Today's sales were exceptionally good but I still had trouble finding items I wanted to purchase. I ended up spending $4.45 but I failed to successfully negotiate for some other items I wanted.
One of the first sales I stopped at had a new computer graphics card for sale for $5. I knew it was old (the sale date on the box was in September 2010) but I figured it would work for my purposes. I have been intending to build myself a computer for a while now (my current computer is my college laptop I purchased five years ago) mainly as a learning exercise. As it turns out, despite the card being from around 2010, it uses an older technology: AGP, which, according to Wikipedia, was starting to phase out in 2004 and was pretty much dead by 2009. Basically, I bought something that cannot be used with any modern computer.
I'm not upset about my purchase. I managed to work the seller down to $2.50, knowing that I could sell the card on Craigslist for $20 or even $10 if it wouldn't fit my purposes. I currently have it listed for $35 and if I can get someone willing to spend $20 on it I will gladly sell it to them.
I spent the rest of the $4.45 at another sale. I purchased an AT to PS/2 cable for $0.25. Many mechanical keyboards use AT but no modern computer has AT ports so you need a converter; I think I can throw in the cable for another $5 next time I sell a mechanical keyboard. The final $1.70 was spent on seventeen signs. The seller owned a company that built medical buildings, so he had many different signs leftover, for example, signs that read: "COMBUSTIBLE," "EXIT," etc.
I bought the signs as an investment (well, I did keep a few for myself). Next week I am having a garage sale of my own and I know, from previous selling experience, that signs sell well. I anticipate being able to sell each sign for anywhere from $2 to $15 (they're all different sizes and types and some are just fancy, permanent stickers). I cleaned the seller out on signs because I figured at ten cents each the potential profit was definitely worth it; if I sell one I can pay for all of them. Besides, if they don't sell, my friends will enjoy the 8"x10" "CORROSIVE MATERIAL" stickers.
As I said above, I won't be garage saling next weekend. I will be trying to get rid of my accumulated junk, much of which I purchased from garage sales. I'm going to have out some of my unsold purchases, including those graphing calculators, the AlphaSmart, and the graphics card from today. If I don't get a decent offer I will just keep them for Craigslist.
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