Back In the Black (and Invest in What You Know)

So I am no longer $23 in the red.  The free part of this project is back on track.  Remember the box of free plumbing supplies I picked up in nearby Peculiar, Missouri?  Well, it was included in a Craigslist free page ad that included baby clothes, a couple baby strollers, and a box of gas cans.  The seller really wanted someone to take it all.  I really just wanted the plumbing supplies, but in an effort to convince the seller to give the stuff to me, I offered to also take the strollers and the baby clothes.  After all, our church does a kids clothing sale twice per year, and can use all of the donated clothes we can get!  And I knew I could re-sell the strollers.  The gas cans? I passed.

On my way home, I dropped off the clothes at the church.  I later gave away the single stroller. (They are a dime a dozen).  The double stroller?  Gold mine!  For some reason, double strollers are a hot item, and very expensive.  Even a used one goes for a chunk of change.

A brand new Evenflo double stroller like this would cost you over $150.

I considered selling the double stroller at a kids clothes consignment sale.  I just didn't have enough other items ready and tagged to make it worth my time.  (By the way, consignment sales are a great way to offload your too-small kids clothes. Just search for "kids consignment sale" in your area, or search for a Just Between Friends franchise near you (www.jbfsale.com) You will earn much more than you could ever earn working a garage sale.  And you don't need to borrow folding tables from your church)

To make a long story short, I listed the double stroller on a Saturday morning on Craigslist, and sold it that afternoon for $40.  That puts me at $17 in the black!

Here is a lesson I have learned, that relates to this experience. I first heard about the book, The Millionaire Next Door from Dave Ramsey.  Then a business-owner friend recommended it to me.  So I read it. No, I am not the millionaire next door, but I trying to learn from them.  And one of the practices followed by many prodigious accumulators of wealth is to invest in what you know.  I learned this lesson the hard way when I bought several boxes of cheap cosmetics from a lady who claimed that I could resell it for hundreds of dollars on ebay.  It turns out, I couldn't.  Part of the problem was that I didn't know eyeliner mascara.  Who knew that there is a color named brown/black?  Two years later I still had boxes of this stuff.  Invest in what you know.

So through the last 6 years of this adventure called parenting, I have learned a few things.  I have seen intelligent people pay ridiculous amounts of money for novelty items that come with a promise to soothe their baby's crying.  And, for some reason, I have found that double strollers sell easily for good money!  Invest in what you know.