How my friend had a $1200 garage sale every year

I just picked a random garage sale picking video for this post.  But this couple scores some good finds here. I just needed a garage sale video to catch your attetnion.

In the mid 1990's I burned out, after spending five summers as a TV show crew guy on shows like American Gladiators.  It was pretty fun to work on, but I was sick of working on other people's goofy TV show ideas.  I wanted to work on my own ideas, but didn't have what it took to sell an idea and make it happen.  I went back to Huntington Beach, and wound up working as a furniture mover for a local company called Happy Movers.  Yeah, every freakin' morning we'd pull up in a big truck that said Happy Movers, and a woman would ask, "Are you guys happy?"  We'd say, "No ma'am, we're movers, it's an oxymoron."  Moving other people's furniture and crap is a hot, brutal, hard, torturous job.  I was without a strong direction at that point, so I just rolled with it.

Since we did mostly local moves, in and around Orange County, California, we had one big tractor trailer, and 7 or 8 bobtails, also known as box vans.  Our Class A, tractor trailer driver was a skinny guy, with longish rocker hair.  He was a really cool guy to work with, had a great sense of humor, and amazingly strong for how skinny he was.  It was Dan who showed me how he managed to have a $1200, one day garage sale every single year.  That one garage sale paid his and his wife's rent one month each year.

Here's how he did it.  When we would show up to move people's houses or apartments, people were stressed.  It's a big day for most people.  Suddenly people realize just how much junk they have, because they have to pack it all, we'd move it, and they they'd have to unpack it all, and reorganize in another house or apartment.  Since we moved at least one house, and sometimes two or three in a day (really, 3 a day), we ran into a lot of people who had stuff they just wanted to get rid of.  Sometimes they'd have us haul some junk to the dumpster for them.  Or maybe set it on the curb.  But often, people would say, "Can you guys get rid of this old washing machine for us?"  Since I lived in a small apartment, I usually turned it down.  But Dan and his wife rented a three bedroom house with a two car garage.  Dan would just put all those giveaway items against one wall, and leave them on the truck when he and his crew unloaded.  On the way back to our office, he'd stop by his house, unload the washer, refrigerator, end tables, or whatever people gave him.  If the wife liked it, it might wind up in the house.  But most of the stuff he just packed into the garage.

Then, at least once a year, they'd have a big garage sale.  He'd have four washing machines, five dryers, usually working.  He'd have two or three fridges.  He'd have 20 or 30 cabinets, coffee tables, end tables, and chairs.  He'd also have boxes of random little items he'd been given, everything from dozens of ballpoint pens to dishes, to knick knacks, antiques, and toasters.  Dan said the annual garage sale always brought in over $1100, usually it was in the $1200 to $1300 range.  This was back in the '96-'97.  Their rent was a little under $1200 a month, and so the sale paid a month's rent each year.  And everything they sold they got FOR FREE.

OK, most of you are not furniture movers.  But many of you reading this may be pickers and flippers.  So here's where you can profit form this idea.  First, if you want to find deals on furniture and appliances, contact your local furniture movers.  They get free stuff all the freakin' time, like Dan and I did.  Most movers just want some extra cash, they don't want to store stuff  like Dan.  Have them call you when they get a piece of furniture or something that's decent.  Meet up, they may even deliver it, and offer them an amount that will pay for their time and effort.  Movers will often sell a $200 piece of furniture,that they got for free, for $40 that day.  It's very little work, and like a tip for them.

A word of caution, DO NOT buy electronics, tools, jewelry or video games and small items from movers, there are a lot of thieves in that business, and you don't want to be buying stolen property.  Or, you can give movers you number, and have them call you when their cutomers are giving stuff away, and you met them on site, and maybe pay them $20 for the phone call.  Most movers would be down for that.

The other way to use this idea is if you're a picker, someone who buys stuff at thrift stores, auctions, garage sales or where ever, you wind up with a lot of low end items.  If you have the space, just store those items somewhere.  Put them aside for a few months, until there's a lot of that stuff.  Then have your own garage sale, or take the stuff to a flea market or swap meet.  You might be surprised with what you earn for the "leftover junk."

Back in 2006, I was trying to get away from the downward spiral of the taxi business.  But I was homeless and living in my taxi, working 80+ hours a week in the cab to survive.  I stumbled into buying units at storage unit auctions.  I rented a big 10' by 30' unit as my "warehouse," and I startee buying units, and selling the higher end items.  That left me with a lot of junk.  Garage sale type stuff.  So I had my own storage unit half full of random junk.  This was before storage unit auctions ever appeared on TV.  Things sold for much more reasonable prices back then.  In effect, I had collected the random stuff, like Dan the mover did.

One day, there was a storage unit auction at the place where my unit was.  About 12 buyer were there, but there were only two units were up for sale.  After the those two units were auctioned off, the buyers were disappointed.  I spoke up, "Hey everybody, I have a bunch of stuff in my personal unit I need to sell, anyone who wants, follow me, and I'll auction that stuff off.  Here's the thing, I had already sold enough from my buys to make money from the stuff I'd bought.  Everything I was auctioning off had been paid for, it was all free to me.  Mostly I just wanted to get rid of it.  So everyone checked the stuff out, and I auctioned it off myself.  I wound up getting $250 for my "leftover junk."  And it all got cleaned out that day.  That's about what I was making for 80 hours of taxi driving at the time.  I was happy to put $250 cash in my pocket for stuff I just wanted to get rid of. 

Gary Vaynerchuk's Trash Talk #4

Gary Vaynerchuk, known for taking his family's liquor store from $3 million a year to $60 million a year with Google Adwords and a YouTube wine tasting channel.  Now he runs a $200 million digital agency, VaynerMedia.  He puts out a ton of content, and gives keynote speeches around the world, telling big business types they need to realize nobody watches TV commercials anymore. 

After a winter hiatus, Gary hits the spring 2019 New Jersey garage sale season, the first Trash Talk of this year, and scores big on Nerf guns, a vintage Jets jacket, some Zelda games, and more.  Yeah, he cusses a lot, but he makes some great finds. 

Gary Vaynerchuk's Trash Talk #3

Here's episode #3 of Trash Talk from multi-millionaire digital agency owner, Gary Vaynerchuk, and posse.  Stuffed animals (OK, "plush toys," that name just sounds so dumb to me) vintage coffee mugs, and Thomas the Train toys are some of the key finds this episode.  Gary goes back to his hustling roots in Jersey, bargaining for deals at garage sales, then reselling the stuff on Ebay for bigger bucks.  He's funny, entertaining, and he wants to show everyone who needs a side hustle how he did it back in the day. 

Wheelin' and dealin' is now "Flipping"- and it's still fun and profitable

 The toys above are half of a thrift store purchase that cost me $1.90 in Richmond, Virginia, at the Goodwill Outlet store, last fall.  Dumbo was from about 1975-1980, and sells for $12 or so on Ebay.  I paid about 20 cents.  Ernie was from 1980-85, and was selling for $6-$8 then.  Since I was homeless at the time, Ebay was difficult, without an address, a bank account, and a place to store these things.  I tried to sell them locally, on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist, But had no takers.  I ended up giving them away.  Yes, I lost my $2 that time.  But the deals are out there, that's the point.

 Wheelin' and Dealin'
I'm a kid of the 1970's, my dad was what people called a "packrat" back then, what's called a "collector" on American Pickers, and what some people a hoarder now.  We didn't have the crazy hoarder houses you see on TV shows.  Even though we moved nearly every year our basements and garages were full of shelving units, boxes, and cabinets, all piled with pieces of machines, tools, gun parts, motorcycle parts, and random mechanical things, that my dad intended to fix or build, "some day."  Most of this stuff he either traded a friend for, or picked up at garage sales and gun shows.  So I tagged along with him, learning the fine art of "wheelin' and dealin' as people called it then.

Buying and selling was a hobby for my dad, and for most people into garage sales, back then.  The factories in Ohio, where we lived, and the whole country, were booming.  Most people made solid, Middle Class incomes, and making a living off of garage sales wasn't necessary.  But my dad nearly always made a little bit of money on his deals.  When my mom was a little short for food money or whatever, my dad would always tell her he'd try to "borrow $5 or $10" from somebody at work.  It wasn't until I was 14 that my dad told me all that "borrowed" money came from his gun money, well over $2,000, a few dollars at a time. 

Though my dad hated violence, he was an avid target shooter and gun owner.  Once I was about 8, he'd take me to gun shows, where he'd buy and sell guns, gun parts, reloading supplies, military surplus stuff, and whatever seemed interesting.  He taught me to walk the whole show, see what was there, and scout out what seemed like good deals.  He taught me to talk casually to people who had something he wanted to buy, and not seem to eager.  He taught me to walk away when they wouldn't come down to the price he wanted to pay.  That walking away, in a polite and friendly way, often was the trick that got the price to a decent level.  He also taught me to bundle a few things together at times, or add something in trade to sweeten a deal.

My favorite deal I saw him do was when friend, a guy from work, another avid gun owner, had a little suitcase with 30,000 pro gun bumper stickers.  Yes, I know a ton of people are anti-gun now, because of all the horrible mass shootings.  Those are terrible tragedies, and there is no easy answer to solve that issue.  But those incidents were rare when I was a kid, and target shooting was a common recreational sport, and many people in Ohio hunted as well. 

In any case, my dad paid $30 for the case of 30,000 bumper stickers when I was about 5 or 6 years old.  That's 1/10th of a cent each.  There were 6 different bumper stickers, and he had 5,000 of each.  For the next ten years, I watched my dad sell those stickers for $1 each, 1,000 times what he paid for each one.  I watched him add a few stickers to a deal to sweeten the pot.  He didn't try hard.  Bumper stickers were a natural trading item at gun shows.  Ultimately, my dad made well over $300 cash for his $30 investment, and got another $300 to $500 in trade, maybe more.  Then, with my mom sick of seeing that little case in the basement, he sold the case, and the 20,000 or so remaining stickers, to another guy, for $30.  Watching him milk that $30 investment for a decade, in my childhood, was a great lesson.

In today's world, the high paying factory jobs are mostly gone.  Tens of millions of people are struggling.  More important, we have the internet, computers, and smart phones, which offer a whole bunch of new ways to both buy an sell things, to a much, much wider audience.  Flipping, as wheelin' and dealin' is now called, and retail arbitrage (buying consumer goods at one store and selling somewhere else), is a huge industry.  Ebay, Amazon resellers, online stores, and all the other web platforms  and apps, have tens of millions of items, new and used, that people are buying cheap and reselling somewhere else. 

My own main experience in this was mostly from buying units at storage unit auctions, which I discovered accidentally in about 2005.  I tried to turn this into a business to escape the downward spiral of the taxi industry, and I did make money consistently.  But I was working 80 + hours a week in the cab, and I didn't make enough to make it a career.  The funny thing is, the Storage Wars TV show started a couple of years later, and Daryl, "The Gambler" on the show, is from Huntington Beach, where I lived, and he was at the first storage auction I ever went to .

This is a Snoopy/Peanuts colorform set, where you have the little, rubber, flat people inside, and you stick them on the background scene in some way.  This version, with the circle seal in the lower right corner, is the 35th anniversary remake of the original set.  I bought this for about 20 cents (paid by the pound) at a Goodwill outlet store.  These sell for $9-$10 on Ebay, and the 1972 originals sell for about $20.

I'll go into more detail in future posts on flipping ideas.  But here are some places you can buy items to flip: garage sales, thrift stores, auctions of all kinds, online auctions, Craigslist, and Chinese distributors like Alli Express.  

Here's where you can sell these items at a higher price (hopefully)- Ebay, a Shopify or other online store, your personal website, Facebook Marketplace, Let Go, Wallapop, the local flea market or swap meet, or Craigslist.  

You get the idea.  For more ideas on how to make some extra cash, or how to help get your own small business going, check out WPOS Kreative on Pinterest. 

Gary Vaynerchuk's Trash Talk #2

Mug life bitches!  No that's not a typo... MUG, not THUG.  America's favorite garage sale hunting multi-millionaire hits the driveways and garages of New Jersey on a rainy Saturday last fall (2018).  He finds the cheap coffee mugs, he scores big with Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars, stuffed animals ("plush toys" these days), and lands a huge collection of collectible Olympic pins.  All told, his $75 in garage sale finds turns into about a grand on Ebay.  Why does a guy who owns a $150 million a year digital agency do this?  To prove to everyone out there that hustling can make virtually anyone some cash.  He's a hustler from childhood.  #fliplife #garyvee Check out his content, it's everywhere.  Gary's entertaining, and gives you ideas on how to make some cash when you're starting out. 

Check out WPOS Kreative on Pinterest for more ideas on making money and building a small business in today's crazy world.

Gary Vaynerchuk's Trash Talk #1

First of all, Gary Vayherchuk cusses a lot, or curses, as he says.  If that bothers you, don't watch this.

Why would a guy with a $150 million digital agency get filmed going to garage sales, and trying to get 50 cents off of a $1  coffee mug?  Some people would say hype or image.  Seriously, I consume a lot of his content.  He likes, maybe straight up loves, doing this shit.  He talks about it all the time in other videos, behind the scenes, business consulting sessions, and even keynote speeches.  Gary's entertaining, and this series of videos shows you something pretty much anyone can do to earn some extra money.  If you go really hardcore into it, you can make a living doing this type of thing. 

I've done this, at a small level, since taking a Magic Rub eraser my dad gave me (he got them free at work as a draftsman), cutting it into 8 little pieces, and selling each one for a dime.  That was in 2nd grade in Massillon, Ohio.  My dad was loved "wheeling and dealing," as we called it when I was a kid in the 70's, and I got the bug from him.  I've never done it full time, but I've made some money through my life doing "flipping," as it's now called.  I love these videos, as entertainment, inspiration, and as a money making how-to.  Maybe you will, too.  If you don't know, check out Gary's content, it's everywhere, @garyvee.  This is his first installment of Trash Talk, from last fall (2018).

Check out WPOS Kreative on Pinterest, or hit me up (Steve Emig, Lancaster, CA) on Facebook, and ask to join the WPOS Kreative FB group. 

19 Ways to LEGALLY put Cash in your Pocket TODAY

So... you're in a bind, this thing happened, that money didn't come through, money is stuck in some account you can't access because it's on hold or something.  You just need a little money in your pocket, wallet, bra, or on your card, TODAY!  What do you do?

Nearly everyone gets into this situation at some point.  Crazy ideas may pop into your mind.  You think about selling a kidney, but that sounds really painful, and you don't have a black market organ donor in your Snapchat contacts.  You could put Grandma on the corner to turn tricks.  She's got dementia, she wouldn't remember, anyhow.  But that's mean... and she was the Grandma that always made you cinnamon toast as a kid, you don't want to do that to her.  You could start selling crack, but, let's face it, you're not as street as you pretend to be when you sing along to old gangsta rap songs, and Biggie and Tupac got shot.  You don't want that.  You need a LEGIT way to put a little bit of cash in your pocket TODAY.

Here are some real ideas...

1. Get cash a advance on your credit card.  Yes, you have to pay it back, it's a loan, usually with hefty interest.  But it might be necessary of you're really in a bind.
2. Draw money out of a line of credit you already have set up.  Again, this is actually a loan, and you have to pay it back, with interest.  But it can help in tough times.
3. Go to your bank, talk to the manager, and ask for a line of credit that you can draw on today.  If you've been banking there a while, and are in good standing, it's likely you may qualify for a line of credit.  Again, this is a loan, and you have to pay it back, with interest, over time.
4. Sell something you have laying around to a friend, family member, or neighbor.
5. Sell something you have laying around on Craigslist.  Yes, we've all heard bad stories about Craigslist.  But those are rare.  Use your head, take a friend to the meet up, meet in a public place that has video.  You can even meet in front of the local police station.  Be safe, but it works.  I've done this many times myself.
6. Sell something you have laying around on an app like Let Go, Wallapop, or a similar apps.  Same thing, be safe, you know the drill
7. Cash in a jar of change you have.  Coinstar machines take a HUGE cut, nearly 12%, but they're convenient.  There are similar machines, with no fee, at most bank offices now, and the money goes right into your account.  If you roll up coins, old school style, you may be able to sell them to a local store.  Hint:  If you actually use money, like real, old fashioned paper money, to buy things on a regular basis, take the change left over and put it in a jar somewhere.  We tend to forget about these things, until we really need them.  See that change in the photo above?  Guess where it came from.  That's right, my "change for a rainy (or broke) day" jar.
8. Cash in recyclables.  Here in California, these add up pretty quick.  Most other states they don't have the same deposit they do here, but aluminum cans are always worth a little.
9. Pawn something of value (power tools, jewelry, musical instruments, guns, bicycles, your kid sister, etc.) at a pawn shop.  Pawning something is a way of getting a short term loan.  The pawn shop gives you a tiny loan, usually about 10% of the resale value, for an item, and you pay them back with a little bit of interest, usually in 30-60-90 days.  See all that stuff sitting in the pawn shop, that's mostly stuff people pawned and never picked up.  Don't be one of those people. 
10. Sell something at a pawn shop.  Pawn shops buy stuff, too.  They'll pay you a low price for it, but it's cash in your hand on the spot.  In tough times, it can be worth it, especially if the item is something you don't use anymore.
11. Have a garage, yard, or inside sale.  This takes a bit of planning the night before, and you can post your sale online, and make actual signs to hang up, directing people to your sale.  This, obviously, is mostly a weekend thing.  An "inside sale" is a garage-type sale when you live in an apartment.  Direct people to your door, and set stuff up in your living room or kitchen.  This has some risks, but in a decent neighborhood, with friends there to help you keep an eye on things, can be done safely. 
12. Sell plasma.  Plasma is basically the fluid in your blood.  It's almost the same as giving blood, except that you're hooked up to a machine for 45 minutes or so.  If you don't like needles, this isn't for you.  There are basic health criteria you have to meet.  If you have a recent tattoo, have been in jail in the last 30 days, are homeless, or have spent lots of time in foreign countries, you probably won't qualify.  This can be done twice a week, generally, and you get around $20 the first time, and $40 or so the next time.  Drink lots of water the day before, and get to the place an hour before it opens, and get in line.  Yes, I've done this before.  It's not bad, actually, if you have the time.
13. Sell jewelry, gold, or silver coins to one of those "Cash for gold" places.
14. Sell jewelry, gold, or silver coins to a local jeweler.
15. Sell an old cell phone in one of those "Cash for phones" machines.  I've seen these most in Walmart entry ways.  I've never done it, but it's another possibility.
16. Sell vinyl record albums, CD's or DVD's to an old school record shop.  This isn't near as big a thing as it once was, but there are still record shops in most large cities that will pay cash for good music.
17. Sell old CD's and DVD's to a pawn shop.  You won't get much, but it is possible.
18. Do some kind of small job for someone.  It could be a friend, family member, someone in your dorm, or whomever.  Clean out the garage, walk the dog, clean up the dog poop in the yard, paint their kitchen, whatever.  You get the idea.
19.  Drive around your area, check the curbs, the dumpsters at local apartment buildings, and pick up the things people are giving/throwing away.  Then sell those things on Craigslist, Let Go, or similar place.  Curb giveaways, and dumpster giveaways.  You'd be surprised what people give away.  True story, I actually found an antique, oak dining table, handmade in France in the 1870's or so, by the dumpster at my storage unit.  This was in 2006 or so.  It was in two pieces, and needed work, but was really high quality.  So I put it in my storage unit, and I took  some photos of it, and took them to 5 or 6 antique shops.  One shop paid me $150 cash for the table, about 4 days later.  If I would have spent $1,000 getting the table repaired and refinished, I could have sold it for $5,000 to $8,000, on consignment, in a few months.  That's how good of a table it was.  But I didn't have a grand to drop repairing it.  There are some really amazing things being given away.  People give old pianos away all the time on Craigslist.  They need work, and they're hard to move, but there's money to be made for the right person.
20. Go to the Craigslist section called "Free," and find something that has a little value that someone is giving away.  Go pick up that item, then sell the item on another site or platform, like Facebook Marketplace, or LetGo.  Yes, Gary Vaynerchuk made this idea famous a couple years ago.  But it's a variation of the idea above, which I actually did before I ever heard of Gary Vee.  His content rocks, by the way.  Check it out.
21. Babysit for someone.  
22. Panhandle.  This is for the really desperate people out there.  Get a piece of cardboard and a marker.  Write "down and out," "homeless," "just lazy" or whatever applies on it. Then go to a local freeway off ramp, or urban street corner, look pathetic, and stand there until someone gives you a little money.  I've been homeless where I had to do this to survive.  People panhandle because a small percentage of strangers will give you a little money (or food) to help you out.  ONLY do this if you are homeless or truly in need.  I'm talking to you, you young hippies who travel this way because you don't want to get a job.  You can get a real job, but many people can't.  Always be polite when panhandling, and always say "Thank you."  When you get back on our feet, give to someone else in need.  Keep the circle going.

Check out WPOS Kreative on Pinterest for more ideas on building a small business and to see my Sharpie art, #sharpiescribblestyle