Yesterday is gone
As I ponder retirement and what that will look like, I realized that I have decades upon decades of accumulated stuff; and staying here in this house is not the plan.
While planning for one’s retirement financially is important; planning on what one will do to keep busy and setting goals to make that happen are equally essential.
Many when they retire simply plan for the financial aspect and let life take care of itself. This often times causes one to fall into depression, shortening their golden years to just a few. Planning on actual events much like you were working will actually extend your life, and make it much happier.
Having said all that to say this; I was talked into spring cleaning by way of eBay and unfortunately a garage sale.
The process of a garage sale mandates evaluating “your stuff” and figuring out what you can live without and then, placing some sort of value on it.
Garage sales are not a money making business “for most.” Garage sales are in fact a venue for shedding your garage or house of extra stuff or clutter that has accumulated over the years and getting some sort of remuneration by way of cash to make your efforts seem worthwhile.
This garage sale went something like this. Up until 1:34 am getting everything ready. Back up at 5:30 to finish getting everything ready and then be surprised to learn that the sun does actually come up in the east!
Before morning light however there are people driving around neighborhoods with trucks and trailers looking for garage sales to acquire things like cheap furniture, lawn mowers and other yard equipment and bulkier things that require trailers.
Several times during the morning people came buy with phone in hand searching Amazon and other sites looking for the item’s that you were selling to determine if they were worth anything. I felt like I was in some sort of digital age of pickers because these folks were professional with it.
Then there were the thieves. Yep, people who would get their kids to distract you while they pocketed things, watched them do it. Now keep in mind the item if it were worth a $100.00 is already marked down to $5 but, $5 is too much so they just pocket it knowing that you have no inventory control and will never miss it.
Old people who too should be paring down, were picking up things and bargaining with you for a long time over .25 cents or less.
During the garage sale experience, the neighbor’s sprinklers went off twice, both times flooding the sidewalk. Other neighbors came out and mowed, weed whacked and then used the obligatory leaf blower to blow the debris either into the street or their neighbor’s lawn.
Noon time found the traffic down to a scant few, and found me ready to take the rest of it to some donation place as I was done with it. Many of the dust-ables are now in someone else’s house and the rest will find its way into some thrift store for others to pick over and figure out what to do with it.
eBay will end up with some of it because; eBay attracts a larger base than a garage sale and your chances of getting something more than a few cents is much higher than haggling with the deal seekers.
Garage sale attenders for the most part are serious deal hunters and I suspect take your dust-ables back to some place where they make a business out of it.
Unless you are filthy rich, when you decide to clean out your house take the time to look your items up on eBay or Amazon and see what they are worth. If they are worth a few dollars do the garage sale bit and prepare to give them away for a few cents on the dollar.
I would not consider and antique mall as those places make all the money for renting you a small place. While they bring in customers the ends rarely justify the means. You must necessarily have turnover in an antique mall so unless you are buying cheap at garage sales and stocking a small space continually at such a place don’t do it.
You might consider buying such a place and leasing out small chunks of it to people who think they are going to get rich by selling clutter but; that is the only financial entanglement I would have with such a place.
Now, if you are filthy rich and don’t have anyone to ruin their lives with tax issues having too much money, consider making me one of those people who would love to have too much money to deal with.
-Best to you and those that you care about!
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TheTimeDok 