Let me set the scene, we are installing central heating next month. It’s so exciting because last winter we froze every time we left the lovely warm lounge! With the wood burning stove in the lounge, light pants and a t-shirt were fine! – But for the bedrooms, the kitchen, and worst of all, the bathroom, it’s been full arctic gear!
So the plumbers were looking at the floor. We want to polish the floorboards in these rooms, so we plan to complete most of the work from below; especially since there is a cavity under the house, big enough to crawl through. They seemed happy with it. “It’s all clear” I heard my husband say.
Inside, my nightmare has sprung into action, grinning like a Cheshire cat on speed, I managed not to scream! Down there, in an area that my husband (who has a fear of small places) has been avoiding, it’s my haven for all those things I’ve always wanted to keep. You know the stuff from relatives that was really worthless but a thoughtful gift! The things we found when we moved into various houses over the years; They were once someone’s precious things, how could I throw them away? Things that had even been in the current house that we had moved into just a year ago and, best of all, those things that had a label that said ‘someday they will be useful’. I’m sure you sympathize because I bet you have some of those same things somewhere in your house.
There were something like 20 boxes of these treasures. Or as my husband used to say now: ‘garbage, tat, clutter and everything had to go.’ He had read a free report on the internet and got a lot of ideas which I put into practice.
I first talked him into a car boot sale on Sunday, it was actually pretty easy. With the thought that all the ‘rubbish’ would go away and he could look for fishing stuff!
His idea was that nothing would return but the empty tubs. Mine was that I would only say goodbye to my treasures if I got a good price! Cleaning up everything that was dirty, I also tagged one or two things that would have to fetch a pretty good price to be dropped off. I carefully read the report again and decided to be more ruthless and try to stick to what I had read. All tubs loaded on Saturday night, I cooked his favorite meal, still indulging his good nature and an early night should set us up for morning.
With teary eyes, we arrived at the car sale at five minutes to seven! Yes! There is one of those moments on a Sunday morning! We queued to get in and £6 less in our pocket, we were somewhere. Now, thanks to that report I read, everything was ready. (No! Let’s be honest here. Thanks to the friend who told me about the site and the report, I was prepared)
We quickly set up tables and covered them with cloth, displayed most of the ‘treasures/tat’ and put the like together. I had a beautiful old-fashioned glass vanity set (an ‘I’d put up with it for a good price’ item!) I put it on top of a box; the sun caught it beautifully, almost as good as anything in motion! We also had the light from a ceiling fan, well no electricity, we had to keep moving the blades, but it got a lot of people looking in our direction, some kids even pointed, making ‘their’ adults look!
One area that had been supplemented by himself was all tools and parts. He hadn’t seen so much rust drooled over by so many men! It’s a whole new experience, ladies, to talk bees to a pot of honey. If I was on the other side when a man asked a price, I called himself asking ‘what do you want for the rusty bit?’ He walked over to the other block smiling and sealed the deal! My comments had brought up a couple of other books and they too proceeded to buy rust!
Remember that we are not talking about big amounts of money for things, but it is still a very good feeling to change a bill and hide it in your back pocket. After the opening blast, we grab coffee and both take short breaks to have a look around (fatal mistake). Looking at other people’s ‘trash’ is amazing, it’s remarkable how good something looks, so tempting.
We had sold about half of our ‘junk’, when I became convinced that a card stand was very cheap and would save us money in the long run, so they let me buy a few things. Some specific cards for upcoming birthdays, etc. A puzzle that will make a good press, a book on pruning fruit trees, a book on horticulture – very profitable! And a set of Jane Austin books, nicely bound, perhaps salable on eBay (another tip from that report).
Back at the table, we decided that as time went on, we would start lowering prices. It’s amazing how more people look when you say everything is half price! However, no one knew the original! More products left our table and we shuffled the last bits of tat.
When the first cars packed up and left, we decided we didn’t want to get rid of some items that we now thought could be sold elsewhere, so we put them back in the car. We asked a couple of other stall owners if they wanted any of our ‘junk’…sorry salable items! That unloaded even more, once again items that hadn’t sold all morning but thought they were good enough to take!
The really rubbish stuff is gone now so we yelled it was all free! Yes, free to good homes. And yes, it was all gone then, with the exception of the really rusty stuff and a stack of five plates. One guy insisted that we take a five dollar bill saying that his wife, who had a mountain of free stuff from us, was going to have so much pleasure and be so happy with her treasures!
So the ride home was wonderful. We had a great morning; talked to lots of lovely people; she laughed; and best of all… Out of 20 boxes and tubs, now all but one were empty and that one was half full of new treasures! At home we counted our reward and even taking into account our purchases, coffees and hot dogs that only had to be bought; we still had £112 in cash.
So please, if you have a loft, an attic, a shed, a garage or, like me, an Aladdin’s cave! Think of a good housekeeping. You may want to fill it with some more wonderful “stuff”. One fine day, you meet some people and best of all, you have DIP in your pocket… DIP? Well, download the report and everything will be revealed! It’s really amazingly simple but so relevant.