I'm Baaaaack!

First of all, let me say that I apologize for virtually disappearing from the blogosphere without much notice. I can't really blame it on any one thing, more a combination of things that has kept me from posting. That being said, I am going to try to keep things updated as much as I can.
"What's new" you ask? Well, quite a few things. On the non-thrifting front (yes, there is such a thing) we got our 13 year old dog Saphire who is plagued with hip problems a wheelchair to help her walk. Getting her used to the chair has taken up quite a bit of time. She is now used to it , but her back legs continue to get weaker.
We used to go thrifting every Wednesday, which in our area is 50% off day at the Salvation Army. This was a great way to get new merchandise, but the expense was adding up quickly. We have since decided to eliminate these trips and focus on going to the Goodwill Outlet Store instead. For the unfamiliar, the Bins as they are called, is where items (clothes, shoes, housewares, books, etc.) go when they do not sell at regular Goodwill stores. Items are sold by the pound here and at 50 pounds or more, you pay 0.79 per lb. So this has become our main source of inventory now. Every time we have gone, I have gotten at least 50 pounds so it is well worth the trip (about 3-4 hours there and back) plus we spent at least 6 hours or so there.

I have branched out into the Lego world. I have opened a store on BrickLink called Pioneer Valley Bricks. I have had great luck this summer scoring Lego at yard sales and have decided to expand out of Ebay. BrickLink focuses on Lego exclusively, and buyers can buy as many or as few parts as they wish. So if you only need 1 part to finish a set, this is the place. I currently have over 7000 parts in my store and have a ton more to add.
Yard sales have been quite good this summer. The season is slowly winding down, but we continue to make some great scores. Best find so far: a White's Coinmaster metal detector that we got for $20 and sold on Ebay for $160.00.
That's it for now, stay tuned for updates when I have something interesting to post. Adios!

Thrift Store(ies) 12/26

Yesterday was the single greatest thrifting day we have had yet!  We wound up hitting 4 thrift stores (3 Salvation Armies, and 1 Goodwill).  The total haul includes:

• 21 Shirts and Jackets
• 9 Pairs of Shoes
• 6 Pairs of Pants
• 3 coffee cups
• 2 Pyrex

We left the house at 9:30 am and did not return until 6:00 pm!  The best part was that we found items at all four stores.  Usually when we go to multiple stores, 1 or 2 will suck, and the others will be good.  So without further ado here is the breakdown:

The shoes include:

• 5 pairs of Converse (including a pair of the knee highs)
• Nike Alpholution basketball sneakers
• 2 Pairs of Clarks
• Dansko Jade Maryjanes

Jeans:

• Coogi
• Big Star Boot
• Carhartt
• Citizens Of Humanity Ingrid Stretch #002 - SOLD! $45.00
• Miss Me Gabrielle

 
T Shirts:

• 2 The Mountain
• 2 Life Is Good
• Jimmy Buffett 

• Mirage Notre Dame Collegiate jacket (reversible)
• Tommy Bahama and 4 Ralph Lauren polo shirts
• Robert Graham dress shirt
• Tommy Bahama fleece jacket
• Also (not pictured) 2 Carhartt, 1 The North Face, and 1 Kenny Rogers Short Sleeve shirts
• Polo Ralph Lauren Blake shirt
• 2 Tommy Bahama Silk shirts
• Carhartt Long Sleeve work shirt

 We came home with 41 items! That works out to less than $3.00 per item, so we should do quite well with this.  We also had a nice lunch at Five Guys on the way home.  Today the listing begins, and I should be done in a few days.  My plan is to list 10 or so items a day from now on, and i have been successful so far.
In other news, it has been snowing for about 10 hours now and we have a few inches on the ground.
Have a great day!

Freestyle Thrifting

As a general rule, Autumn and I only go thrifting when there are sales or promotions.  As resellers, we look to pay the absolute lowest prices possible.  Sometimes however, we go thrifting for the heck of it, or in yesterdays case, to kill some time.  Our daughter got invited to a birthday party at a roller rink about 30 minutes from the house, so we decided to kill two birds with one stone by hitting the thrift stores in the area.
First we went to a Goodwill, which has never been that great of a source for us.  I immediately saw a shopping cart full of shoes with a sign that said $1.50 each on it.  Very cool!  I dig out a nice pair of SAS Whisper, Autumn finds a pair of Clarks, then I find another pair of SAS. Autumn also picks up some doodad, and our total is $5.65.  I use my $5.00 off card ( talked about here), bringing the total to .65 cents! 
On to the Salvation Army.  This particular SA is one of my favorites.  For those unfamiliar, SA has 5 different color price tags.  Each week a certain color is half price except Wednesday when 4 of the 5 are half price. Today blue tags were half. Right off the bat, I find a pair of Z-Coil shoes.  Full price, but at $7.99 I buy them.  Autumn finds a few things, and I find a bunch of stuff but all full price so I pass.
When we get home, I clean and polish the SAS Whispers and the Z-Coils and get them listed.  Well lo and behold, when I wake up I find the Z-Coils have sold already!

I looked at completeds to see what I could hope to get for them, and they were all over the place. At first I thought $49.99, but finally settled on $69.99.  Glad I did!  So keep your eyes open for these things, quite strange looking, but they sell!

In other news, my 1000 feedback milestone is right around the corner.  This however, will be the subject of another post.  Have a great day!

Double Stamp Monday 12/17

 The closest thrift store to our house is a Goodwill. We stop by quite a bit, but I have just never had good luck there. I do much better at the Salvation Army. Lately, however, our luck has been changing. In the past few weeks, we have been doing great at Goodwill.  We also found out that every Monday is double stamp day.  It works like this: You get a value card at Goodwill (pictured above).  For every $5.00 you spend, you get one stamp. But on Mondays, you get 2 stamps! When you get 20 stamps, you get $5.00 off your next purchase. We spent $26 and got 10 stamps!  Half a card! We also got some good stuff:

• MBT Amali shoes - SOLD! $49.99
• 2 Ralph Lauren shirts
• 1 Tapout t shirt
• 3 coffee cups
• Clarks Springers shoes
• Polo Jeans hoodie

Sales have been good lately with these highlights:

 Autumn picked up this Hawaiian Punch telephone (brandy new in styro box) at a yard sale over the summer. It is going to California (not Hawaii).

We got this Starter jacket last Wednesday at the Salvation Army.  Autumn recently got a new cell phone because she wanted to be able to look up items at the thrift stores more efficiently. This jacket was one of the first success stories for the phone! What did we do with her old cell phone, you ask?

We sold it, of course!

Tag Sale Treasure Hunt 11/10

Very few yard sales again today as the season winds down. There was a parking lot sale at a local school this morning, which was quite good.  There were about 40 vendors there. I found the Pyrex Butterfly Gold covered casserole for $5.00, and the 2 Revere Ware saucepans for $1.00 each.  Autumn got the Clairol Kindness curlers for $1.00.
We hit the remaining yard sales next.  At one I got 11 Corelle Spring Blossom Green coffee cups for free (1 is pictured above), and a Tapout shirt for $1.00.  We also picked up an Under Armour vest and a pair of Clarks shoes at another sale for $3.00.
We stopped by the Goodwill next.  I had filled up a card (every $5.00 you spend, you get a stamp on your card, get 20 stamps, you get $5.00 off your next purchase). I have been having very good luck at this Goodwill lately, and today was no exception. I scored 3 Polo Ralph Lauren shirts; 1 was a Big Pony, another was a Dual Match. Also a nice Cooke Street Hawaiian shirt, and a North Face western style shirt. Bottom line: 5 great shirts for $13.00.
The flea market is now closed, so I will spend tomorrow listing.  Autumn is cleaning up a bunch of shoes, so I will get those listed as well.

Flea Market Finds 11/4

As previously reported right here, today is the final day of 2012 for the flea market. It returns in April, but there is a new flea market in the works that is supposed to start in a month or so. Yay! 
On to the finds find. We found a vendor who had a box of wood type blocks that were used back in the day for newspapers. He was selling them for .50 cents each, so I picked the four coolest I could find. They are:

• Top - Christmas Greetings
• Left Center - Westborough Woman's Club
• Right Center - Engineering/Installation/Design Financing
• Bottom - Always In The Market For Antiques

I really like these.  I want to ink these and print them so when I list them the buyer can see the designs, but apparently we need a brayer to roll the ink on and then stamp them.  I tried using an ink pad and it did not work well.  That was it, but we did get to stop at the donut shop on the way home and I got 25 glazed chocolate donut holes.

After the flea market we went to the Goodwill where I picked up the Reyn Spooner shirts yesterday. There were several Go Barefoot Hawaiian shirts there and I picked up five.  We also found a Life Is Good t shirt, a cool Polo Sport t shirt, a Wilton Barney cake pan, microwave turntable, and Mr. Bacon vs Monsieur Tofu. I don't know what that is either.
In other news, the soon-to-be-world-famous Pioneer Valley Fashion Super Sunday Sale is going well, and I have sold several items.  The sale was scheduled to start at 1 minute past midnight this morning, but there was a glitch (I think setting the clocks back) and it did not start till 7 am. So I extended it by 7 hours. That's it for now, time to do some listing. Adios!

Tag Sale Treasure Hunt 11/3

With only 4 tag sales today, my hopes of finding something good were not too high. The first sale was a bust, the second was an estate sale. Even though I have never had great luck at estate sales, they intrigue me greatly. There was a large crowd there already when we arrived. I saw a man walking to his car carrying two nice Pyrex bowls. NOOOOOO!!  After a little poking around, I found a Pyrex Americana Cinderella bowl, #444. It has some scratches on it, so we are going to keep it. It was only $1.00.  We also found a pair of SAS shoes for $1.00.
The 3rd yard sale was terrible, and the fourth was at an address we had been to twice previous. Here I found a bag of K'Nex parts for $1.00.  I will add these to the K'Nex lot that I will list when I get at least a pound.
On the way home we decided to stop at a Goodwill that is close to our house. I found an Oreo coffee mug first. Then I spotted a Fire-King peach luster coffee cup. I have terrible luck reselling Fire-King, but I cannot resist it's charm. Spent a buck on that.
Then I made my way over to mens shirts. Nothing....nothing....nothing...wait what's this? A Reyn Spooner? Cool! Another one! And another! Holy cow! One more! 4 all together. There were also about 8-10 Go Barefoot Hawaiian shirts.  I had never heard of these, but I bought one anyway.  I think someone got rid of their Hawaiian shirt collection, cause they are all large.
Here they are!