Frequent Shopper Card Tip

I just added another frequent shopper card to my keychain the other day and counted them up. 20. That's normal right, for a person who mainly shops at yardsales and thrift stores? Two are library key cards (one for myself and one is Jacob's). So really, it's only 18. How many frequent shopper cards do you have on your keychain? (Yes, there is 20 on my keychain, you just can't see them all in the photo).

Here's a tip on protecting your shopper cards - put a piece of clear tape over the UPC code - that will prevent the UPC code from wearing away.

Bad Facebook Online Yard Sale Photos part 1

In addition to selling stuff on ebay and at real yardsales, I've joined a few local yard sale Facebook groups where I sell stuff. If you're on Facebook, I bet there is a local Facebook group in your area where people post pics of their used stuff they want to sell.

Anyhow, it just blows me away that a lot of times, people don't take the time to post a good photo of their item for sale. Over the past couple of months I've seen tons of awful photos. And I've saved them to my computer, for your viewing pleasure/disgust.

Tip #1 - I don't want to see your feet. How hard is it to take a photo and not have your feet in the photo? If for some reason you are incapable of not doing that - take 5 seconds and crop your nasty feet out of the photo. Here are real photos of actual items I've seen for sale locally. The woman with her entire legs in the photos - she explained she took a photo of her foot on a stepping stone she was selling - so potential buyers could judge the size. As if we knew how big her foot was.

Future blog posts of "bad photos I've seen on facebook online yardsale groups" will feature "Other body parts I don't want to see in your photo" and "Wow, and I thought my house was messy"

Scratched seeing Oprah off my bucket list, flea market in TN and other news

Just a quick post to let you know I have not fallen off the face of the earth. Will be back to blogging shortly. I got a lot to talk about- like seeing Oprah, hitting a huge flea market in Tennessee, going to the American Pickers store in Nashville, and so far this year I have had a ton of yardsales.

One of my long time internet friends (and friend in real life) started a Facebook page about bargain shopping. Check it out at Skokie Shopper Although she is based near Chicago, she is always out and about shopping wherever she goes - it could be in Hawaii, Florida or NYC etc etc etc!

I'll be back to blogging soon.

My Craigslist White Gold Wedding Band set with diamonds bargain purchase!

I got married back in the Stone Ages known as the 80's and at the time I jut wanted a simple yellow gold wedding band and my engagement ring was a plain yellow gold band with a solitaire diamond. Well after several years of being married, somehow my wedding band shrunk and got too tight to wear. Funny how that happens. So for years I've just been wearing my engagement ring which got so thin that the band actually cracked and got deformed.

I went to a fancy jewelry store that was having a special on a $1 watch battery replacement so I took a very nice watch I plan on selling on ebay to get a $1 battery (of course I bought the men's Elgin watch still new in case, at a yardsale for cheap). I showed the saleswoman my sad looking engagement ring and she told me that it's a miracle that I haven't lost the diamond due to the flattened prongs and she told me that I shouldn't wear it.

So later that day, for the heck of it, I decided to check Craigslist and I see a gorgeous ring set made of white gold (which I wanted since I think yellow gold is sooo '80s) with mini diamonds in the band and it had no solitaire. Original receipt said the set cost $2450 without a center diamond. Long story short - a local woman had bought the set with her then fiance with the intention of putting her mother's solitaire in the center. The wedding didn't take place and now the woman just wanted $550 for the set. She wanted to meet at a public place, so I recommended to meet at the jewelry store where she purchased the set so I could talk to the jeweler. So we set up a time to meet and I asked the jeweler if the set could be resized for my finger and my diamond placed in the center. When he said yes, I handed the woman $550 in cash and left the rings at the store for the work to be done. So I did have to pay a bit more for the resizing and new head for my diamond (original head was for a marquis cut stone). But still, all in all, I am very pleased with my Craiglist wedding set bargain! And now I can sell my old set for scrap gold.

My old cracked deformed rings (diamond taken out at jewelers)

picture that was in the Craigslist ad

My new Craigslist Wedding Band set with my diamond installed.  The two pics look a little different but that is due to the seller taking the original pic her camera/lighting and my pic taken with my own camera and lighting.

Original receipt from jewelers

Guess who just bought a new wedding band set on Craiglist for a steal??

Me! Pics to come. My old 25 year old wedding band set had seen better days, for sure.

Don't worry, I am not dead.

My poor neglected bloggy - I have missed you! But don't worry, I am back. No, I didn't actually go anywhere. One thing I have been doing during this bloggy break - which may be hard to believe - is that I have been decluttering. And guess what? I don't like it, it goes against my beliefs to accumulate more more and MORE!

But I do like money, so that lessens the blow of decluttering and I've had several yardsales already this season. My plan is to do more this year, not shop so much (acck!!!!!!!!!) and then once I declutter the house, I can start all over again :)

Anyhow, a bit of news, yardsalequeen.com is mentioned in the May 2014 issue of Real Simple. Here is the cover incase you find yourself stuck in line at the grocery store and want to kill a few minutes. Starts on page 186.

My visit to a grocery auction

Last week I went to a local auction house that was having a grocery auction.  I hadn't been to a grocery auction in a very long time and wanted to go - just to check it out, of course.  I am into couponing and studying grocery store sales flyers so I really didn't need to buy anything.  But I ended up spending $6.  It was interesting and not everything was a good deal.  I spent $6.  $2 each - package of pork chops and $1 each two tubs of  Marzetti caramel dip. 

What I didn't like was that since they sell stuff so quickly - the auctioneer may not always give an accurate description.  People where buying cases of Twix candy bars, but when I saw them being passed out, I saw they were Twix Peanut Butter flavored Twix, not the awesome caramel. (They had more than one carton of the Twix, so when that happens other bidders can also score some cases at the same price as the winning bidder.

On all the items I purchased, they had a ton of the cases of the items. So the auctioneer would do the auction like normal.   But then he would just say "oh that's too much, how about $1 each - who wants some for $1 each?  And then people would raise their auction card - so many people could get the same deal. 

One thing to keep in mind when going to a live auction is that there is always a fee called a "buyer's premium" that is a percentage fee (for example 10%) that is tacked on to your total that you spent).  Also for the food auction, while many items were still well within the expiration date, there was a bunch of stuff that was expired (by about a month) or close to expiring.  One thing I know I will never buy is expired sodas.  Or cases of expired chips that look like an elephant sat on them.    Having said that, I can't wait to go to the next grocery auction!   

 
This picture of of a lot of pork or meat products - a 50 lb slab of pork, a ham, some steaks and other stuff went for about $125.  As you see in the video - people bring coolers for their frozen stuff. 

My haul ($2 each porkchops, $1 each Marzetti caramel dip and bottle of juice (free) - a brand I have never heard of.   I asked another customer in my aisle if I could take a look at the juice and since she had gotten so many, she gave one to me.  She had bought one of the big meat lots of over $100 and they thru in a dozen bottles or so of the juice.    The auctioneer had initially sold them for $3 a bottle but had so many leftover that they combined the leftovers with her meat auction. 

Well crap, there goes my New Years resolution

Happy New Year everyone - did I tell you my resolution for the new year?  Well it is to blog more.  So I guess you can figure out how well that is working out for me.   Will try better.  But quantity is not always better than quality.  Just noticed that this is my 1100 blog post.    And a few of them weren't too bad.  

Went to my first yardsale of the year - if you like yardsalequeen page on Facebook, you would have already known that my first yardsale (indoor church yardsale) purchase was a can of Unicorn meat for .10

Well it's nice to get back into the blogging saddle after a break - will chat with you again soon.