to a profit/savings of $826.40.
So in essence, we multiplied our investment by 9.86X. (Also, the profit counts for even more when you consider that we have to earn $908 on the job to get the $826 in cash we saved.)
Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $126.17/hr as a couple or $63.08/hrper person!! A record for this year.
COMMENTARY/ANECODTES:
Coolest thing I didn’t buy? A motherboard clock! It was a clock set on a microwaved CD with gemstones, in a blue stained-glass terrarium that contained a motherboard and some batteries. Very cool, but a space-taker. We could have maybe replaced one of our more-generic lamps with this, but we don’t pay more than $2 for lights as a general rule, and this was $10. Considered buying it for my sister. We knew we’d regret not buying it, but Carolyn’s insistence on not going to the bank over and over for weeks despite having $0 cash helped sway us away from it.
I swear this one guy was high. He was 55-65ish, grey/white hair, and had the best taste in dvd collecting I’ve ever seen, 10X more so for a whitehead: Super Troopers, Space Ghost Coast To Coast, Mr. Show, Spaced (UK), Jackass. I mentioned that I’d pay $5 for VHS players (which is no longer the case, my new price ceiling is $3), and he went inside for a long time to look at one. I really didn’t want to wait and kinda just wanted to drive off. He held me hostage. He came out all smiley and was talking about how I’m his twin and think just like him. They also had a bag of My Little Ponies that we got. In the end, I was like…. “That guy MUST have been high. Really. WTF. He was so out of it.”
Saw Rogelio again! 3rd time now! He wasn’t wearing a comic book shirt this time. He showed me some of the stuff he bought again. He always asks about trading. That is weird to me, becuase I mostly only buy stuff I want for myself, or for my friends. I told him I’d probably never trade in any situation ever, and am more of a hoarder. He said sorry for not responding to my email before. I said sorry for accidentally inviting him to Google+. He was near our friends Brad & Mandy’s house, which is farther from where he was the 1st 2 times we saw him. Maybe he’ll email us. I’d hang out with him.
Eavesdropping-Daughter-Agent! At a Hispanic yard sale, The Dad had bad/no English. The Dad was having trouble engaging in commerce with Black Guy Who Did Not Speak Spanish. I see a rice cooker. I ask Carolyn if we should get it, so that we have two. “Maybe we can boil vegetables in it while making rice in the other one or something? Plus, what if the 1st one breaks.” Carolyn said she would only pay $1. I told her: “We paid $5 for the last one, and this one is better.” But she said since we have one, we shouldn’t pay as much. So finally I decide ask The Dad how much, but Eavesdropping-Daughter-Agent was apparently standing by us, eavesdropping, pretending to be a random kid. She interjects before her dad even hears us, and says, “$3“. RIGHT in the middle of what me & Carolyn were talking about. “You were listening to us, weren’t you?“, I asked… But she did not answer. So I get it for $3. Then Black Guy Who Did Not Speak Spanish was like, “I was going to buy that!” “Five dollars!”, I yell back as we walk away. Everyone has a good-spirited laugh. I pick up the pace ever-so-slightly in case he thinks I was serious. He, too, had a strange accent–I think he was French?!
We’re Such Creepers. Hot girl getting out of car, and we’re rolling down the road a bit slowly looking for the sale we’re headed toward. She’s bending down or getting out of her car or something, and we were already going pretty damns low, so she kinda does this side-glance and catches Carolyn & me both checking her out. You had to be there, but it was hilarious. We were totally creeping on her. Her expression was priceless.
Telegraph road sucks!!! There’s a reason we always avoided sales over there. We tried to venture forth into new territory. I realize now, with 19 stops, that’s greedy. 10 planned stops is a more manageable amount. We ended up with the least efficient hour of the whole shift. It seems that east of 395 is very much “the wrong side of the tracks” for sales. There are actually some nice neighborhoods over there, but it’s hell getting to them without a GPS. So I’m asking this guy how to get to Old Telegraph, and this Brazilian lady interjects into the conversation and proceeds to give us the wrong directions… I talk to her because she’s hotter than some dude, but it was a mistake, causing a 20-40 minute delay in reaching our next sale. Later I ran into her. I didn’t call her on it directly, but I said Hi, which made her ask about her directions, and I told her no, the directions didn’t really help. Her response? “My directions were right; somebody turned the sign around.” Yeah right. Then she showed me rings she paid $50 for at sales, casting futher doubt on her general credulity as a person.
Crazy-big sale at the very end. Not even a planned destination. We were so ready to go home, but then we saw a sign on a sidestreet a half-mile from our house. Tons of really useful stuff. A whole double-length carport full, with another few tables of stuff. And this was at like 2-3PM!. I can’t imagine how good the spread must have been at 8AM! The guy maybe was a general contractor, given the variety of various speicalized tools he had, and no longer wanted. He apparently owned two houses? His answer to everything was “one dollar” (except the $10 battery charger). He was French, I think, and had other French people stopping by while we were at the sale. Pretty useful stuff.
The Rerun Folks. The first sale was a community set-of-9-sales up by my Granparents’ (RIP) old house off Seminary Rd. I’d never yardsaled up there, but it was a community sale, and those can be gold, especially in an upscale neighborhood like my grandparents’. We asked some random people getting into their car where to get a map of the individual sales, and they told us where the Other Sale With A Map was. So we went there, saw them, said hi, perused the sale, and took a map. Planned our sub-route (To clarify, 9 stops at this community represent just 1 of the 19 stops on our itinery.) … 8 sales later, we’re wrapping back around to get out of the community, which required passing the Other Sale WIth A Map. THE PEOPLE WHO TOLD US ABOUT IT WERE STILL THERE. As I drove by, I slowed down, beeped, and yelled, “You’re still here?!?!”. They waved back once the delayed recognition kicked in. They’re definitely doing it wrong. You can’t linger too much. Showing up 5 seconds later can make the difference between a once-in-a-lifetime purchase happening and not happening. You can’t dick around and hang out (unless they are Jamaicans who are giving you free beer–true story from the past). You really need to go as fast as possible to get to the most sales and opportunity as much as possible. Did they have to let it linger? Did they have to? Did they have to?
Helpful Ninja Kid. He came up and touched Carolyn’s hand while she was getting into her car. She had no idea he was approaching. He scared her and she yelped, hehehe. “Do I know you?”, he asked. [Are you trying to pick up my wife? She doesn’t really go for 6 year olds, sorry.] Then he told us it was a community yardsale and there were more sales up the street. He was very helpful and quite in control of the situation, especially for a 6 year old. So we were able to get the dolly and the rosemary because of this kid. Neato.
Forgetfu. At one sale, I was thinking about buying a game for future-Sagan, and asked Carolynabout it. “You already bought that game for Sagan…today! It’s in the car as we speak!” Oops! The people at the sale, as well as us, had a laugh.
THE BOOTY:
Later, we discovered the Spaced dvds were autographed by Simon Pegg & Nick Frost!!!! Big DERP on the seller’s part for not realizing that:
Our cats in the dolly:
Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.
* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person). (more…)
June 9, 2012
SUMMARY:
Got up at 8AM, Carolyn made breakfast, and we made it out driving by 8:35AM, and went out until only 11:26AM, but with a 20 minute Burger King Break.
So it was a total of 2 hours, 31 minutes. (60% of that was driving time: 1hr 31min driving, 60min at sales.)
Spent $14.00 plus $8.07 gas for 30.0 miles of driving (14.9 mpg @ $3.89/G), for a total cost of $22.07.
We bought 11 items – 12 if you count both Gojo hand cleaners separately – for a total estimated value of $142.85, leading to a profit/savings of $120.78. So in essence, we multilpied our $22.07 investment by 6.47X. (Also, the profit counts even more when you consider that we have to earn $132 on the job to get $120 in cash.)
Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $47.99/hr as a couple or $24.00/hrper person.
We did more than twice as well with our time last week: A true sign that this was a crappy week. But the blacklight, guitar case, and shoji all made up for it!
COMMENTARY:
Crappy week!
Because everyone and their brother threw a sale last weekend, there were hardly any this weekend.
During our preparation phase we made 7 (instead of 9) stops on our itinery. But they were f’ed up. It was a convulted, very odd route, sending us through highway exits 2 miles from our house that we’d never gone to in our life. The fact that the route was so convoluted and off the beaten path was probably a good indicator of how shitty it would be. 1 of the 7 stops didn’t even have a sale! WTF! You advertised on CraigsList! With a specific date and address!
I learned how some streets connect. I didn’t know you could take Wakefield Chapel from Braddock to 236 (IIRC). Fortunately there were some bonus sales.
The next day we happened to roll down Graham Rd. and saw signs for about 4 sales we didn’t go to, because none of them bothered to put a sign at the intersection of Annandale Rd and Graham. Dumb. They usually do that. We usually go down Graham Rd. We only skipped it because there were no signs, and we had a pre-planned route. Dumb yardsale throwers.
Also, the lesson that “crappy sign equals crappy yard sale” gets driven home more and more each week: But especially this week. It’s completely prejudiced, but if your sign sucks, you suck too, and thus your yard sale will suck too.
Not pictured: blacklight
THE BOOTY:
my picture
Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings. * EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person). (more…)
May 26, 2012
SUMMARY:
Got up around 8:10AM, ate breakfast at home for once, and made it out driving by 8:43AM, out yard saleing until 2:25PM.
There was a 20 minute Burger King break when our route took us right by it, so the total yard saleing time was 5 hours, 22 minutes!!!! Damn that’s a long time! 3hr 15min driving; 2hr 7min shopping.
Spent $59.20 plus ~$17.95 gas for 56.3 miles of driving (12.2 mpg @ $3.89/G), for a total cost of $77.15.
We bought 52 items – 99 if you count separate hooks/pillows/gift bags – for a total estimated value of $680.69, leading to a profit/savings of $603.54.
So in essence, we multiplied our $77.15 investment by 8.82X. (We have to earn $663 on the job to get $603 in cash!)
Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $112.46/hr as a couple or $56.23/hrper person. That’s about as high as we can ever get on the “wage scale”!
COMMENTARY:
What a weekend!
We pre-planned via CraigsList and DrivingRoutePlanner, with an extra Freecycle pickup stop thrown in (and that was probably the least profitable leg of the trip, as it was a mistake). The thing is, of the 9 pre-planned stops we had, several of them were FULL COMMUNITY sales that had their own maps.
Twice we had to get a community map, trace out a path, and visit ~10 sales just to get to the next item on our itinery. Plus there were at least 2-3 “bonus sales” not on our route, including one that turned out to be 5 houses having a sale at once.
This was a LONG LONG LONG expedition. Not the most miles we’ve driven at once — we’ve broken 70 — but close.
It was near the beginning that we felt this woman was hitting on me at her own yard sale in front of her husband and my wife. First she comments on my Misfits shirt. Second, I try to round $9.50 to $10 and she says pay $8 — why the random discount? Then she asks where we live. Then we commented on some tech thing, and she was like, “oh, i need a techie to come and show me all my stuff”… yea… i’ll show you all your stuff all right. ;) Then asks me/us to come back later. Plus she’s blonde, even tho she’s in her 50s {wink wink}. But more than all that was the vibe of actually experiencing it. Carolyn agrees. It was weird. We circled her address on the map haha. Very odd. Something similar happened once about 10 years ago, but the attention seemed to be on both of us then, not just me.
No cars broke down this week! Yay! First time in 3 expeditions that we haven’t had to get towed!
What sucked was that there were so many yard sales that we could not get to them all during prime time. In the morning, the selections are great, and the prices good. In the afternoon, the selections are way worse, but the prices are way better. We’ve even swung back to the same yard sale twice to re-make an offer that was accepted the 2nd time but refused the 1st time. By noon, a lot of people are just giving things away for free, becuase they are hot and want to go back inside, but don’t want to lug their stuff back in. This is great if you have use for things nobody else wants, but if you are picky, you really want to get there early.
Half the sales we went to, we could not even get to until 1PM. So we were denied some selection. But we were supplied some cheap prices – a lot of our stuff was FREE: The Best Price.
THE BOOTY:
Here they are once they were assembled.
Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings. * EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person). (more…)
May 12, 2012
SUMMARY:
Got up around 8:07AM, made it out driving by 8:22AM (yes, we leave quick!), and went out until Noonish, for a total of about 3 hours, 40 minutes.
Spent $25.25 plus ~$8.07 gas for 24.9 miles of driving (~12 mpg @ $3.89/G), for a total cost of $33.32.
We bought 22 items – 27 if you count the ice trays/floodlights/scissors separately – for a total estimated value of $213.18, leading to a profit/savings of $179.86 (which is $197 before taxes, for us).
Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $49.05/hr as a couple or $24.53/hr per person.
COMMENTARY:
Met Rogelio again, after meeting him the first time during our yard sale double date with Matthew & Julie last year. We were waiting for a tow truck under a pavilion set up by these nice people throwing a yard sale. They fed us too. He was obsessing over this HUGE belt-buckle, like a wrestler belt. He went back at least twice wondering if he should buy it. One of these last times I noticed his comic-book-themed black t-shirt, and remembered: I’d seen this guy before. He was social then, too. We had talked to him and shown him some of our stuff last year when we met him, and he had a comic-book-themed black t-shirt then, too. He showed me this neat accordion-style-pump mechanical organ, which has a built-in wooden case that it folds back into. I showed him some of my stuff. I actually got his email address… Why not be friendly to people with multiple similar interests? Got no response upon mailing it, though. Maybe I was too friendly?
As it turned out, the car wasn’t even broken. Disarming the alarm fixed it. I kinda want to disable my alarm at this point, it’s old and doesn’t protect any value and only causes nuisance. But using a key to get into your car is so ghetto ;) This is the car with remote start, so I definitely want the system (remote start/alarms/subwoofers all installed at the same time/together for $1200 in 1997) the keep working. At this point the system has cost less than $100/mo. Of course, all the remote start in the world doesn’t mean your car is actually dry in the winter, when you have a broken moisture seal. This car would best be owned by someone who lives in a desert, or who has a garage. Hmm.
But anyway… free towing, nothing to repair, all we really lost is time, and a bit of gas. I’ll count it in my yearly stats as a breakdown that cost $0.
We rode the tow truck up to Carolyn’s uncle’s shop in Takoma Park, MD (NationWide has $300 free towing), and then drove my Chrysler — which broke during last week’s yardsaleing — back to Virginia. So we had the weird process of moving yard sale booty from one car to another in a different state than the state we got the booty in. Last week, we did this in a shopping mall parking lot. Our yard sale experiences keep getting weirder and weirder!
THE BOOTY:
one of ours was stupid-frosted like this, but the other 2 weren’t
when your wife is 5’2″, you need about 4X as many of these as you think you would.
finally, my phone calls now record themself automatically!
for my broken-step walkway, to further discourage people from using it
not black
If i ever started a post-apocalyptic biker gang, this would be the required hood ornament .
if only i’d found this 3 months ago i could have saved myself from paying full price at Home Depot
we just got figure + helmet, not box/weapon/other stuff
requiem for voldo scissors, RIP
we only got the drum and tambourine
Here’s one in better condition
the most hilarious purchase of the week, Carolyn is now going to get her other My Little Pony G1 from the attic
(the one on the left)
couldn’t find a picture of a green one like that. i really thought it would be common enough to find on google images.
Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.
* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person). (more…)
May 6, 2012
COMMENTARY:
We used a trip planning system this time!
Clint found a zip code map, and we compiled a list of zip codes:
First: Our zip code.
Second: Every zip code around us.
Third: Those zip codes that are 2 zip codes away? Some of them actually have points closer to us than most of the zipcodes 1 away from us! About 3 of them. So they went on the list too.
After that, we got the URL for a CraigsList garage sale zipcode search: http://dc.craigslist.org/search/gms?query=12345&srchType=A&minAsk=&maxAsk= Next,
Clint wrote a script that opened one of those for every zip code in the list we just compiled. This became incorporated into our “before yardsale” command. BAM! Tons of yard sales!
Open every link on every page. Pre-shop the sale, deciding if it’s worth it. Those that are, copy-paste the street address into a blank text file. Once we were done, we pasted the entire list into DrivingRoutePlanner.com. It figured out the shortest route to go to all the sales [it was an odd figure-8-ish beast]. It printed directions. (And made a GPX file for GPSs that support them.)
It was the first time in our lifelong, 30+ year yardsale career that we were so organized! We’d been encouraged to try newspapers, but that only gets you listings of people willing to pay to place a classified ad, which is why the internet totally beats dead-tree newspapers in a fight.
.
Making things even more interesting, one of the sales was a community sale, and they had a map of the area, with dots for all the individual sales in that community! So we had to pause and work out a route the old fashioned way – arrows written on a map. It was a route-of-yardsales within our route-of-yardsales. It was like we had an array of addresses to visit, and one of those addresses was itself an array of addresses.
Yo dawg… We need to go deeper. We just got yardsaleceptioned!
And then — at the very last sale we thought we were going to before going home…. We stop. There wasn’t even anything good there. AND THE DAMN CAR DOESN’T START. 1.5 hrs later, we get jumped and almost make it to Advanced Auto, but instead die in the parking lot, with people beeping at us. Car had to be pushed. Advance Auto could not diagnose my battery OR jump start the car. And we’d already sent the tow truck away once. So we left in in the parking lot, and got it towed Monday.
Our yard sale booty was stuck in the back seat until then. The walk home was the farthest west we’d ever walked from/to our house, though we’d gone that far east before (group of friends all wanted to go to the carnival drunk). Got some interesting pictures of stuff I normally only see from a car.
Was $172.23 to get a new battery, installation, and another issue checked. We got it back the following weekend when the EXACT SAME THING happened with Clint’sBonneville IN THE EXACT SAME SITUATION. Stay tuned for the next blog post for that. This also explains why this post was 1 week late. We couldn’t even compile the list of our booty until several days later.
SUMMARY:
Got up around 7:50AM, made it to McDonald’s by 8:10AM, and started actually yardsaleing at 8:25AM. We lasted until 11:40AM, for a total of 3 hours, 15 minutes. We’re not counting the 3 hours or so related to our car breaking down, as that time-waste would happen no matter what we used the car for, so it’s unfair to blame it on yard saleing.
Spent $12.85 plus ~$7.96 gas for ~33 miles of driving (~16 mpg @ $3.86/G), for a total cost of $20.81. [Our gas numbers are approximate because the car battery died, and we lost our mileage-computer stats.]
We bought 11 items – for a total estimated value of $298.13 – leading to a profit/savings of $277.32 (which is about $305 before taxes).
Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $85.33/hr as a couple or $42.66/hrper person.
THE BOOTY:
approximation – ours is all black
Pretty much the exact same flask as this picture from the ebay auction, except ours is the silver/chrome model instead of the gold/brass model, and the leather coloring is 50% faded from age/use.
cats hanging out on new rug with new-favorite-toy The Whip… Lemonjello trying to avoid the camera as usual (had to set the volume to 0)
almost-exact match, but ours (pictured above) is 50%+ faded
they just don’t make fastfood promotional offers like they used to
very much an approximation; see above shitty dark picture with cats for the actual rug
Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings. * EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person). (more…)
April 22, 2012
SUMMARY:
Got up at 8:17AM, made it out driving by 8:30AM (Burger King breakfast break: 9:00-9:23AM) and went out until 11:40AM for a total of 2 hours, 47 minutes (we found out the clock in the car only runs while driving, so it turns out this was 1hr, 54min of driving, and about 53min out of our car at yard sales).
We spent a paltry $4.25 plus $9.61 gas for 36.1 miles of driving (14.5 mpg @ $3.86/G), for a total cost of $13.86. That SUCKS that 70% of the cost is just driving around looking for the yard sales! This week was particularly bad.
We obtained 26 items — 48 if you count each bar of soap and gift bag separately — for a total estimated value of $124.42, leading to a profit/savings of $110.56. Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $39.72/hr as a couple or $19.86/hr per person. Despite the low amount of sales, a lot of the stuff we got this week was completely free.
COMMENTARY:
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Drive-by megaphone-heckling of abortion clinic protesters!!!!!!! (All of whom looked like fucking relics about to die. Can’t wait ’til they do.)
WHERE ARE THE SALES? We changed our circuit a bit, and it took us everywhere without us seeing hardly any sales! We could have had 90% of our take in 30 minutes had we simply quit while we were ahead. But we ran our circuit, and it was possibly the longest driving with the least sales in a long, long, long time. Nothing on all of Rolling Rd from Jaxx Nightclub all the way to Braddock Rd? Don’t think I’ve EVER seen that.
And MORE RETARDED SIGNMAKERS — only about 10% of signs we saw even had a friggin’ arrow on them. Yes, we ripped down at least one this week again, trying to save other people from wasting gas on wild goose chases.
It becomes more and more apparant to us that bad sign = out of touch person = loser = shitty yard sale with shitty stuff.
Of course, bad sign also means less people will find it, so if there is anything good, it’s more likely to still be there by the time you arrive. But the tradeoff doesn’t seem worth it.
Stick to the upscale neighborhoods. If people can’t be bothered to put an arrow on a sign, for the most part they are not going to have good stuff worth buying.
THE BOOTY:
Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.
2012 STATS SO FAR:
TOTAL EXPEDITIONS: 2
TOTAL HOURS: 6:20
TOTAL MILES DRIVEN: 69.4
TOTAL MONEY SPENT: $44.35
TOTAL ITEMS BOUGHT: 46-69
TOTAL ESTIMATED VALUE: $277.50
TOTAL SAVINGS/PROFIT: 233.15
AVG SAVINGS/PROFIT PER HR: $36.81
* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value, unless they are free/bad condition in which case I may try to get a used price. But in terms of usability, I don’t think used books are worth much less than new books. You can still read them. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “rigged” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person). (more…)
April 15, 2012
SUMMARY:
Got up around 9:15AM, made it out driving by 9:41AM and went out until 1:52PM (with a 38min Taco Bell break) for a total of 3 hours, 33 minutes.
Spent $21.25 plus ~$9.24 gas for 33.3 miles of driving (14.6 mpg @ $4.05/G), for a total cost of $30.49.
We bought 20 items – 21 if you count each ice tray separately – for a total estimated value of $153.08, leading to a profit/savings of $122.59 (which is at least $135 before taxes; money saved by not having to spend it is actually worth more than we realize when the government’s cut is taken into consideration).
Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $34.53/hr as a couple or $17.27/hr per person.
COMMENTARY:
Meh. Felt like the sales weren’t dense enough this week, plus we didn’t take the most efficient circuit around things.
Fight? Some dude was in way too much of a rush to get to a red light, tried to pass me on the right without signaling as I got into the right turn lane (granted I didn’t signal either, but still, you don’t need to be speeding up to a mandatory slowdown), then failing to pass me because I was getting in the right lane, so he got back on the left, passed me, got in front of me — to get up to the same red light. Yeah, he got flicked off. Then he was trying to slow down and let me pass him on the road, I guess to get behind me. Of course I rolled down the window and told him to learn to fucking drive. He just kept telling me to get out of the car. But he was in a left lane, and I a right lane. He had a lot more to lose dicking around flexing his muscles, so he drove off to not miss his left turn arrow. It’s always amazing the shitty drivers who want to fight you because you flicked them off for shitty driving.
Thanking a cop?! Still later, another douche passed a bunch of people on the wrong side of the road in the access road to get out of taco bell. It was a very obvious dick move, and I saw him have to hit his breaks twice as cars went by (it is a confusing intersection 5 feet away from an access road intersection, what he did was flat out reckless driving that endangered several people) … And bam! A cop pulled him over that second! This may be the first time in my life a cop has pulled over someone who *personally* pissed me off driving. Even though it meant missing the light, wasting 3 minutes, and having a much harder, more dangerous left turn, I still had to pull up next to the officer so I could say “thanks for pulling over this douchebag, officer”. He barely heard me, he was busy actually YELLING at the guy, which, for once, was enjoyably justifiable.
Retards? And what’s with the shitty signs this week? TONS of signs with a street name and no arrow! This approach works IF you have another sign of the same color in sight, but no. Just saying your street name won’t get people to your house. YOU NEED AN ARROW, FUCKTARDS. At least 4 signs were pulled down and thrown onto the street in protest. If you put a shitty sign up that wastes our time and gas, we WILL take it down to prevent anyone else from having their time similarly wasted. You’ve been warned, Shitty YardSale Sign Makers Of Planet Earth. Don’t go through the effort of throwing a sale and making a sign from scratch without, you know, taking the 2 seconds it takes to draw a fucking arrow. It costs us $0.28/mi in gas so if I go down your shitty backroad for a mile to find nothing and come back, I’ve blown off more money than what we spent for a leather jacket and computer speakers. So fuck your shitty sign.
THE BOOTY:
Yes, it’s very weird to buy one of these without the accompanying umbrella. But they make great solar light stands, if you want to put someone where you can’t dig it on (i.e. on a concrete patio that is too dark to walk across at night)… And we already did this with our existing stand, so if we ever want to actually use our umbrella (assuming it doesn’t have a wasp nest up it like it does every spring), we’ll be needing a 2nd one
Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.
* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person). (more…)
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