Monday 13 November 2017

Old Stuff

I'm trying to get rid of some old stuff. I'm not great at throwing out usable items so I have been trying a combination of a Facebook Pay-It-Forward page and ebay. It all started recently when someone in a birth related Facebook group was looking to buy books that I happened to have. I sold three books to her. As I put the books in the post satchel I flicked through them and wondered what forgotten gems of wisdom I was sending off but I hadn't picked them up after the first reading five-ish years ago so it's unlikely I would pick them up again, better to get a few dollars for them while somebody still sees them as relevant.

 Next, I moved on to this wee little bag. I put it on the Pay It Forward page and on ebay but nobody was interested in it either for free or for money. I guess it is less stylish than I thought.


Monopoly and Cluedo were picked up by some local people. I hope they get some use from them.



I also managed to find a buyer for some toner cartridges taken from a dumpster. I advertised two on ebay and a guy came and bought four. He came back the next week for another four. I suspect he will be back this week for the last ones. He offered a price lower than I advertised (which was already a mere fraction of the new price) I hate it when people offer even lower than an already low price but I might have waited a long time for another buyer and we both knew it. Well played Mr Tight-wad, well played.


Now I'm having a shot at Piffing (Paying it forward) some vintage sewing patterns. I see that some people are selling old patterns for $5 to $10 a piece so I should be able to give them away, right?



Time will tell, I suppose.

27 comments:

  1. Good luck.
    I really, really want to get rid of quite a lot of 'things'. The person I share my life with doesn't. At all.

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    1. The person I share my life with is still wearing things he wore when we met in 1989. I don't even try to get rid of his stuff!

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    2. Snap. Himself still has socks his mother loving sewed name tags into before he went to boarding school in the 1960s. He hated boarding school and can't wear them, but can't give them up. Rather a lot of the things I would like to dispose of are categorised by him as ours...

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  2. I have things I need to sell. I have given many things to J, young woman who helped me clear things out. I have a popcorn popper gotten in the 1970s. I will not give up the patterns.

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    1. I'm sure i need to get rid of a lot more stuff but because I like to see things re-homed, I'll probably need to take so me time over it

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  3. This sounds great . I've been trying to get rid of stuff for a few years. It's hard to move stuff.

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    1. I'm not sure how much success I'll have but it's worth a try!

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  4. I hate those tight-arsed people too. Occasionally we get customers in our Oxfam charity shop asking for discounts! Good luck with your sales Kylie!

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    1. Discounts in a charity shop! Throw them out the door and never let them back!

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  5. We have a flourishing recycling industry here and anything that we want to discard can be sold to a vendor who comes to your doorstep to collect and pay for it too.

    http://rummuser.com/mahadev-kasabe-raddhiwallah/

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  6. Hi Kylie. I put some empty jam jars on my local Freebie FB page the other day and a woman said she'd come and get them on Sunday, which came and went with no show. Then she messaged me to say she was a bit 'worse for wear' and could she pick them up on Monday. I said 'ok, I wil leave them out for you and you can come pick them up'. I got home from work and they were still there! I have heard nothing more so will re-advertise them again tomorrow. I loathe and despise time wasters!Good luck with your stuff.

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    1. My freebie page has regular warnings that time wasters will be removed but I have never come across one. I'm sure someone will want your jars, they always seem to be popular :)

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  7. There is a school of thought that says people don't value what they get for free and that it's easier to get rid of stuff if you charge for it. I've never tested that theory. We donate to a group that comes right to the door to pick up. My biggest problems are the things too good to throw out but too bad to give away :)

    Good luck with the sales. Sometimes it just takes a bit of time, but the right person will come along. I would think that purse would go between now and the holiday season as it looks like the right thing for Christmas parties or New Year's Eve.

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    1. I totally agree that people don't value what's free!
      The purse hasn't gone yet but maybe I just need some patience, a couple of other little things have gone.

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  8. I have the same tendency with books. They sit there on the shelf for years while I keep telling myself I'll re-read them one day. Then finally I have to admit I won't re-read them, and they go in the box for the War on Want Bookshop.

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    1. The trick with books is not to open them at all before moving them on. Once you open them you fall prey to their charms all over again!

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  9. Never heard of Pay it Forward - perhaps they don't have it in England. I guess you have heard the expression "one man's junk is another man's treasure" - not to be sexist about it LOL!

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    1. Pay it Forward is a fancy title for groups really should be titled "If you take my stuff, you won't be attached to it and then you can dispose of it"

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  10. Old board games are very collectable, especially unusual editions. When you list things on ebay sometimes they can take months to sell. I have a few items that have been on for years but eventually they'll go. You just have to be patient and have the room to store them.

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    1. That's good to know! I don't have room to store another single thing but you know, it's all been here for this long so a little longer won't hurt :)

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    2. Joe, if you have things on eBay that you've been listing for years, haven't you reached a point where the fees have outweighed the anticipated profit? I make the assumption that if it takes a long time to sell something that way that I'm probably asking too much.

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    3. Hi Snowbrush, no because you get so many free listings a month so as long as I keep within those I don't pay anything unless they sell. :)

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  11. "I'm not great at throwing out usable items so I have been trying a combination of a Facebook Pay-It-Forward page and ebay."

    Which leads me to wonder if you have charities that will take your stuff, resale it, and use the money to do good. I often write of St. Vincent de Paul stores here, but there is also one called Goodwill. The latter is nationwide, and the former might be too for all I know. Churches here--and individuals too--also have yard sales/garage sales, and I'm wondering if that's not true where you are. When I was a kid, none of the things I just mentioned existed, so people had to use newspaper ads. Now, there's the Internet, most notably Craiglist--is that something that you have? I'm very curious about the differences in America and Australia regarding what people do with things they no longer want.

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    1. Snow,
      There are many charities which take and re-sell unwanted items but they are given a lot of stuff which is not suitable for sale and they end up paying small fortunes in rubbish disposal fees so I have come to the conclusion that instead of treating the charities like my personal disposal system I will try to dispose of things myself unless I am very sure they will be suitable for a charity.
      We do have garage sales here and I have done a couple of those in the past but the physical work of it is getting a bit beyond me. Churches and schools sometimes have a garage sale or a jumble sale and in a few places there are trash and treasure markets.
      I think most people who have anything significant to give away or sell will put it on Gumtree, which is a free classifieds site. Some people selling cars will put them on a paid site such as CarSales.com. According to google we do have craigslist but i don't think I know anyone who uses it.

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    2. "in a few places there are trash and treasure markets."

      Here, they're called flea markets. My mother wrongly believed that charity stores would take broken things, fix them up, and sell them (my mother sincerely held a lot of ideas that I later determined to be fanciful). The two big charity stores here in Oregon are St. Vincent's and Goodwill, and I've noticed that St. Vincents will take a lot of things that Goodwill won't, so for this and other reasons (like their old books), I greatly favor St. Vincent's. I don't give them things that are worthless, but then I don't have things that are worthless, unless it's a broken appliance in which case I throw it away. I only have once a month garbage pick-up, so I sometimes have a pretty full can, what with the cat litter.

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  12. I really love the clutter in our house, there is so much that it is full. I LOVE the idea of my children picking through looking for treasure--when I know they will only find coal.

    Now if I could only time my demise with being broke too.

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