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The no-pants guide to spending, saving, and thriving in the real world.

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Side Hustle: The Garage Sale Marketing

Finance

By popular demand, here is our garage sale marketing copy.

First, the newspaper ad, which ran in the Sunday edition through Tuesday before the sale:

MOTHER OF ALL GARAGE SALES! 5/13 to 5/15, 8-5!
1000s of items! Furn, crib, electronics, dishes,
cloz from baby to adult fashion!
Lots more!

Next, our Craigslist ad:

Huge sale!
Decades of accumulated stuff from four households!

Thousands of items! Yes, thousands!

We’ve got hundreds of outfits for fashion-conscious women and dozens of candles and candle-holders from Partylite!

Our babies keep growing and outgrowing their stuff. Lots of clothes, a changing table, a convertible drop-side crib, a tall dresser, and many, many, MANY toys!

We’ve got clothes in a variety of sizes: newborn through preschool, boy’s clothes from kindergarten through almost junior high school, adult clothes for both men and women.

There’s a china cabinet/hutch, a curio cabinet, 3 computer desks, a butcher-block kitchen table, a toddler bed and more! The bed and the crib even come with the mattresses, which we kept wrapped in a protective sheet the entire time they were used!

Antiques, toys from our childhood, hundreds of books and movies and much, much more!

Extra computer equipment for the true geek in your life! Boxes of RAM and video cards, a small LCD monitor that’s perfect for putting a computer in your car. I upgrade and replace my computers often. Here’s your chance to upgrade for just a couple of dollars.

Shoes! Holy cow, do we have shoes! New in the box, never been worn, selling for a buck! You can’t beat that price!

Jackets galore! There are a couple of dozen jackets ready to go. Spring and winter, sizes for all ages, including snow suits for babies and toddlers. We’ve got hats and gloves. Don’t miss this opportunity to outfit your kids and grandkids for the upcoming winter. It’s never too early!

We’re even getting rid of some tools and gear for the garage. There’s a 12-volt refrigerator/food-warmer. That’s a fridge for your car or camper! Also a variety of tools and a snowblower. You don’t want to miss this!

Last, but certainly not least:
A 1986 Honda Shadow VT700.
11,000 miles and two owners.
This is in excellent condition. It’s got almost no rust, just a few spots on the exhaust. It starts with no effort every spring. New tires, brakes, and a carb rebuild just a couple of seasons ago. New leather on the seats last fall. It’s a beauty.
Only $2750.

Thursday, May 13th through Saturday, May 15th. 8AM to 5PM

Address redacted.

Note: The entire series is contained in the Garage Sale Manual on the sidebar.

Make a Budget

Finance

DSC02103
Image by r.lovewell via Flickr

In the past, I’ve gone through a detailed series of budget lessons demonstrating how to make a budget and showing my personal budget spreadsheet template.  If you weren’t here to see them develop, you probably haven’t seen them at all.    I’ve never built an actual index for those posts.

This is the master index of my budget planning resources.  As I develop more, this will grow.

Budget Lesson #1 – In this lesson, I go over how we handle discretionary income and I explain our modified envelope system.   The discretionary budget contains things like our grocery bill, or the clothes we buy.  We have near-total discretion over what is purchased, hence the name.

Budget Lesson #2 – Lesson #2 contains the details of our monthly bills.  These are the ones that are consistent, predictable, and actually due each month.  Most people take these for granted as the bills they have to pay, but it’s not true.   You can get almost all of your regular bills reduced just by asking.   You would also be surprised what you can do without, when properly motivated.

Budget Lesson #3 – This is where I explain how we deal with the non-monthly bills.  That is, the bills that have to be paid, but are not due on a monthly basis.  I also share the personal budget spreadsheet template I developed.   I am working on a few sample templates to match various imaginary scenarios.  If you’d like to be an anonymous case study, and get free help setting up a budget, let me know, please.

Budget Lesson #4 – In this lesson, I describe our “set-aside” funds for things that will need to be paid eventually, but not on a set schedule.  Sometimes, they are never actually due.   We set aside money for the parties we throw, for car repairs and for a number of other things.  A few of these items are outright optional, but they are part of what makes life fun.  You can’t make a budget without including some of the extras.

Budget Lesson #5 – This is the companion piece to lesson 2.   Learn how I’ve reduced–or attempted to reduce–each of these bills.   For the better part of two years, I called Dish Network every few months to ask for a discount.  For almost 2 years, it was granted.  Then one, day, they told me they were putting a note on our account to keep us from getting any more discounts, so I canceled.   100% discounts help us save more.

Budget Lesson #6 – This is the reduction companion to lesson 3.  These bills are harder to reduce.  Have you ever successfully gotten your property taxes lowered?

Budget Lesson #7 – This is the reduction companion to lesson 4.  Notice a pattern, yet?

Budget Lesson #8 – Here, completely out of order, is the reduction companion to lesson 1.   Watch as I magically reduce–or rationalize–our discretionary budget.

So, dear readers, what part of budgeting should I address next?

Side Hustle: Garage Sale Wrap-Up

Finance

We are now to the end of Garage Sale Week here at Live Real, Now.  I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

Eslite Bookstore in Taichung Chung-yo Departme...
Image via Wikipedia

After you shut down on the last day, take the evening off.   You’ve just been hard at work for 2-3 days and need a break.  Deal with the stuff tomorrow.  Tomorrow–and probably the next few days–you’ve got work to do.   What do you do with everything that didn’t sell?   If you’re planning on making garage sales a regular side-hustle, just box it all up and put it to the side until next time.   After all, it’s all priced, sorted, and ready-to-go, right?  If, like me, your goal was to declutter, then it’s time for some serious downsizing.   Let’s dump the crap.

The first thing we did was box up all of the books and movies to bring to the used book store.   We dropped the items at the sell table and spent half an hour browsing a bookstore.   That’s never a good way for me to save money.   The store we went to checks the demand for everything you bring in.    If there’s no demand, they donate or recycle the items and you don’t get paid.    DVDs bring about $1 each.   VHS is demand-based.   Paperbacks are something less than half of the retail price.   Hardcovers are demand-based.   We were offered $28 and pointed to the huge pile of discard/recycle items that we were free to reclaim.   I picked out 4-5 books and movies that I thought had value and left the rest.    Bringing the clutter back home would defeat the purpose of going there.

The clothes were handled two ways.    First, all of the little girl clothes were bagged and set aside for some friends with a little girl.   The rest were bagged and loaded in the truck for a run to Goodwill.    The clothes filled the box of our pickup.

The random knick-knacks were also boxed up and delivered to Goodwill, along with most of the leftover toys.   This was another completely full truck box.  We had a lot of stuff in our sale.

The beat-up or low-value furniture that didn’t sell was put on the curb with “FREE” signs.   I posted the free items on Craigslist and they were gone in just a few hours.   The Craigslist ad said “Please do not contact, I will remove the listing when the items are gone.”   Otherwise, there are usually 10-15 emails per hour asking if the items are still available.  The ad didn’t even have pictures and it worked quickly.

Some of the furniture–the toddler bed, changing table, china cabinet, and the good computer desk–were hauled back to our garage to post on Craigslist with a price-tag.  They are too good to give away. If the camera wouldn’t have died two nights ago, the pictures would already be up.  Some of the other items were also reserved for individual sale.  The extra router, the 6 inch LCD screen, and a few other toys will go on Ebay.

Finally there was some stuff that we decided we weren’t going to get rid of.    We kept a few movies, but only because I didn’t notice them until I got back from the bookstore.   My wife kept a box of Partylite stuff–though most of the leftovers were donated.   Very little of the things we had ready for sale are being kept in our lives.   Almost all of it is gone, or will be soon.

All in all, this was a cathartic end to last month’s 30 Day Project.    There was some surprising emotional attachment to some things I didn’t think I cared about. It’s good to see it gone.

Note: The entire series is contained in the Garage Sale Manual on the sidebar.

Sunday Roundup: Diet Redux

Misc

Emergency "Twitter was down so I wrote my...
Image via Wikipedia

I had total diet fail last month.

From April to May, across 4 consecutive weekends, I put a bit over 1500 miles on my car on 4 separate trips.  That is something like 10 times my average mileage.

That’s a lot of driving, squeezed around a regular schedule of work.   Have you ever tried a drive through for low-carb food?   Because of that, and the circumstances of some of my trips, I abandoned my diet on those weekends.   Funeral food is rarely low-carb.

By the time those trips were over, I had spent so much time off my diet that “What’s one more sandwich?” became an easy justification.  There is a reason I don’t break the rules I give myself.  I can’t seem to cheat just once.  Once I cross that line, it’s over.

So, instead of cheating on my diet and feeling guilty, I officially dropped it for most of the month of May.  I decided it would be easier to get it out of my system than to continue worrying about it.

May’s over, and I’m back on the Slow Carb diet.  My little fail cost me 7 pounds and 6.5 total inches(waist , hips, biceps, and thighs).  I’m reasonably sure that most of that is water and will evaporate before next weekend.

Best Posts

My goal is to live my life so that I have no regrets at the end of it.  That means pursuing my dreams and doing the things I love.

It’s easier to do the things I love when my life isn’t weighed down by the crap I don’t need.

Sweating the Big Stuff wrote a killer post on saving money simply by asking.  Often, the easy things work.

Carnivals I’ve Rocked and Guest Posts I’ve Rolled

Shopping Online: The Money-Saving Secret was included in the Festival of Frugality.

Money Problems: Paying Off Debt was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

5 Ways to Help Your Friends Stay Out of Debt was included in the Totally Money Blog Carnival.

Should Pupils Focus on Personal Finance was included in the Yakezie Carnival.

 

Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.

Get More Out of Live Real, Now

There are so many ways you can read and interact with this site.

You can subscribe by RSS and get the posts in your favorite news reader.  I prefer Google Reader.

You can subscribe by email and get, not only the posts delivered to your inbox, but occasional giveaways and tidbits not available elsewhere.

You can ‘Like’ LRN on Facebook.   Facebook gets more use than Google.  It can’t hurt to see what you want where you want.

You can follow LRN on Twitter.   This comes with some nearly-instant interaction.

You can send me an email, telling me what you liked, what you didn’t like, or what you’d like to see more(or less) of.   I promise to reply to any email that isn’t purely spam.

Have a great week!

 

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Debt Burnout

Finance

Burnout.
Image by LunaDiRimmel via Flickr

You’ve got a budget.  You’ve got a debt repayment plan.  You’ve been paying off your debt.  You’ve even paid off a few of your smaller debts.  Now you’re staring down the barrel of your big debts: your mortgage, a $30,000 credit card, maybe a car payment.  You’re looking at months of payments with no quick wins; no more watching your debts die every few months.  You’re in the middle of a very long slog.

All of the easy milestones have been reached and the next one is a year or more away.  This is when debt repayment gets hard.  How can you avoid getting burnt out doing the same thing, month after month, with no major visible progress?

1.  Keep your eye on the prize. Try focusing on the end result, while ignoring the time it takes to get there.  Do you have a reward planned for when you pay off your debt?  If not, consider that to be your new shining goal-post.  My wife and I plan on taking an Alaskan cruise when our debt is repaid.

2.  Ignore the prize. If #1 doesn’t work for you, try focusing on just the current month’s progress.  How much did you pay off this month?  Was it more than last month?

3.  Make micro-goals. Try breaking the long slog into bite-sized pieces.  How fast can you pay off the next $1000?  How many months will it take to pay off that TV you bought last year?  Sometimes, meeting a smaller goal can make the whole works feel like it’s going by faster.

4.  Take a snowball vacation. For just one month, take every dollar you would normally apply to your debt–except your required payments–and have some fun with it.  Take a weekend trip, have a fancy dinner, or pick up that video game system you’ve been eying.  Something.  Anything to take your mind off of your repayment plan for a while.   Be careful not to make this a habit or you will never get out of debt.

5.  Start a blog to share your pain.

A debt snowball is a long, intense process.  If you’re not careful, you can burn out and let the whole thing collapse.  How do you avoid burnout?

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Sunday Roundup: Outta Town

Misc

Scrapbooking Cupcakes!
Image by clevercupcakes via Flickr

This weekend, my wife is off scrapbooking with my mother and sister-in-law.   Instead of hanging around the house trying to keep three kids entertained, I’m at my brother’s house, since his wife abandoned him with their kids, too.   I’ll let his kids keep mine entertained, and vice versa.  Woo!

30 Day Project Update

I am on the Slow Carb Diet.   At the end of the month, I’ll see what the results were and decide if it’s worth continuing.   For those who don’t know, the Slow Carb Diet involves cutting out potatoes, rice, flour, sugar, and dairy in all their forms.   My meals consist of 40% proteins, 30% vegetables, and 30% legumes(beans or lentils).    There is no calorie counting, just some specific rules, accompanied by a timed supplement regimen and some timed exercises to manipulate my metabolism.   The supplements are NOT effedrin-based diet pills, or, in fact, uppers of any kind.  There is also a weekly cheat day, to cut the impulse to cheat and to avoid letting my body go into famine mode.

I’m measuring two metrics, my weight and the total inches of my waist , hips, biceps, and thighs.   Between the two, I should have an accurate assessment of my progress.

Weight: I have lost 30 pounds since January 2nd!   That’s only 1 pounds since last week.  12 more to meet my goal for February.  The difference this week?  I’ve cut back on the supplements, to see if they actually make a difference.  It would appear they do.

Total Inches: I have lost 16 inches in the same time frame, down 1.5 since last week.

Best Posts

I totally got live this joke.

Are you a compulsive shopper?  Money Crashers has some tips to cut that down.

Before I got a smartphone, I relied on a PocketMod for almost everything a smartphone does.  Does that make me a geek?

$39Glasses is having a killer sale.  $15 off a $40 item is huge.

Tim Ferriss has a guide to slow-carb seasonings.   It’s worth reading if your food is boring you.

LRN Timewarp

This is where I review the posts I wrote a year ago.  Did you miss them then?

This was Scam Week last year.  I had a post on debt scams and scams that target disaster victims.  As we roll into flooding season, it’s important to know how these scams work.

I also discussed my attempt to teach my son to savor delayed gratification.  It has been working.  He makes long-term(for an 11 year old) plans regularly.

Carnivals I’ve Rocked and Guest Posts I’ve Rolled

Money Problems: Setting Goals was included in the Festival of Frugality.

Your Budget is Worthless was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

Brown Bagging Your Way to Savings was included in the Carnival of Money Stories.

Debt Burnout was included in the Totally Money Carnival.

Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.

Get More Out of Live Real, Now

There are so many ways you can read and interact with this site.

You can subscribe by RSS and get the posts in your favorite news reader.  I prefer Google Reader.

You can subscribe by email and get, not only the posts delivered to your inbox, but occasional giveaways and tidbits not available elsewhere.

You can ‘Like’ LRN on Facebook.   Facebook gets more use than Google.  It can’t hurt to see what you want where you want.

You can follow LRN on Twitter.   This comes with some nearly-instant interaction.

You can send me an email, telling me what you liked, what you didn’t like, or what you’d like to see more(or less) of.   I promise to reply to any email that isn’t purely spam.

Have a great week!

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