Week 5: Pea Coat, Wool, Man's

http://providence.craigslist.org/clo/971990229.html

This is a nice coat that is too big for me.

Week 4: Xmas Break

Since Amanda & I are away from the free stuff this week, we're going to post a new item on Monday.

The jack is gone! (snowstorm edition)

The taker for the jack came down from somewhere near Woonsocket during the snow on Friday, 19 December. Amanda & I were hunkered down to wait out the snow, but this guy was prepared to drive all the way to Providence for free stuff - that is dedication!

Week 3: 3,000 lbf Scissor Jack

http://providence.craigslist.org/zip/959445530.html

I bought this jack from the Sears in Manchester, NH 8-10 years ago. It works, but I don't need it.

Sold: Two Nerf Tees

After posting the t-shirts to Craig's List, I realized there was an even better place to post them for more chance of success: Nerfhaven . Nerfhaven is a Nerf enthusiast website, complete with forums. When I worked at Hasbro, we had regular contact with the group and I would occasionally post on the forums to answer questions.

I posted a link to the Craig's List post and then went out to see a play (The Receptionist at Trinity Rep). On my return, I found 5 or 6 responses to the ad. Unfortunately, everyone was only interested in the Nerf shirts, but I got those sent on Tuesday night, and made ~$9 on the deal after shipping.

The Knives are gone!

After several calls and emails with no follow-up, I finally found a taker for the knives over in Wayland Square, Providence.

Week 2: 6 Hasbro Toy T-Shirts Med Nerf Transformers

I used to work at Hasbro. They would give you promotional items for all sorts of stuff, so I have a small collection of T-shirts, sweat shirts and other misc. items.

Now, I already had a rather large collection of T-shirts from college, favorite internet sites and all sorts of other stuff before I started to work at Hasbro. Add the 9 shirts I got while I was there, and this adds up to a large number of T-shirts that I don't wear often.

The Hasbro shirts, I figure, are the most resalable. I was going to post them to e-Bay, as I figured that way I would get the best price. But, as I recounted earlier today, e-Bay's requirements for sellers have got a bit out of hand, so I posted the following to Facebook, and Craig's List in Boston and Providence:

6 Hasbro toy brand t-shirts. Men's Medium.

$5.00 a shirt or $25 for all 6

I used to work for Hasbro and we were often given t-shirts for the brands. I have 6 to sell as a lot, detailed below:

1. Tranformers: for the 2006 movie; release date printed on back
2. Lazer Tag: Team Ops logo with the "2005 World Tour" dates on the back
3. Nerf: Property of Nerf Athletic Dept.
4. Nerf: Nerf stripe T, with "Play Your Game" logo on the back
5. Super Soaker: Super Soaker "Soak" T
6. iDog: iDog T3 shirt; has T3 logo on back

Shipping is a flat rate of $10 for all 6 via USPS Priority Mail or $2 a shirt for less than 6 or you can pick them up in Providence, RI. I'll take check, money order or Pay Pal transfers from a bank account (**no credit card payments accepted**).

Annoyances: e-Bay and Flaky Craig's List People

We have been unable, despite a significant number of people with interest and a number of communications from people who said "we'll be right over," to give away the knife set. This leaves us with the question: Why is everyone on Craig's List so flaky?

I got some information together yesterday on some T-shirts I am looking to sell. I'll put the post for that up next. My first instinct was to put them on e-Bay. e-Bay has been incredibly successful for me in the past. I sold a pile of magazines and all sorts of misc. items through online auctions. I haven't sold anything in a number of years. They make you do two things now:

1. You *must* accept an electronic payment option. PayPal, of course, being the easiest. This is a bit annoying to me, as by putting that you accept PayPal, it looks like you accept credit cards.

There are a few levels of PayPal memberships. The first is the basic. You can accept money only from bank accounts, but it is free. Then there are two levels where you can accept credit cards. For *either* of these, the transactions that were free on the basic level is charged a fee, as it the credit card transactions. I understand the fee for credit cards---it costs to run a transaction and the card company charges a fee---but the fee for the bank transfer doesn't make sense to me.

So, you can say you accept PayPal, but there is no option to say that you only accept bank transfers, so people tend to pay with credit cards. And you are forced into another fee. Erg.

2. You cannot list money order as an option on your listing. People *must* pay by electronic means. I am sure other people have gone into lots of detail on this. I won't. Suffice to say, this is a pain and undermines the whole feedback system.

After finding this out about e-Bay, I listed on Facebook and Craig's List.

Bonus Entry: Basket!

The local branch of the Providence Public Library is having a Christmas Bazaar [10-2 Saturday 6 December at 31 Candace Street in Providence, if you're interested]. A group at the Library is making gift baskets to raffle off, and gladly accepted the spare basket from a gift basket last year.

Week 1: Mixed Kitchen Knife Set with Block

First item, posted to Craig's List free stuff section:

Mixed Kitchen Knife Set with Block

Five steak knives, fillet knife, bread knife, and an extra "I'm not sure what this is" knife, with a knife block

We "ended up" with these knives and associated knife block when my father gave them to us a few years ago. I'm not sure where he picked them up. I think we may have needed them at the time, but with purchases and gifts of better knives, we were no longer using them and they were taking up valuable counter space.

They aren't worth trying to sell, as there are at least two different brands of knives (hence the "mixed") and all the holes in the knife block aren't full. They are perfectly good as knives though, so we figured a student or similar could use them.

We had some interest soon after the post went up. No commitments at this point.

Out the Door this Week: Introduction

My husband and I are engineers. We see a practical use for almost everything. As a result, we have a small collection of stuff that is not of any use to us, but we can't throw out.

I was recently inspired by a library copy of It's All too Much on my desk. I had flipped through it on a couple occasions, but wasn't really into the regimen of cleaning up and throwing out that Walsh proposes. It did, though, get me thinking about all the stuff we have hanging around that is waiting to get sold or given away. I have also been lurking on Ramit's $1000 in 30 days challenge and have been meaning to follow his tip #3: Sell something on ebay.

So, we are engineers. We do everything very deliberately and work best if we have a plan to go by---a schedule. For instance, we were having trouble remembering to change our sheets on a regular basis. My husband combat this by setting a reminder on our Google Calendar and we now change our sheets regularly. That got me thinking: we can do the same with our not-useful-to-us stuff.

We've gone through periodic spasms of getting rid of stuff, but there was never a long term commitment. Last night I proposed that we get rid of one thing a week---either by giving it away (via the "free stuff" section on Craig's List or freecycle) or selling it (via Craig's List, ebay or similar)---for the next year.

My husband liked the idea and set up a Google Calendar reminder. I figured others might be interested in this effort and a blog posting on what we are giving away or selling may help keep us on track for our goal.

Each week I'll post what we are getting rid of and how we got it out the door.