First You Have to Kiss Some Frogs.....

The toys and games I unearthed at The House O' Stuff are selling briskly.  Someone just paid  $249 for a Disney / Mickey Mouse Roller Coaster set.  I keep wondering just where this recession is that folks keep talking about.

Speaking of talking about, people often comment on how "lucky" I am to come across all this junk that I turn into treasure and manage to resell at a profit.

I always hear "I never find anything at thrift shops"

Me: "How often do  you shop at one?"

Answer:  "It's been 3 or 4 months". 

Me " I troll the thrift shops 3 or 4 times a week". 

There is some luck involved - maybe 10% but the rest is just plain hard work. 

When it came to The House O' Stuff, the 10% was living in the same city as the toy hoarder.

The 90% was hard work was: 

• ·        Going to every estate sale I could and getting my name on the-mail lists
• ·        Scouring their e-mails and pictures looking for a likely candidates.
• ·         Attending a great many Frog estate sales
• ·         Making nice to the estate sale dealers so that they will make nice to me. Th
• ·         In regards to the House O’ Stuff making the time to park my carcass in line for an hour and an hour a half the day before so that I’d get in the door in the first group
• ·         Showing up on time the day of the sale (believe it or not, some folks were late and lost their hard won place on the list)
• ·         Spending at least 3 hours at the sale for 2 consecutive Saturdays in a row
• ·         Busting my backside to get all the STUFF listed, packed, photographed etc. so that it would sell.  Doesn’t matter how much it is worth – I’m not going to make any money if it’s stacked on the pool table!

Everything was either at Amazon or E-bay ready within a week of purchase.

So, yes there is some luck involved but there is a great deal of very hard work as well.