November Frugals!

[rosarugosa]

I needed to buy some small items on eBay (phone charger cord, car adapter) and I was able to cover the purchases with funds in my Paypal account from selling a couple of pairs of shoes recently. It was nice to make the purchases without any cash outlay. I'm also considering a used Fitbit on eBay to replace my current Fitbit One. I can no longer sync my current FB and none of my data is registering on the website which is OK with me (some would say this is a plus), but I do use it as a watch and it keeps gaining time, which is getting annoying. I've been living with it since 9/11/19 (that's when it stopped syncing). I just want to track steps and see the correct time. The used one I'm eyeing is $40, and it would cost me $120 new from FB.

[early morning]

rosa, do you sell on ebay? We're debating on attempting that. I do like to make Amazon purchases with the credit card points we earn monthly, it's like free stuff, lol. I don't use cash much at all. I spend it way too quickly! The record of card purchases puts them all in my face every time I update my spreadsheet, which is humbling. Got free snacks yesterday, and a half-gallon of good cider, compliments of my dsis. Our microwave, an old, wall-mounted one, died. We can, of course, do without, but we have a small, counter-top one I set up, temporarily, on a TV tray in our back hall (no room in the kitchen, sadly). And we have another wall-mounted one upstairs, new in a box. We bought it 5 or 6 years ago but DH would not put it up because it didn't hang the same way as our first one (from the mid 80s). He found a second hand one for $20 at a yard sale that used the same mounting plate he already had in place, and we used it until it just died. So now I just have to get him to see that installing the one we have on hand is not the end of the world, lol. He does not like change.... and he can't get one like the original anyway. And I have no inclination to spend money for something we already have on hand!! We will have to build a shelf to attach the top of the new one to, but that's quite do-able.

[happystuff]

Friend came over for distance gaming night and bought a bunch of veggies. She shops at various stores and one offers $1 bags of "need to use fast" veggies and fruits. I spent yesterday in the kitchen, but got everything used! Strawberries in the freezer awaiting the next yogurt purchase, bananas are now cookies, peppers in salad, mushrooms topped last night's pizza.... etc., etc. It felt good that nothing got wasted! (Fed her chicken stew and biscuits in return. )

[rosarugosa]

Early: When I retired at the end of 2017, I told myself I was going to learn to sell stuff on eBay in 2018 as one of my new challenges. I had a collection of "I'm going to sell this on eBay someday" things, and I told myself I was going to do it or give them away or donate them in 2018. I did learn to sell and I enjoyed getting over the learning curve; it was kind of fun. I sold a few things for my husband, my sister and a friend as well. I made 15 sales in 2018 and 25 sales in 2019, obviously not going to support myself with this. In 2020, I felt like I had other priorities and earlier this year I wanted to avoid unnecessary trips to the Post Office, so I've only made 2 sales, both quite recently.

[early morning]

Thanks, rosa. We still have a large amount of my parents' stuff we're selling in our bricks and mortar mall shops, but some things are either too small or too fragile (plenty of ephemera) to be handled over and over. And at one mall, there's a theft problem for small items. E-bay seems to be a good way around that for those things. Other frugals for the day - got another covid rebate of $33 from our car insurance, a notice that my retirement is going up about $45 per month net since my employer FINALLY sent in some paperwork on the raise I received just prior to retiring, and our water and sewer bills, which reflect a lower amount of water use due to some haranguing on my part. Not a lot but I'll take it!

[Teacher Terry]

I don’t like to mail stuff so sell on local sites. It also depends on my mood if I sell or give away.

[early morning]

Makes sense, TT! But for my current situation, we have more specialized items that aren't stuff most people would want, but are valuable to a smaller segment of people. A wider net for collectors would work better for me. And I'd rather make a post office run than have people stop by or try to make connections for picking up stuff, so there's that. We do donate a lot of general things, and when clearing out my mom's place we took 10 well packed van loads to a charity thrift. And we STILL have plenty of stuff, and I've been selling it for 4 years now. Of course the three of us kids have also sold some of our own things during this time... and it's been worth it overall, and mostly fun. We have funded 4 vacations so far, for 4 people each (Thanks, mom!) I honestly have no idea how she had so much stuff crammed into her house/garage, and it really didn't look packed - nothing like a hoarders episode! She was a master at packing and fitting things into places they were larger than, lol....

[Teacher Terry]

That’s funny Rosa and profitable!

[rosarugosa]

I think the used Fitbit purchase turned out to be a good move. I had pretty much decided to buy it for the $40 asking price, but since I had placed it on my watch list, I got an e-mail from eBay that the seller was offering it to me for $37. so even a bit better. I have since received it and it is in great condition and it came with 2 clips, which is great because I always end up buying at least one replacement clip. So bottom line is that I got for $37. what would have cost me $140 new, since replacement clips are $20). It's a simple Inspire model because I just want to track steps. For what it's worth, I've gotten at least 10,000 steps per day since 9/30/18 - haven't missed a day. It seems I can be as effective at building good habits as I was at building bad habits.

[Yppej]

I walked to the drugstore instead of driving. It was over an hour round trip but it was a nice day to be out and about and I saved a little on gas.

(I put my mask on when I approached others but only one other person reciprocated. The mask mandate is a stupid imposition on law abiding citizens that doesn't do any good because even if masks serve a purpose they are widely ignored.)