How to Do a Garage Sale

I've been doing garage sales about every other year now and I make a lot of money each time. Since I'm getting pretty good at this shit, I thought I'd share some tips with the rest of the world. It's really a great way to make some extra petty cash for summer activities. 

First thing is first. There are 4 tiers of jetsam:

1. The Good Stuff (Meaning great stuff you just don't use, like barely worn expensive shoes or a designer purse, silverware, china, collectibles, etc.)

2. The Big Stuff (Furniture, fire pits, grills, power wheels, bikes and the like.)

3. The Stuff (clothes, small appliances, housewares, small cabinets, DVDs, children's toys, planters, lawn chairs and things along those lines.)

4. The Junk (Broken things, paint-stained clothes, dirt crusted crap in your garage that doesn't resemble anything of use, nasty skanky work shoes, old  underpants, anything rusty -unless it's a Coca Cola sign or antique- and garbage like that.)

Step one, get a drum liner and THROW THE JUNK AWAY. No one wants that mess. Do not attempt to sell it. Do not insult people by donating it. Pony up for the extra garbage sticker and clear some room. It will not sell and it will make all your other stuff look gross by association. You want to present your stuff as good, clean and useable, not creepy and skeevy. 

Step two, Take your GOOD STUFF and put that shit on eBay. People go to garage sales for deals and you will never get a fair price for that Waterford crystal, or your grandma's china, hawking it on your front lawn. ...Unless you live in a really fancy community, and even then, those bitches are CHEAP! You put the nice stuff on eBay to reach the largest market and ship it off. 

Step three, we are left with BIG STUFF and STUFF. This is where we achieve synergy with Craigslist and our garage! Some people think you need little price tags, and flags, and free lemonade to entice shoppers. I say bull. All you need is: A digital camera & access to the internet, A big roll of blue painter's tape and a sharpie. (A long table or two also help!) The most I'd "splurge" on after that is making a sign for your busiest corner to alert drivers by to your sale.

(*Also consider a neighborhood, or block-wide garage sale. You get twice the traffic!*)

First, the weekend before, clean your garage & sweep it out. Put everything that is NOT for sale along one or two walls and hang a tarp from the ceiling to hide it. (You can go to a party store & get one of those long rolls of vinyl tablecloth covering too and just staple that to the rafters & hang it to the floor in sheets. You can get a nice, cheery color, like yellow or bright blue, something that makes your place look clean & bright, not like a dingy garage. 

Then, you take the first few days of the week to sort your stuff out. Clothing by size & gender, housewares, furniture, nice toys, small toys, games, etc. 

Take photos of a few of your "best" big items. On the Thursday before the sale (Or Friday if you are only doing Saturday and/or Sunday) post an ad for your garage sale on Craigslist with the photos. Remember to include the time you will open, otherwise people will be milling about your lawn at 8AM. 

The night before, set up shop. 

I like to put the clothing, folded & fanned into rows on top of a long table, so all the colors & patterns are visible to catch someone's eye. I hang dresses on my ladder. Put all the housewares together, on another long table, or arrange the items on bookshelves you might be selling. Toys and kids' stuff, I drag out on my driveway, the bigger stuff on display and the smaller stuff in tubs. As moms bring their children, the kids congregate around the toy bins instead of crowding the garage. 

Then, break out your roll of painter's tape. (It's that blue masking tape that peels off any surface with ease.) Tear or cut tags to put on each item (except for clothes). Pricing is key, because I have been to plenty of garage sales where they have beat up dressers with $40 price tags on them and ashtrays for $7. No. If something is truly splendid, put it on Craigslist by itself. But do not think because something is "solid wood" or since you bought it for $400, that anyone will pay more than $15-$20 for it. Really, most things cap at $10. If it's a nice piece of furniture, you can go up to $40 or $50. If it's a power wheels, $150, or a nice grill can go for $50-$70 (if it's LARGE and NEAR-PERFECT.) Again, anything $20 or over, mention in your Craigslist ad, specifically. Most garage salers don't intend on spending much. For instance, I advertised my Olympic barbell and plates set. I sold it within an hour of opening. Another man came looking or it and ended up buying my old fridge. Two high ticket ($100, $30) items gone in the first hour and a half because my ad enticed them to come with real money in their pocket, instead of singles. 

On the flipside, don't go too cheap, either. I NEVER go under 50 cents. What the hell am I going to do with nickles? Besides, it's less complicated at checkout when you're not doing any more math in your head than you have to. 

My scale looks something like this: Kids clothes 50 cents a piece (every outfit is $1), Adult clothes $2 a piece, Childrens' fancy attire $3, Adult dresses $4, A suit might be $5-7. Most photo frames are $1 each, except the 3x3 kind, which I price at 50 cents. Small appliances like coffee makers and crock pots can go for $5 in good condition. Small cabinets, $5, Bookshelves, $8-$10, Baskets & vases are 2/$1. Larger children's toys and items like a walker or blocks table can go for $5, while games go for $1 each. $2 for medium toys and the rest in a 50 cents bin. I put stuffed animals in a $1 bin.

Also, clean off those crusty ass toys! If it is in good condition, you can ask a few bucks for it and get a few bucks for it. If it's all nasty, the mom will probably gasp "Eww! Timmy put that down!" Again, this is the gross by association thing. No one wants to buy petrified spaghetti O's. All your stuff will have a greasy feel to it if you display battered, goobered and stained gear.

Make some signage like "Adult Clothes $3 each or 2 for $5" and "Kid's clothes 50 Cents ea." Tape those on your tarp above the clothing. Then, make smaller signs that say gender & size range. Tape them to hang over the appropriate spot of the table. Do this with your dresses & suits, too. Your price tier should be 50 cents, $1, $2, $5, $7-8, $10, $20, $30 $40, $50, $75, $100, and so on. SIMPLE MATH. Trust me, when you have four people trying to shove singles at you, you do not want to be thinking, okay 10 cents, plus 40 cents plus 35 cents, plus a dollar 60... You want to be thinking .50, $1, .50, $2.

Take old plastic grocery bags you have accumulated for "car garbage bags" and hang them on the back of a chair. They will come in handy for people buying a lot of clothes and small nick knacks.

Okay, do you have housewares, clothing and children's toys separated? Is there a clear sign on each bin? A blue tape pricetag on everything else? Your garage looking clean and not creepy? Craigslist garage sale ad up? Great! Get some sleep.

On the big day, you want a good breakfast and a helper, so when you have to relieve that breakfast in a few hours, someone is there to supervise. I always start with some quarters, 5 singles, a five and a ten. I put my money in an organizer or box inside my house. I can do this, though, because of proximity. I prefer not to let anyone know where the money is or how much I have stuffed in there. I'll have some singles in my pocket. You may want to post a sign at a busy corner.

Have some nice tall beverages out there, maybe some snacks, too, and relax. Set up an umbrella and a few lawn chairs for you and your buddy. I had a few glasses of wine one afternoon, because, according to my friends, it made me "friendlier." (Not too much though, or you'll be giving everything away or throwing up in your lawn, which is a major turn off.) Most of all, don't make it feel like you are "waiting" for people. Do crosswords, talk, never seem desperate to sell.

Now, if you have genuinely good stuff at a low price, most people will buy it, no questions asked. But some will want to barter. I don't like bartering. It's annoying. I never barter 50 cent things. And I rarely barter on the first day. I say "Come back Sunday if you want half off." I say it with a big smile and a friendly laugh, though, as to not offend. If someone is buying a bunch of stuff and asks for $10 instead of $12, I'll usually let that slide, but other than that, I say "priced to sell" with a smile. I have learned if someone wants something, they'll pay for it. I've also learned people who try to barter you down to ten cents often pay with a twenty dollar bill.

Once the sale/weekend is over, don't sweat anything you didn't sell. It can still make you money!  If a big item doesn't sell, put it on Craigslist for a few weeks until it goes. Itemize and donate the rest. I've saved many a dollar at tax time. Just remember to itemize everything for resale value and staple it to the receipt.

Bim bam boom. A day or three of fresh air, a clean garage, cash in your pocket. Money back at tax time... #winning. Good luck!

Tossing My 2 Cents into the (Wedding) Ring

Here's the thing. The "definition" of marriage was changed long ago. Anyone can legally get married, so long as they have interlocking genitals and a pulse, are 18 or older (usually) and not directly related. If marriage was supposed to be a societal institution which encouraged a man and woman to raise their genetic offspring as a family and stick together and be protected under the law, then only heterosexual couples who have the intent of creating a family should have ever been able to receive the benefits of legal marriage. But that's not the case. 

Men and women marry with no intentions of having children. Yet no one has stopped this. People divorce and remarry many times, splitting family up, adding family members, or never have children in the process. But they get to do it. Infertile couples can stay together, even if they do not pledge fertility treatment. Their marriage is not considered null because they are not raising a family together. 

But if you are going to use the argument of the original "intent" of marriage, all of that should be illegal. Where were you to fight and protest all these marriages that do not result in one family unit? Why isn't divorce illegal (with a provision to be able to live separately if needed)? Why aren't infertile couples marriages called into question once they fail to start a family? Hey, you can still be domestic partners, no one is stopping the love, but marriage? That is for couples with families. 

(And there is another can of worms, because it would imply that two men who are going to adopt children would be more entitled to family protection under the law than a heterosexual couple using birth control.) 

So we are left with a choice: Either same-sex couples should be allowed the same right to life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness and not be denied the right to love and fulfillment LIKE THE CONSTITUTION SAYS and THE SUPREME COURT RULED LONG AGO, or we nullify every marriage that does not include a heterosexual couple with a commitment to biological children (allowing a grace period, of course for becoming pregnant) and make divorce illegal, because that threatens the family unit. Only then would things be "equal" for the original intent argument. 

For the God argument, you need to pull yourselves together and agree whether you are going to interpret the bible or listen to the church's teaching on this one, because it's all a mess. And once you've bickered among yourselves on what being a Christian means  in regards to homosexuality, I will say to you. "That's nice, but religion and government are two separate entities."

Either everyone gets married or only a few do. And since we have already made our decision, through our actions over the years, that more than a reproducing few should have the right... the decision is obvious. 

Holy Jupiter Sh*t

I had to quit LiveFit. The last phase of the program revolves around HIIT and circuits with lots of jumping, leaping and bounding plyos. My tendon said to me, unequivocally, on Monday morning, "NO." Though I  hate quitting, I hate getting so far and then falling short of the finish line, I had no choice but to go back to the drawing board. I came up with a lifting program and for cardio, I'll simply do a high-incline walk. I hope to start soon, but I'm a little OCD about starting on Mondays. I'm trying to fight that because I could really use the stress release. 

The Jupiter sh*t of the situation is the Viking, along with 25 others, got laid off two weeks ago. No warning, no severance. Just a "fuck you very much and goodbye," after 13 years. They cut anyone making a certain salary level and expected lower-paid "generalists" to take over at the same level of quality. (According to some sources, Obama was to blame.) We have no cushion. No savings. No 6 months salary saved up somewhere like only rich Suze Orman types can suggest. It's pretty much a sudden death spiral. 

The good news is the Viking and I are on top of it. We had a beer, but shed no tears and then got to work. He has interviews on four sides of the country, as well as a few local pokers in the fire. While he was busy pulling a demo together, networking and applying for jobs, I threw out our safety net and applied for unemployment, health insurance for the kids and food stamps, just in case this process strands us for a month or two. My type-A side came out in full force, I even have a color-coded binder. I cleaned out my house completely, and gathered things to sell on eBay and at the first neighborhood garage sale in May. I called my Realtor about our townhome, just in case. (Dear God, what a nightmare. We are far more underwater than I thought because of all the foreclosures & short sales.) I'm also getting to work on a few projects of my own that may or may not pan out. Done and done. 

It's a bag of mixed emotions now that all the hard work is complete and we wait to hear the offers and weigh our options. Neither of us are very good at waiting for balls to drop. We are proactive by nature, and I am admittedly a bit of a control freak. It's easy during this phase to spin our wheels when we need to stay relaxed. If it was just us, we'd hold hands & jump out of the nosediving craft, without a glance back. But we have three little kids to strap into parachutes and keep safe. It changes the dynamic of how much we can risk and lose. It changes everything. 

In the end, I know we will be better off. I know it. We're just heading into the dark period before the light. The waiting to see what fate has to present us. And then we can get back to work. 

LiveFit : Month Two, Down the Hatch.

During the first phase of Jamie Eason's LiveFit plan, we worked on building a solid muscle foundation. Phase two was geared toward hitting your muscles from all different angles and adding cardio to the mix 4 days a week. It is quite challenging, even without a gym. There are still a few things I cannot do, because I don't have the proper equipment, but I try to substitute wherever I can. 

The diet is still the same, small protein packed meals spaced throughout the day, but this time we're counting calories and weighing everything out to the ounce. This may sound tedious (and it is, at first) but it puts into perspective how much you are really eating. 

I may have lost a pound this last week. I think my lack of weight loss is due to packing on all this muscle. At least that's what I tell myself. Things have definitely changed. I look different, muscular. Leaner, for sure. 

Two apps have helped me immensely this past 4 weeks, the C25K trainer (just google it, there's one for every phone) and a windows app called Livescape that counts not only calories but all your nutrition, plus exercise and more. I'm 4 weeks into the running program and I finally feel like my cardio is starting to make progress. I don't want to die too badly yet, anyway. 

There is just one problem... I have an injury. Something on the side of my heel and underneath has given out and swelled up. It hurts to even walk on it and I'm having that creepy nerve tingling, too. I'm going to apply the RICE treatment, but I'm afraid I might not be able to workout for a few days, possibly a week as to not aggravate anything. This is a scary prospect, as the next four weeks are intense HIIT circuit training and I really don't want to have to repeat a running week. With all that is going on otherwise at the moment, I don't know what I'm going to do if I can't workout for long. 

I have to put it in perspective, things could always be worse. But let's hope we'll never have to know. 

Transgender Potty Break

As many of you may know, there is a little transgender girl (born male, identifies as female) in CO who's mom is suing her school district for not letting her use the girls bathroom. The full story is that the girls' school is complying with her parents requests that she be treated as a girl and called her female name. They are also providing her with access to the faculty bathroom and the nurse's bathroom (and, obviously the boy's bathroom). The school is concerned for the comfort of other girls as the transgendered child gets older and genitals and sex (meaning male or female) becomes more of an "issue." 

Personally I think this is fantastically progressive, especially when most schools would say, "conform to the child's biological gender role so we don't have to deal with it, or homeschool." But it's not acceptable for her mom, who has taken her child out of school until her lawsuit is resolved.

Anyhow, due to a brief disagreement I had with a reactionary personality yesterday, I feel like this topic warrants some thought. So, let's think about this before we decide what is right and wrong, shall we?  

Transgender means an individual doesn't feel like the sex they were born with. It is not a choice or a whim. There is a legitimate disconnect between their biological genitals and their mind's perception of their gender. It does not mean "gay" or "transvestite" or "transsexual." No one knows exactly how this happens, but it's likely a chemical flux that maybe activates a gene or a pathway in the brain which tells the person "I am a boy/girl." According to the American Psychology Association, there is evidence that transgender identity has always existed. So this leads us to conclude it's just the way some people are. If people care enough, one day, we'll figure out what mechanism(s) cause it. Hopefully by then we will have decided to accept these people and not force them to feel like they need to be 'fixed.' 

Now, let's talk about the bathroom. When you get down to brass tacks, men and women just don't want to poop in front of each other, or pee in front of each other because it's embarrassing. Dudes don't want chicks stealing looks at their penises as they walk by the urinal to grab a stall. And women want to be able to fart and remove tampons without guys seeing/hearing or smelling anything. No one wants to have to impress the opposite sex in their vulnerable state of inescapably gross bodily function. I'm not saying these aren't valid reasons. They are vain, yes, but valid. Believe me, I would probably have a total attack of shy bladder in a bathroom full of guys and there would be no way I could take a crap with a strange dude in the stall next to me. These are fine reasons to have separate bathrooms. It keeps everyone comfortable.

In a perfect world, no one would give a shit about any of this, and get on with their afternoon piss, but people are confused due to our mammalian ancestry, hormones, prejudices, fears, sexual urges and other beliefs and feelings which run the gamut between sound and baseless. In other words, it's complicated.

So the school has to balance the comfort and normalcy of this transgendered child with the comfort of the other students who share the bathroom. Their reasoning is as the kids get older, it will become more of an "issue." Not only with some girls who are nervous sharing the bathroom with a penis-enhanced girl, but with the transgendered child being nervous in a bathroom full of guys who might want to beat her up or be uncomfortable sexually about it. The compromise is she can use the faculty bathroom or the nurse's bathroom, because it costs money to build gender neutral bathrooms and there aren't enough transgendered children in school to warrant it.

But this isn't simply about the bathroom or taking a dump in front of the opposite sex. This is about people's fear (and subsequent anger) over a confusing sexual identity or sexuality. Many people assume transgender means a homosexual that just wants to act like the opposite sex so they can bang unwitting straight people. Some people thing this whole transgender thing is a bunch of horsefeathers. Their parents need to stop them from 'acting queer.' Kids can't make choices about their gender yet. Add to the fact that there are other gender and sexuality issues that get lumped into one big tangled LBGT ball and most regular folks don't know what to make of it all. So they don't like it.

To be honest, I'm kind of miffed at the mom for making a national spectacle of her kid when she claims to want her child to be "normal." It's the same way I felt about Thomas Beatie ("the pregnant man") and a blogger who was documenting how she let her son wear princess dresses to school. I feel like these parents are fighting their own battle through their kids. The kids are the ones who will be subject to scrutiny, ridicule and harassment before they have enough werewithall and self-confidence to let their freak flag fly on their own terms. It stems from my own personal feeling about kids making statements about God, or politics or  holding abortion signs. Their parents will send them to the front lines before they even know what's going on. I've also watched parents indulge their children to the point said children are disruptive, self-centered and easily distracted. (They're "spirited!") Maybe it's my prejudice, but I think the lady should have been satisfied with the arrangement and when her "daughter" grows up, she can advocate for gender neutral bathrooms if she so desires. But now, she has whipped up a spittle fueled trollfest with her daughter's image, name and city at the center. I would never do that to my child.

Then again, how do we move past it if no one protests? There's my conundrum.

But I digress. Transgender isn't a choice, it isn't contagious, it is not a whim or someone trying to "get attention." The kind of attention one gets from their fellow human beings (?) is certainly not worth it. And what do you do if your kid insists they're a different gender? If they're miserable being what you're forcing them to be? There would be a point where (I would hope) your love for them and their true happiness would be more important than fitting in.  It doesn't change your life, it has nothing to do with sexuality (until puberty and on, when everything has to do with sexuality, gay, straight or otherwise.) 9 times out of 10 it makes no impact on your life, so why do you care? I get the bathroom squeamishness, but other than that, what is the big deal if he's a she? It's not a fad that will sweep the nation. It's not a common state of nature. It's not a reason to be angry at someone or hate on them or punch them or kill them. It's not even a reason to be disgusted or appalled. Save that for genocide, starvation, gang rape and the things in this world that deserve your tirades and ire (and ACTION!)

All you have to do is say to your kid, "Yeah, he/she is different. But he/she's a person with feelings, just like you. If he/she is nice, hang out. If he/she's a dick, don't." Simple. Your kids won't care, why do the adults?

What I Think of Your Gun Memes.

Both sides of the gun debate have very valid points, but you wouldn't know it with all the flaming stupid being hurled across social networking congregations like retarded Molotov cocktails.

We shouldn't be having an argument about whether guns are "evil" (they're not) or whether the 2nd Amendment gives you the right to be armed to the teeth anyhow you please (it never did). We should be having a discussion about how we are going to balance people's right to self defense and sport/hunting traditions with people's safety from the effects of our firearm culture. 

Both sides are going to have to give. Not because one is 100% right and one is 100% wrong, but because, like most things in a society, it is a balance. If we let go of the fear this increasing spate of domestic terrorism is causing everyone, we might be able to think clearly. 

Are we a bunch of torch waving villagers? Or are we Americans? Step it up.

* DISCLAIMER: My use of the word retarded is not to be associated with Downs Syndrome or other mental impairment. It means a deliberate slow cognitive function from otherwise able-minded individuals. 

LiveFit: One Month In

Four weeks ago, frustrated by my SAHM rut, I started Jamie Eason's LiveFit program. It is a three month kickstart to what I hope will be my renewed fit lifestyle. The first month is Phase One and based on building muscle. 

I am eating a lot of lean protein and a veritable "fuckton" of vegetables, spaced out every 2-3 hours. I am taking a multivitamin, a flax oil supplement and a whey isolate shake post-workout. I am lifting weights 4-5 days a week. There are some modifications I've had to make as my budget does not allow access to a gym at the moment nor can I afford to eat as many turkey meatballs and eggs as Jamie suggests. Also, having a family with three kids, dinner is dinner. We have always eaten fairly clean, but I have to cook what budget and finicky eaters allow. I haven't followed the first phase perfectly, but I did my best.

Where I did well was the weight room. We have powerblocks, a few dumbells, a barbell, a pull up bar and an exercise ball that I use as a "bench." When Jamie said "failure" I lifted to failure. So where I couldn't follow the diet perfectly, I tried to make up for it by pushing myself during the workouts. 

So far, so good. No loss or gain of weight, but I have noticed my muscles have become quite solid. I have more energy than I did in the first week of January. Not in the wake up ready to attack the day kind of energy, but the kind that sustains me through an hour of dishes, as I scrub away, waiting for my tax return to buy a new dishwasher. Overall I am pleased with my progress. So pleased, in fact, I treated myself to a pair of affordable running shoes and some new workout attire from Old Navy. Woo, splurge.

Next week I am supposed to add cardio into the mix and supersets to the weight routine.  Phase two is also much more calorie-conscious. I expect to see a more dramatic change by the end of February. I'll post my update next month as well and then review the program as a whole when I'm done with it, or, so I don't jinx myself, I'll say IF I finish it. I think I will, though.

I'm psyched!