3/24/13 Purchase Summary

Yesterday had the potential to be the best garage saling day I've had in years. Sadly, I had to quit before 9:00 but I still got some good deals.

We started at a multi-family sale that was actually multi-family and good. There were at least five houses participating and they all had a lot of stuff. At the first house I bought a stack of 22 textbooks. The seller initially wanted "one or two dollars each" but I offered $5 for all, knowing they were all copyright 2005 or later. I figured with that many books I could at least make my money back on Amazon and then sell the rest on Craigslist. She was initially hesitant about letting them go for only $5, but she accepted in the end and threw in a 23rd book that's a perfect Father's Day gift. I've already got $25 for two of the books with the Amazon buyback program. I have another book listed on Amazon for $22 and the rest are listed on Craigslist.

The second house had a DVD I got for a quarter, another father's day gift. Some other houses had stuff in which I was interested that were priced too high. Finally, the second to last house had a DS Lite marked at $20. The seller was really friendly so I offered $5 just to see if she'd take it. She actually considered but then countered with $15. We ended up settling at $8. The DS Lite is definitely an upgrade from the DS I bought a few weeks ago so the DS is going on Craigslist. The DS Lite works perfectly; the only problem is that it's pink.

Finally, I bought a Nerf gun for $0.25. I have it on Craigslist for $20 but I expect to get $10 for it in the end. By then it was almost 9:00 and I had to quit.

Later on in the day I was out for a walk and came across an unmarked sale. I ended up buying two GameCube games and an empty GameCube case from the unmarked sale for $1. I have the case listed at $12 on eBay but I don't really expect it to sell for that much.

Altogether, I spent $14.50 yesterday. That's definitely more than I usually spend but I've already made more than my money back and I have the potential to make significantly more with those textbooks.

2/23/13 Purchase Summary

Saturday was an awful day for saling, a letdown especially after last week. I ended up spending $1.35 on five items.

I bought four items at one sale for $1.25: I found a pile of textbooks and some scrapbooking paper at one sale so I went through it all to find anything good. I found three books of value (thanks to my friend's smart phone) and a box full of scrapbook paper. The seller originally wanted $2 for everything but I worked her down to $1.25 by pretending to be hesitant. I would have readily paid the $2 as each of the books starts at at least $16 used on Amazon. I've already sold one, my first resale for 2013.

Later on I bought a book for $0.10. Nothing exciting, but I guess I should consider myself lucky. I was the only person to buy anything that day.

Yesterday I finally resold the second of the two graphing calculators I bought in September of last year. This represents the last of the $2 I've spent from the $2.65 challenge. So far I've made $220 from the Challenge and I still have $0.65 left. I'm not really sure what I'm going to spend that last bit on; maybe I can get another graphing calculator for $0.50.

2/16/13 Purchase Summary

Today's saling trip seemed like it was going to be another lackluster day until the last half dozen sales. By 10:30 I had only purchased two items: a set of Laser Challenge laser tag stuff (a vest and two guns for $0.50) for Craigslist and a book (Darkness Visible by William Golding for $0.10) for myself.

I got lucky at the end of the day. I got a Nintendo DS (the original one) for $3. I managed to work the seller down from $5 because the hinge is cracked. I'll have to buy a new housing but they're only ~$6 on dx.com. At the next sale I bought a Super Mario World watch. I assume it's something Nintendo gave out as a promotion back when the game came out in 1991. Identical ones sell on eBay for $50-$100 but this one is in awful condition (missing part of the band, no backing, etc.) so I'll hopefully get $20 for it on eBay. If it doesn't sell I don't mind as I only spent $0.05 on it. At our last stop I bought a copy of A Confederacy of Dunces for $0.25. It's one book I don't mind spending a little bit more on (relatively) because it's amazing.

I spent $3.90 total today. I hope to get $15-$20 for the laser tag stuff (I'm going to add in a matching gun I got out of a dumpster recently so I have a full set) and $20 for the watch, although I'll really be happy if I get $10 for it. The DS was a complete steal even though I have to buy a new housing because this model starts at $50 used. Today was definitely the best day I've had so far in 2013.

2/2/13 Purchase Summary

Sales today were poor. Unlike this time last month, there were a lot of sales but almost all of them were terrible. 

I ended up spending $1.75 on four items. I bought a bundle of two PS2 games (Ratchet Deadlocked and Turok Evolution) for $1.50 and another bundle of two books for $0.25. As it turns out, one of the books is identical in everything but title (it's a collection of short stories) to another book I already own so it's going straight to my next garage sale.

I did see a new Thermarest pad today (think fancy camping mattress) but the guy wanted $25 for it. I also saw someone who was selling seventeen pesticide sprayers. All of them were used but only some of them came with a box. It was very strange.

This evening I sold one of the two TI-83 graphing calculators I purchased back on September 8th of last year. I got $65 for it, or $15 more than I was hoping. The girl didn't even try to bargain. This, of course, means I've already made $165 on the $2.65 challenge and I still have one graphing calculator to sell and $0.65 left to spend. I also made $60 selling a non-garage sale item on Craigslist this afternoon, making today my second-most profitable Craigslist day of all time, just $5 behind March 23rd, 2012.

1/12/13 Purchase Summary

I didn't go saling Saturday, I just did my neighborhood walk. There were three bad sales in one cul-de-sac.

At first I didn't buy anything. One house had a Nerf gun for $2 that I passed over. Another house had a stack of overpriced Xbox 360 games (marked $5-$15 each) with one PS1 game mixed in: Parasite Eve, marked at $5. Xbox games don't interest me and $5 is too much for a game so I left. On my way home, I realized that the PS1 game may actually be worth something because it's a Squaresoft RPG, so I made a call and determined it starts at $15 used on Amazon. I walked back to the sale to see if they would let me have it for $2.

They wouldn't take $2 but they countered with $3. I pretended to walk off and they accepted $2 so I paid and left. Walking home, I realized the game came with all the manuals and everything but it was missing one of the three disks. I walk back to the sale yet again and they readily give me my money back as they didn't realize it was missing a disk as well. I got home and looked it up on Amazon to realize that the 3rd disk only has collectors' content and isn't needed to actually play the game. I walked to the sale for the fourth time and offered $1 as the game was missing a disk.

They took the dollar. I haven't decided if the game is going on Amazon or if I should keep it.

1/5/13 Purchase Summary

Today was my first saling day of 2013. I probably should have waited another week because there just weren't that many sales. I think we really wanted to go because we've only been once in the past four months.

I ended up spending $2: $1 on two PS2 games (ATV Offroad Fury and Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex), $0.50 on an inflatable turkey, and $0.50 on mancala. I bought the PS2 games more on a whim than anything; I've been gradually building my PS2 collection at garage sales over the past year. I intend to keep the turkey for any white elephant gift exchanges I may attend next winter.

11/3/12 Purchase Summary

I didn't actually go garage saling yesterday; I just did my normal neighborhood walk. I bought Colossus by Michael Hiltzik for $0.10. I know nothing about the book but it sounded interesting and the author won a Pulitzer so I thought it would be decent.

10/27/12 Purchase Summary

Today was the first day I went garage saling in more than a month and a half and it was rather disappointing, for me at least. My friend with whom  I went saling bought many items.

I spent a total of $1 on three items: a computer mouse for my parents ($0.25); Upper Hand, a board game that combines Bridge and Scrabble from the early 1980's ($0.50); and a wireless internet camera ($0.25). I bricked the camera during installation. I have no idea how or why it happened but it's not a big deal; I didn't really have a use for it. I did see an item I did want to buy; a guy had a big box of NES stuff that I wanted to resell. He wanted $75 for the set so I didn't even try to work him down.

Today was pretty much a letdown.

9/8/12 Purchase Summary

I had another great haul yesterday. While I bought more items than is typical for me, I still spent only $2.75 and I managed to buy an item for myself, an item for a Christmas gift, and several resale items.

My first purchase was two TI-83 graphing calculators and one manual. As I mentioned yesterday, these are being added to the $2.65 challenge. I've had a lot of people emailing me about them recently so hopefully they sell soon; I should make $40/calculator.

I later bought a copy of Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64 along with a food scale for $0.50. I just happened to find Goldeneye in a box of random electronics (always check the boxes of cables, there is sometimes good stuff buried); it's already sold on Amazon for $12. I bought the scale as a gift for my dad for Christmas because my mom would never buy him one despite him asking for years. I got pretty lucky getting both items for $0.50 considering the scale was marked at $0.75; the seller wouldn't even consider my friend's offer when he tried to bargain.

I bought a copy of Super Mario World at a church sale for $0.25. It's on Amazon right now but it won't sell for a while. This was only the second church/organization sale from which I ever bought anything.

I later on bought one of the oldest Game Boys, a case, and one game for $0.50. The woman originally wanted $10 but she quickly went down once I showed her that the batteries had exploded inside the Game Boy. I took it home and scraped out the gunk and, much to my not surprise, it worked. Unfortunately, some of the pixels are dead but it can supposedly be fixed. I don't think I'm going to bother, I'm just going to list it on Craigslist -- sans game -- with the Game Boy accessories I bought a few weeks ago. Sadly, the game is Tetris 2 (not Tetris like I thought it was) but I'm still keeping it despite having learned that Tetris 2 is a terrible game. I have no estimate for how much I can get for the Game Boy stuff.

My last purchase was a tea infuser mug for myself. I had tried to buy it a few months ago when the seller had another sale but he wouldn't accept my offer of $0.50. Yesterday he relented (although at first he still insisted on $1, he eventually realized that he had had it for a while) and I got my infuser.

And the obligatory photo of my purchases, of course:

8/18/12 Purchase Summary

I got some amazing deals yesterday; yesterday was probably the best day I've had in years. Sadly, I was the only person to have a good day because my friends didn't get any good deals.

Yesterday seemed like it was going to be a slow day at the start; we experimented with a new route that proved to be a poor choice but, luckily, it picked up at the end of the day. I ended up spending $5.25 for seven items, shown below.

My first purchases were the textbooks. I got both for $0.50. As it turns out, one is worthless but I can sell one to my sister's university for $6.00. Not great but it at least pays for my purchases today. At a later sale I bought the gas mask and the PlayStation game. I worked the seller down from $5 to $0.50 for the gas mask and, when I realized he was a pushover, offered him $0.25 for the game which he accepted. I assumed the game was worthless (I just got it on a whim) but as it turns out it starts on Amazon for around $19 after shipping, which means I can probably sell this copy for $25-$30 plus shipping considering I have the case and the manual. I'm going to play it a little bit before I decide if I'm going to get rid of it or not.

I purchased my last three items late in the day. I got the Motorola Droid, the Flip UltraHD (4GB), and the game boy case plus accessories for $4. The seller was unsure if anything was working which is why he was selling it for so cheap. The camera and the phone both work perfectly. The camera starts at $95 used on Amazon and I could probably sell the phone for $25-40 but I'm keeping both. The only item of the three purchased at the sale I intend to sell is the Game Boy carrier for which I anticipate making anywhere from $10-$30.

8/4/12 Purchase Summary

Today was a good day for both my friend with whom I went saling and me. I ended up spending $6.

The first sale at which we stopped had Nerf Guns. I bought three -- a Long Strike and two Deploys -- for $1. I have these listed on Craigslist with two other guns (one of which I bought in May) for $60 but I really expect to make $40-$45. Not bad for a $1.50 total investment.

The rest of the day was really slow until the last few sales. I purchased a copy of Monopoly Deal for my sister for $0.50 in the in between time but that's it. At the last few sales, I bought a copy of Lego Star Wars for myself ($1), a Christmas present for my mother ($1), and, finally, a new monitor ($2.50). I desperately needed the monitor and it was the only widescreen I've seen in the last few weeks. It doesn't have the best resolution (1440x900) but I really needed it and I got a great deal. I have now replaced my entire old computer (except for the mouse) for $26.63.

7/29/12 Purchase Summary

That's right. I went garage saling on a Sunday! I actually didn't go saling this weekend. I did my usual morning walk around the neighborhood yesterday and stopped at two sales. They were both very poor and I bought nothing. However, I did see a sign advertising for a sale this morning so I did the same thing today. As it turned out, it was a neighborhood sale for a very small neighborhood of duplexes near my house. Seven families were participating and I bought from two of them. I bought 3 books for $0.25 -- solving the issue of what I'll be reading when I go backpacking next week -- and a set of computer speakers for $2. $2 was a little more than I was hoping to spend but I needed them (my computer didn't come with any) and these were nicer and cheaper than any others I've seen recently. <

This means my current computer cost me a total of $24.13 after shipping. The tower and everything in it excluding the graphics card and the RAM came out of a dumpster. The RAM came out of another dumpster the same day. The graphics card cost me $14.65 on eBay and the cable it didn't come with cost me another $7.48. My friend gave me the monitor because it's slowly dying. The mouse was free and I got the keyboard free a few weeks ago. Finally, I got the speakers today for $2. 

7/7/12 Purchase Summary

Sales today were abysmal. There were a lot of them but most were entirely clothing; I estimate we did drive bys (bies?) at close to 80% of the sales we found. This is a really high figure -- usually a really bad day is 50% drive bys at most.

I ended up spending $1.85 today. I spent $1 on ten of the large size Abba-Zabas. My sister really likes them and that size is usually $2 each (I think; I don't buy candy). I spent $0.50 on a wireless router. I was hoping it's DD-WRT compatible but it's not. Fortunately, I already have DD-WRT installed on one router so I can use it as a wireless bridge for my dumpster desktop (if this doesn't mean anything to you don't worry; it didn't mean anything to me until I got my computer out of a dumpster a few weeks ago) so I can just use this one as a regular router with my other one as a bridge should I eventually get my own place. I also spent $0.25 on a Christmas decoration for my mom and $0.10 on a VGA cable for myself.

6/23/12 Purchase Summary

I bought three items today: two while out formally garage saling and one later on in the day. I spent $1.90 resulting in a profit potential of as much as $100.

The first item I purchased was a TI-83 Plus graphing calculator. The sellers clearly had no idea what it was ("I'm not sure if we even know how it works!" was the seller's response when I asked if it works) so I got it for $0.50. I have it listed on Craigslist for $60 but I expect to make more in the $40-$45 range on it. 

The second item I purchased was an NES Power Pad -- think a Dance Dance Revolution pad for the original Nintendo except it's not used for dancing games. It came in the original box and appears unused. I couldn't remember if Power Pads are a valuable item or not so I figured I could sell it at my own garage sale which I'll be having in a few weeks if it proved worthless. It cost me $1; if I find a buyer I may get anywhere from $10-$30 for it. 

My last item, a textbook, I purchased later in the day. It cost me $0.40 (all the change on me at the time) and I just listed it on Amazon for $45. After shipping and fees, I will get between $32 and $34 for it, assuming it sells at $45.
I think I will use the calculator as the first item from my $2.65 challenge.

6/9/12 Purchase Summary

I didn't actually go garage saling today so instead I did my walk around the neighborhood to look for nearby sales. I ended up stopping at four, all of which were better than the average for my area. 

I purchased two items: an almost new copy of the fifth season of Monk for $1 (birthday gift for my mom) and a kid's night vision set for $0.25. Sadly, as I expected, the night was one of the visible light sets (and therefore not night vision in any sense of the word -- it's essentially a flashlight) and not one of the infrared sets. I would have killed myself had I passed it up and found out when I got home that it was indeed an IR set especially since I've already passed up one IR set this way. So, I wasted a quarter. To the garage sale pile it goes.

6/2/12 Purchase Summary

We started our day yesterday by going to a nearby neighborhood's annual community sale. This was a new experience for me as this sale was always right before finals when I was in college. I had no idea what to expect but I wasn't too optimistic -- neighborhood sales are usually pretty poor. As it turns out, this sale was amazing; I counted sixty-two houses having sales and that figure does not include houses with just a coffee table or something similar sitting out front. Sixty-two houses is an absurdly large number of participating houses. I think I've discussed this before, but most "neighborhood sales" have maybe six or eight participants if you are lucky. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised.

That said, none of the individual sales at the neighborhood sale were especially good; I would estimate we drove by over half of them. Of my five purchases of the day, only two were from the neighborhood sale: a box of solar panels for $0.50 (fun for projects) and a bust of Julius Caesar for $1.00.

The Nalgene is regular-sized; that bust is 24" tall

Between a late start and the neighborhood sale, we didn't start saling along our normal route until almost 9:30 yesterday morning so many of the sales were already closing up by the time we got to even the middle of our route. My only purchases outside the neighborhood sale were at the first sale at which we stopped along our normal route: two books (The Brothers Karamazov and Ulysses) and a new gaming keyboard (a SteelSeries 6Gv2) all for $0.20. The keyboard sells for $85 on Amazon. I have it listed on Craigslist but if I can't find a buyer for a good price I'll just keep it for myself.

5/12/12 Purchase Summary

I bought a lot of stuff today, ten items for a total of $3.10. Sales weren't that good but I got lucky.

The first sale we stopped at had a lot of old electronics -- such as stacks of old hard drives -- and a lot of video game stuff -- most of it broken, such as the cases for several XBox 360s, a PS3 lacking a hard drive, some DS games, and some worthless Super Nintendo Games. None of this interested me until I saw a Super Nintendo controller sticking out of a tangle of wires. 

One of my friends asked me last week to look for a Super Nintendo controller for him. I explained to him that while I would gladly look, my chances of finding one was extremely small; before today I had only ever seen a SNES controller at one sale in my life. 

The sellers were very reasonable -- asking $1.00 per controller which I worked down to $0.50 -- so I also decided to buy two Sega Dreamcast controllers I found while untangling the mass of wires. They're aftermarket but decent; I have an identical one already. Dreamcast controllers are as hard to find as SNES controllers. With the three controllers I threw in a Sega Game Gear TV Tuner (worthless, as it turns out) and a random mask I thought looked interesting, all for $2. As it turns out the mask is part of an industrial respirator and costs anywhere from $130 to $200 new (I'm not sure the materials so I can't tell which model it is).

Later on in the day I bought some more items. I bought Guns, Germs, and Steel for $0.25. I started reading it last night but my Kindle copy is bad. I bought a first aid kit (only for the box) for $0.25, it included Tylenol that expired in October of 1987. I bought a "Beware of Guard Dog" sign for $0.10. My final purchase was two textbooks for $0.50; I have them listed on Amazon for $13 and $40 right now. I seem to have gotten pretty good at guessing which books are valuable. I only wish I had a smart phone so I could have checked the other, older books at that sale.

I'm pretty happy. I got my friend a good gift, some stuff for myself, and when those books sell, I'll profit around $38.

5/5/12 Purchase Summary

I spent $1.25 on four items today. The first item was a Nerf gun: the Recon CS-6 for $0.50. According to the Nerf wiki it's pretty popular gun so I'm confident it will sell. I have it listed on Craigslist for $18 but I expect to get closer to $10. My other three items were acquired at one sale. I bought a snowman Christmas decoration for my mom for $0.50; I was going to keep it until her birthday until I realized how big it is. She'll be getting it for Mother's Day. I also bought a Flamingo Floater (sorry I can't post an image but Flickr doesn't let you embed its images and my own photographs are awful). It's an inflatable flamingo with a ring-shaped body into which you place a matching glass so you can enjoy your beverage in the pool. I had one of these from a garage sale free pile that I brought to a Hanukkah party gift exchange; it provided popular so I figured I could repeat it for $0.25. The last item I purchased (well, my friend purchased -- it was $2 per bag of books and she was kind enough to place my book in her bag) was an Agatha Christie collection. My sister only has one of the novels in the collection so I got lucky. It will make a good birthday gift, especially since it looks new.

4/21/12 Purchase Summary

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.

4/7/12 Purchase Summary

I didn't actually go garage saling this weekend.  I did what I did on March 10th: I took a morning walk through my neighborhood and stopped at any sales I found. Today I only found one and it was terrible; it was made entirely of clothing.

Going out today I did happen to stop at another sale because it was on the route I usually take anyway. This house frequently has sales (this is the fourth one I've seen since December) and I always stop because the sales are usually pretty good.  Today I did not leave disappointed: I bought a TI-83 graphing calculator for $0.50.

The calculator is missing the sliding cover and the battery cover.  Other than these somewhat major flaws, it's in perfect condition; I expect to get anywhere from $30-$50 for it.

Yesterday I sold one of the books I purchased two weeks ago.  After Amazon's fees, my cut comes to around $11.72.  Shipping will be $3-$4, so in the worst case I'll be getting ~$7.75 off a $0.10 investment. It's not much, but it at least pays for my portion of the gas money for that trip.