Treasure Hunting

This weekend was an ideal time for finding some really nice things at garage sales. Garage sales are very popular means for raising a  little extra cash from items you have around the home that you just don’t use, or can easily part with. Living in Florida, going to garage sales can be a great year-round activity for the entire family. You really never know what treasures you might find at any given garage sale.

For the past two weekends in our area, we’ve been inundated by heavy rains and cold weather. This weekend’s weather was shaping up to be more of the same, but we got lucky and the latest stormfront blew out just in time for early morning weekend bargain hunting. It was a cool but sunny windy day, and with so few garage sales for the previous two weekends, there was an explosion of garage sales in just about every neighborhood we drove to.

We had a budget of $60 to spend, and we wound up spending $57. Here is a list of the items we found:

1. A Professional Kitchenaid Mixer still in the box (retails normally for $300)
2. Two huge boxes of collectible LEGOS (people go nuts for legos on ebay)
3. NIB (New in Box) pair of Easy Spirit Sandals (mens, size 11)
4. New duffel bag filled with a flag football set (multiple footballs, cones, flag belts, flags, whistles, etc.)
5. New pair of Addidas soccer cleats
6. Two Cell phones (see below for the reason why we bought these)
7. One NIB Ship in a Bottle inside wooden case
8. One designer purse with matching wallet
9. Brand new set of five 4″ three ring binders
10. One small fancy notebook

When we go to garage sales, we’re not only looking for items we can use around the house, we look for items we can flip on ebay for a profit. You can pick up all sorts of items at garage sales that will sell well on ebay if you know what you’re looking for. There are literally thousands of things you can find that you an re-sell for a profit. All you need to do is to go find them and do a little research on ebay. Our articles on ebay research at the top of our website will help you get started.

If you’d like to see some of our auctions in action, check us out on ebay here: http://myworld.ebay.com/mr.peanut904/

Now, you may have asked yourself, “Why in the world are these people buying old used cell phones?” It’s true that reselling old cell phones is very difficult to do on ebay, and with so many cellular companies locking their moble phones so that you can’t easily transfer them from one person to another, there really isn’t a whole lot of incentive out there to do anything with old cell phones. So, many of the ones we find are a real bargain. We rarely pay more than a quarter for them whether they’re working or not.

So what are they good for? I’ll tell you. There’s a great cell phone recycling program over at swagbucks.com. Swagbucks offers it’s users virtual dollars that they can trade in on prizes, gift cards and real tangeable items like video game systems and other products for using their services. You can earn digital swag dollars for just using their search engine frontend to search the web, or do fun things like send them old cell phones for free swagbucks. They’ll even pay you the postage. If you’d like to learn more about swagbucks, click below!

Selling items on ebay for fun and profit is a great way for any Dad to raise a little extra spending money. Most people will go through their homes and look for items that they no longer need or use and either sell them at a garage sale or even on Craigslist for a little pocket change. But, did you know that many of those very same garage sale shoppers that buy your items are re-selling them on Ebay? It’s true. There is a whole market of people around the world that are willing to pay good money for your spare and unused items if you’re just willing to take the time to post them up for sale and ship them when the auction ends.

Turn about is fair play, too. You can make a modest income by being the early worm and going to neighborhood garage sales and finding some items that typically sell well on a regular basis on ebay. How do you know if it sells well on ebay? Simple. Search for that same item on ebay like you were a buyer and see what they’re selling for. A great resource for this is to use a link on the left hand side of any ebay catagory that says, “Completed listings.” This is a link inside of ebay which will just show you the completed listings and you can actually see which of those listings sold recently (or if they didn’t sell) and how much they sold for. This is a powerful tool for understanding if an item will actually sell if listed on ebay, and a rough gauge for what you can expect a similar sale to bring in (so you don’t overpay).

Items that sell well:

• Mens designer clothes (Ralph Lauren Polo, North Face Jackets, etc.)
• Rugby & Soccer Team Shirts (Australian and British Rugby teams, World Cup Soccer Teams, etc.)
• Sports Equipment (name brands, newer the better) for Kids and Adults
• Moisture wicking athletic gear (Under Armor, Dry-Tec, etc.)
• Professional Sports memoribilia and Apparel
• College Sports memoribilia and Apparel
• High end designer suits and sports coats (Burberry, etc.)

This is just a small portion of items included in our comprehensive e-book on how to turn garage sale finds into ebay dollars. Check back soon for the link to our e-book!