Garage sales and Trademe

We've made one giant leap forward today. 

We had a garage sale!  We've had them before, but never quite as successful as this one.  We only made $350 - let's not talk or think about what the 'stuff' cost us in the first place - but even the cash is far out-weighed by the relief of getting rid of most of it.  We had planned to have two garage sales - the second is no longer necessary.  Most of the 'stuff' had been carted from one house to the next over the last several years, and most of it had been useful at one time or another, but it no longer fitted with our plans for the future - not that we can be certain about those for more than about six months!  All the unsold items will fit in the boot of the car and go to the City Mission, or similar, and some will simply be thrown out.  While all of this stuff has passed its 'use by' date for us, it's been great to know that for some people it will become new treasure - or at least useful.

Nigel's had great success on Trademe too and much of our furniture has gone for more than we had thought possible, especially where little bidding wars have erupted. Prices for second hand goods in Christchurch had been low, but with many workers coming into Christchurch for the rebuild there seem to be a lot of people setting up fully self-contained houses and flats as rentals and this seems to have pushed prices up again.

Our biggest concern at the moment is our cars.  We haven't had any interest in them so far, which must mean our prices are too high, but they seem to compare favourably with other cars listed, so we're a bit confused .... and concerned.  I even tried listing them in the Buy, Sell, Exchange paper, but have received no calls from there either.  Darn it.

In only two weeks time we will have packed up the hire truck, driven to Nelson, and off-loaded all the belongings we are keeping into half a twenty-foot storage container - just a third, and maybe a quarter, of the space we would have required had we instead kept all the 'stuff' we've sold and are selling.  The rest of our belongings will be in our packs, on our backs.

Cripes!  :-)

Should I mention some of the drawbacks?  Well, Izzie's sleeping on the couch because we sold her bed, and the spare bed.  And she had to clear out her chest of drawers last night so we could put it in the garage sale.  Tomorrow the dining suite goes to a new home, so we'll be eating ... somewhere. We'll work it out.  The big flat-screen telly's on a (strong) cardboard box because the entertainment unit's been sold.  The lounge suite goes next weekend, so Izzie then sleeps on .... ummmmm..... Luckily, a friend's buying the whitewear to set up a rental, so we can keep that until the last minute .... about the same time that we move into her house for our last three weeks in Christchurch!