Adventures on Craigslist

Bought or sold anything good on Craigslist lately? If not, you are missing out! A friend of mine recently blogged about the beautiful dining room table and chairs set that she got for $75. They were in perfect condition, and the chairs were the exact style she had been looking for. She spent a great deal of time watching the postings on Craiglist for just the perfect set to come up, and was getting discouraged because so many sets were out of her price range, but the moral of her story (and the moral of the Craigslist story in general) is that patience pays off.

In my own experience, I have found that the truly good stuff gets snatched up pretty quickly, so if you really want something, hit that refresh button every time you walk past the computer. A few years ago, we needed a better dresser for my son's room. After about a dozen years, his WalMart particleboard special was falling to pieces (imagine that). My budget was not very much; if I bought something new I would have had to settle for another particleboard one, and I wanted something better. So, I camped out on Craigslist and finally found a large oak dresser that I wanted. I was the first person to call, and 30 minutes later, we had driven out to take a look. It was perfect, large with lots of storage, and very sturdy. $50 later, we loaded it into our Scion xB (still not sure how it fit in there) and took it home. A couple of years later, we needed to get rid of the dresser, as our son had inherited a waterbed with drawers in the pedestal and he no longer had need or room for the dresser. I posted it on Craigslist and it was gone within a day, for $25 more than I had paid for it in the first place!

I also sold our 1992 Mazda Protege on Craigslist when we bought a new car 3 years ago and the dealer wouldn't even give us the token $500 trade-in. Sure, it wasn't much to look at (the paint was peeling in several places) and the seatbelt sensor had a short and often beeped even when your seatbelt was on, but it ran great and was relatively low miles for a 14-year-old car and we included a set of studded snow tires on separate rims. I had at least 15 interested buyers lined up. The first person who saw it handed me $750 cash and drove it home!

It's also worth mentioning that you do need to be careful. As a buyer, be sure you know where you are going to meet the seller. There are some deals I've passed up because I didn't know the area the seller was in. As a seller, you need to list as little identifying information in your ad as possible. Give out your phone number or address only to those persons that seem to be seriously interested. There is risk involved, but for the savvy Craigslister, the bargains abound!

What are your favorite Craigslist finds? Got any great stores about an item you've sold?

I Love eBay. Part 1: Selling

eBay, the quintessential online auction site, has long been a favorite of mine. Not only is it a great way to make a few extra bucks, it can be a great venue for finding the perfect deal.

Selling
The last time we decided to hold a yard sale (which was several years ago), before we put anything into the "Yard Sale" pile, we researched it on eBay to see if there was a market. Some of the items were no-brainers:

• A huge cache of fishing reels and lures from the 1950s and 1960, many of them in their original packaging, that once belonged to my husband's grandfather. I had 45 different lots of the stuff, and made $817.36 after all eBay fees and shipping.
• 6 lots of GI Joes from the 1960s and 1970s. Profit: $418.92.

Other items were less obvious:

• A group of approximately 100 old, beat-up Hot Wheels from the late 60s and early 70s, many of which were rusty, repainted, or otherwise beaten up (by my husband) in an equally dog-eared Hot Wheels case. Profit: $199.76.
• A Wizzer, in a container shaped like a miniature can of Bardahl motor oil, well-used, but well-cared for by my hubby. Profit: $101.75.
  

I guess I should thank my hubby for saving so many of his toys. Other items I have had success in selling has been old sheet music, old MAD Magazine paperback books, Tupperware, etc.

I won't go into the how's of eBay selling in this post, but once you cull through your possessions for things you no longer need, check out how similar items are selling on eBay. It may be worth your while to find out more.

How to Get a $50 Video Game for $1.08

My 12-year-old has been anxiously awaiting the release of Animal Crossing City Folk for months now, and dutifully saving his allowance and his chore money. On Saturday he put down a $5 deposit at GameStop to ensure that he would get a copy, and today when we went to pick it up, he decided to trade in some old games that no longer get played. We had a coupon good for an additional 10% trade-in value and we also got another 10% extra trade-in value for belonging to their rewards program. He traded in 2 Wii games, 1 Nintendo DS game, and 5 GameCube games and ended up getting $3.92 credit on the rewards card, making his total out-of-pocket cost $1.08. Not bad!

My boys love going to GameStop, both for buying and selling games. They will very often buy a used title, which can save 10 to 20% or more. And, depending on the game, they give very generous trade-ins. We got almost $20 for one of the Wii games--which offset the 35 cents we got for one of the GameCube games. Quite honestly, though, once the games stop being played, you might as well get what you can for them.

While I am not a big fan of video games in general, I AM a fan of teaching my boys to budget and save for what they want, and then find ways to make their out-of-pocket costs as minimal as possible.