DIY Income - Recent Yard Sale Day Snipes - $56 Spent For $375 Revenue So Far (w/ $2,075+ Left To Sell)

My hometown recently had its annual town-wide yard sale day. I usually go home for this, but skipped last year because I didn't want all of the locals asking about/looking at me for my Dad's recent death and Mom's major car accident. I didn't want those eyes and awkward condolences.

I felt comfortable this year as enough time had passed to not have those topics be the first thing brought up, so I went home to spend the day zipping around with my Mom in her brand new 2020 SUV. We were out from 8:45 AM until about 4:45 PM. This was also the first time I drove by her accident scene where her last SUV was crushed by a tree that fell on her face during a tornado when she was driving home. I also spent some time visiting my elementary school for the first time in decades. That was quite a trip.

It was generally nice to visit the familiar houses again and see people from the town I grew up with. I saw a few classmates and some people I could barely recognize because they let themselves go. I'm biased, but I never get why people don't value their bodies enough to keep them in shape. There are countless benefits for doing that, but many people in my small town don't seem to mind giving up on their health.

Some people had the same old stuff out from two years ago (I have a photographic memory for that), but there were plenty of interesting new things. Many were old-fashioned or vintage things that I simply enjoyed looking at and researching to sharpen my eye for the future. It was also a nice day to be out in the sun and good spend some time with my Mom. To keep the good karma flowing, I bought a sugar-free apple pie from a church bake sale. It didn't taste great, but it was the thought.

My favorite personal purchase was a box full of 1950-1970s baseball cards with a lot of Hall of Famers for $20. I'll sell some I suppose, but I just wanted it for myself since I used to collect cards as a kid. I rarely spend on myself, so this was my little splurge, which I left at my Mom's house to sort through another time.

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Hunting:

It turned out that I did pretty well in spending $235 cash on what I project to be about $2,100 revenue.

...$150 of the $235 came on two items I got by asking to see a private collection of cameras in the basement of the daughter of my late third grade teacher. My teacher's husband was an avid collector and professional photographer. His gear and equipment is out of this world, but some has been wasting away a bit in the basement with the dust and moisture. I stressed the importance of trying to preserve the cameras and lenses he left out in the open that she's left untouched for a few years.

My first purchase? Well it was $5 spent on a nice pair of Nike shoes a girl flirted with me into buying... that turned out to be FAKE! I don't she even knew, so I don't blame her.

What was even more up my alley from this day was that many people tossed their unsold items in boxes for free on the curbs. Naturally, I had a lot of fun driving around to scoop up plenty of free items to resell -- which was now technically "recycling." This lowered my average total cost quite a bit since I found some good stuff that will sell well. I notably found a rare loose PlayStation 1 game that'll easily sell for $50, but would've sold for $100 if it had the case and manual. I found a stack of PS1 games in the recycling, but this particular one was something I'd never heard of before.

The projected revenue for the free stuff on the town curbs is about $350. I also donated a few things to my local thrift store.

That makes the entire trip worth about $2,450 in revenue at $235 expense. No bad...

This event was fairly recent, so the sales are just starting to turn over. I'm being patient.

For example, I just turned down a $400 cash offer on a $20 purchase, and a $350 cash offer on a $100 purchase. Call me crazy, but I'm holding out for my targets and these were lowballs. I want the return I projected, or I'll at least give it a fair shake before lowering my numbers.

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I prefer to only post completed sales so far, and will likely follow up with another batch... Sold items:

I bought this Nikon lens for $25 and sold it for a heavily discounted $100 cash because some of the anti-glare coating had worn off. If the coating was ok or had no impact, it would've fetched $200 on eBay. I could've had a photographer test it to see, but I just wanted to move it in this case with a potential defect. The buyer said it didn't seem to affect anything, but better safe than sorry.

I bought this sealed new camera for $5 and sold it for $175 cash to someone who I can now email when I find more rare 35mm cameras.

I got this new-in-open-box iPod for $5 from someone who said he opened the seal, but never took it out of the case. I sold it online overnight for $90.

My brother went to the yard sale I got this pasta maker at before me and missed it. I taught him a lesson by buying it for $1 and selling it online for $60.

I bought this sealed Lego set for $5 and sold it online for $25. Not great, but I knew it'd sell instantly.

Same $5 for $25 story, different new Lego set. Mainly for exercise.

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Those are the sales so far since it hasn't been long. Things usually take a few weeks to move if they aren't grabbed immediately by an avid buyer. That's fine with me.

Don't have recycling or thrift stores around? Try yard or garage sales. Opportunities are always around. It's a mindset to find them and see the value in things others miss.

Again, as my last post said... I'm going to try to post on things that involve actions... Anyone can write post after post out of thin air, but doing this will help me try to stay somewhat adopted on Steem for the time being as motivation has been low.

Last post with 11 curb-recycled items sold for $868.

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Time to go outside and save items from the recycling. Someone is coming on Wed with $850 CASH for just ONE salvaged curb find, but there's no reason to let that make me relax until then... Ironically, it's worth $1,400+ on eBay, but I prefer cash & carry here with no return risk since it weighs 75 pounds.

Thanks,
@steemmatt