Ways to sell your junk

Amazon.com
Best for selling: Books (not paperbacks though), Video Games, Movies
Advantages: If you list something, it automatically stays up for 6 weeks and you don't have to think about it again unless it sells. Amazon will send you an email with the buyer's address and how much money you made. Amazon deposits your money directly into your bank account once per month. Easy to get started.
Disadvantages: Fees are pretty high - not sure what percentage. Sales go to the lowest price, so it's wise to check back and lower your price if someone has undercut you (you don't have to though).

eBay
Best for selling: Electronics, Clothing, Batches of things, Old or rare things - anything really
Advantages: Fun to watch people get in bidding wars on your stuff. People sometimes pay much more than something is worth if they get caught up in bidding. If you have a bunch of one type of thing that is not worth much by itself, you can sell all of them at once in a big batch.
Disadvantages: Fees (not as high as Amazon, but still there). You have to pay even if your item does not sell. If you are just getting started, people might be wary of buying from a seller with no or low feedback. There are scammers, so you have to be careful of anyone you are doing business with

Consignment
Best for selling: Clothing, High ticket baby items
I have no experience selling through consignment shops, but I'm pretty sure the shops only really accept things that are in style and in very good condition. If anyone has some things to say about this, let me know and I will add it to this post.

Pawn Shops
Best for selling: Electronics, Jewelry
Again, no experience with this. I believe you get cash up front for the things you are selling, and sometimes that comes in handy. However, I would think you would also not get as much money.

Classifieds, Craigslist, etc.
Best for selling: Appliances, Furniture, Cars and other vehicles, things that are too big to ship in the mail.
Advantages: Free for Craigslist, very small fees for newspaper classifieds. Can reach people who aren't net-savvy.
Disadvantages: Can't reall think of any at the moment.

Garage Sales
Best for selling: Lots of little things that aren't worth selling individually, toys, baby clothes
Advantages: People will buy just about anything at a garage sale. Fun if you like haggling and that sort of thing. Can make decent money if you do it right.
Disadvantages: A heck of a lot of work. Pricing everything, making signs, putting ads in the paper - adds up to a lot of time spent. If the weather is bad, your sales will drop.

And if you absolutely can not sell that ceramic cat figureine, or your 1992 prom dress, you can always give it to a thrift shop and get a tax deduction.

A Crunchy Link

Here.

Lots of good reading about non-mainstream topics on here. I agree with most of them - can you guess which ones? :) I suspect that only Brent would be able to really know what my views are since my true hippie self is still in the closet...

Weight Watchers is making me unhealthy

Or at least it's making me forget my hard and fast rules of not eating anything processed or unnatural.

Right now I'm drinking a Diet Pepsi. Yeah, that's right, a DIET PEPSI. Icky. But I only have one point left for the day and I haven't eaten dinner yet. (Dinner will be 2 point Boca Chili frozen dinner) And I'm starving and I know that the soda will fill me up for a while. I'm ashamed. This stuff tastes disgusting and it's poison in a can. But I'm drinking it. And I know it's really just my fault because I forgot to order skim milk in my mocha (extra three points) and caved when I saw the egg-free and dairy-free cookie (extra four points). How annoying. And just to clarify, I'm at work so it's not like I have a fridge full of yummy and healthy vegetables at my reach. If I did I wouldn't be crabbing right now. :P

So I really didn't join Weigh Watchers. Brent did, and I figured since he had to be the obsessive point-counter, I might as well too. So I follow the program but don't go to the meetings (the frugal way haha). I really should lose weight, even though I still think I'm pretty healthy the way I am.

So now I'm apparantly making myself more healthy by drinking poison in a can and eating chemically processed fake foods. Whatever.

More debt going away!

We made another payment toward our business loan. Almost up to 75% paid off. So close now, but still pretty far away.

Here's our updated chart - now with more yellow and less green!

Deal of the weekend

So Brent and I needed a new bed in a really bad way. Brent's parents bought us a used bed when we were first married (4.5 yrs ago), but it was kind of falling apart. The springs were all poking through the bottom and the mattress had a tear on either side with metal parts sticking through ready to gash your leg open if you got up wrong.
Problem is that a new bed costs around $800-$1000 and we don't really have that. Even if we did, I can think of much better things it could go to.
So yesterday, we just happened to be walking through Goodwill, and there just happened to be a new-looking king sized bed for sale for only $100. Yes, only $100. You can't even get sheets for a king sized bed for $100. We bought it and took it home and put it together and slept very well.
Thanks, God!

And here's a little rant - don't read if you don't want to hear me be not very nice..... Some of my friends have said that they would never buy a used mattress. Well, you know what, I don't care. There is a mattress pad, a feather bed, and a sheet between me and the mattress. I buy used everything else, what's the difference really? I've never had a new bed in my life, and I know a lot of other people in the same boat. Being willing to buy a used bed is one of the reasons our debt is going down and yours is not, so nyeh.

Loans for people with crappy credit

Usually if you have bad credit, you go to get a car loan or whatever, and they charge you crazy high interest, because, well, you have bad credit.
When Brent's credit was really bad, he found a place that had a program for people like him. The first year they charged really high interest, like 22% or something. If you were successful and paid on time for a year, the second year your interest would drop to 19%. Then to 15% on the third year. As the loan progressed, and you were still faithful with your payments, the interest would drop to normal rates. But if you screwed up once, it was back to square one.

If you do have terrible credit, getting a loan and successfully paying it off will improve it, and with this type of loan, it's more of an incentive and not as big of a punishment.

I really have no idea where Brent got this or what it would be called, so you'll have to find it yourself, but if you need it, I hope you can find it.

Phone lines and TV and Internet, oh my!

Your frugal assigment of the day is to look at all the companies you have these services though, and see if you can't combine, break up, or change them to make it cheaper. Internet could go either with your cable company or your phone company if they offer it. Is sattelite cheaper than cable? Is getting enough cell phones for the family cheaper than keeping your home phone?

Don't forget to factor in hook up fees if you start a new service, but there also might be good deals for new customers, so take advantage of these!

The possiblities are endless!

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