Getting Ready for Europe

The other day I found my old blog from my travels in Australia.

I was one) surprised it still existed in cyberspace and two) slightly embarrassed that I went into detail about drinking and flirting with random men. I guess since I wasn't (and still am not) a heavy drinker or a huge flirt these things were very new to me and thus occupied most of the brain space in my 19-year-old head. And the drinking age in Australia was 18, so don't freak out.

On to the point. It really jarred my memory to see all the writing and pictures. I wrote a lot of things I had completely forgotten about... like five dollar pasta and steak in downtown Sydney. So good.

So I figured I should probably do the same for this upcoming European excursion. I'm not actually in Europe yet. Just here in Winston-Salem trying to make a few extra bucks before the trip. Here are some of the things I've been up to.

Craigslist
I had my first experience selling something on craigslist. It was a dresser/night stand combo that I bought at a yard sale last year. Still in good in condition. I decided I liked having all my clothes in my nice big closet anyway, and while I could have easily held on to the night stand, I thought I should sell them together.

Here's the picture that I feel won people over. It has a framed photo of Johnny Depp on top. I honestly think that helped.

I published the photo and the dimensions of the pieces, thinking that would eliminate any questions people might have. But they were very curious as to what it was made of. My response was, "um, not sure."

I listed the price as $40, which I thought was very, very reasonable for the set. A couple came by and offered me $35. I suggested $38, though I knew the extra two bucks would buy me another Larabar on the eurotrip so I wasn't happy about it. Then they made up some excuses and I felt bad because I knew they didn't have the money. But I don't have a lot of money either. So that's how I sleep at night.

So after some completely pointless and useless inquiries... people asking if I could sand it, deliver it, hold it etc., someone finally came by today. He handed me cash and carried it out and drove it away. It seemed so easy.

Now I'm 40 bucks richer but my bedside lamp, alarm clock and tissues are all on the floor now. Small sacrifice.

Yard Sale
So a few of us are having a yard sale. I'm not counting on this too much, just because about every two months I give stuff to Goodwill. I scraped up a few DVDs I can part with as well as some clothes and shoes. I might make $5. Which would be 5 more than I started with I guess.

I did think this was worth noting. We were exchanging emails today and Bethany Davoll (joining us halfway through the Europe trip and host of the yard sale) came out with this detailed explanation of a multi-person yard sale. I was impressed.

Okay this is typically how multi-people yard sales work out:

(P.S. you already knew I was a planning fool, and now you will find out my mother is as well, and has passed along these tips)

Use the label of your choice to put your price on, and then put your initials on that label. Colors can get too complicated and it is usually cheaper to find white. When a person goes to pay, we will have a notebook with our names, and jot down the amount sold under the right person’s name. At the end of the day we will tally how many sales we each have, and split out the money based on what we sold.

To lay things out we can spread blankets on the lawn for most items, and group like items/price levels together. One blanket could be all t-shirts for 50 cents, one all pants for $2, etc as well as misc. areas. For items such as jewelry, cds and what have you I have one small card table, and we may be able to steal something from work. We know people. Because the labels will have our initials, we can mix together our items and not have to worry about keeping them separate.

If anyone has rope/clothes line, we can put some up on my front porch to hang dress clothes, jackets etc. I believe I can find some poster board here, and we can put a sign off South Main, and one off Broad Street and then Vintage pointing them to my house.

I have been to a few yard sales where people also sold brownies for 25 cents so if anyone is feeling crazy feel free to do that.

We will need change, especially quarters and small bills, I can try to see if I can borrow some from our petty cash but I’m not sure how Shawna will feel about that… if anyone has a roll of quarters for change that would be great. We have a money box here I can bring. Now is the time to get rid of your Harris Teeters grocery bags… bring them over and we will use them to bag up people’s stuff if they want it.

Sweet right? Hooray for people that are much more organized than I am.