Homeless & Voyeurism & Van Dwelling and Car Living & Technology 27 May 2006 10:45 am
Selling off my junk and the modern high tech homeless.
This last weekend I joined some family members and had a garage sale and I’m glad I did. A couple years ago I started selling stuff to bridge gaps in the budget and probably nine months back now I started selling furniture and less necessary possessions to make either moving into a cheaper apartment or my van easier–and that ever needed cash was of course nice too.
Late Sunday remnants.
Basically all I had to sell over the weekend was junk. The stuff that’s not worth enough to list on craigslist and wasn’t wanted by friends. As such, my expectations were quite low on what I’d be getting from this. A hundred? Maybe a bit more? I was wondering if I’d even earn enough to reach the hypothetical break even point for the effort. Money was spent on a permit, signs and such.But those three days of sales plus two beforehand to prepare and Monday morning to clean up did pay off. I made about $300 dollars profit from the weekend! But it’s odd to think now that I have no material resources in which to sell for some quick cash. No more electronics or grown up toys, no more furniture, no nothing that could raise easy money without hurting myself in the long term. Like I’d be a fool to sell the tools I use to make money. Cash now, sure, but what about tomorrow, next week or next year?
“You got any old tools?”
My two favorite questions of the weekend were both from guys. Lots of inquiries about old tools and those that I had sold out quickly. The other was “do you have any collectable stuff, men’s collectables? Like beer signs and manly stuff like that?”
About half the money made this weekend came from selling my old laptop as it sold for $150. I bought it in 2000 and made almost $20,000 with it that year. That’s almost $10 of profit for each dollar spent. Since 9/11 the money making has not been nearly as good, but still, the purchase price was already long since paid off. A computer in my hands is a money making tool. I wasn’t expecting to sell this here but when she saw some random computer junk asked, “do you have any Mac stuff?” She just happened to want a cheap laptop and veering into that masculine tool seeking turf.
The happy new owner
A couple days ago I jumped into a debate on a discussion forum about homeless people having laptops and how some couldn’t believe they’d have them. I really didn’t participate much in the discussion other than to say that many homeless people have jobs but lack sufficient income for home and that their laptops might just be part of that income generation. Then as a turnaround, I asked if they’d expect a homeless carpenter or mechanic not to have some basic tools.It’s been a couple of days with no responses so I suspect I “won” the thread. Computers can be luxury entertainment devices or they can make money. Last year I made $800 doing a writing project with that $150 PowerBook I sold. My current Powerbook was waiting for the funds to repair it. And with that bottom of the rung laptop I made the repair money and a bunch more too.
on 28 May 2006 at 10:55 am 1.mary said …
Great forum, thanks for sharing. Guess I understand why people don’t. I think the only thing that homeless people have in common is they lack a stationary dwelling called “home”. Today’s reality is one has to be Computer/Internet savvy to get a J-ust O-ver B-roke. Have also read a lot of bad press about homeless having cellphones. How much easier it is when job searching from the streets to have one’s own phone number; keeping in touch with family via emails when one has no mailing address, and sending resumes electronically.
on 28 May 2006 at 2:05 pm 2.April said …
Phones are so dirt cheap now that pretty much anyone can get one if the want. I was at a dollar store and they had a Pay As You Go that was on sale for just $20 for the starter phone. I didn’t look to see if you then paid through the nose on the back end with high minute or connection costs. Some of the Pay As You Go phones are a total rip off with the daily and per minutes charges.
But the beauty of them is for minimal use purposes they can be so cheap! One person I know pays $20 every three months to have an emergency phone. It’s used occasionally but never even enough to get past the 100 minutes or whatever he gets for that $20.