Saturday, February 16, 2013

Our First Storage Auctions Attended & Unit Won in 2013

We got lost Thursday looking for the storage auctions and only caught tail end. Friday we went to a bunch of them. I believe in all we saw 33 units (actually about 29 some got paid up and were taken off list). Many were dud units, one when opened was actually EMPTY! Some only had 1 box that looked like stuff people just didn't feel like throwing away.
This made me think about something though - if you ever rent a storage unit - when you leave make sure you take EVERYTHING don't leave junk behind because you might have something with info on it like SS # or something and even though people are SUPPOSED to return things like that to the office after they win a unit, who is to say that everyone does? What you think will go into a dumpster might just get auctioned off..... That's what it got me thinking about .

Then a bunch we knew people were just bidding us up so we didn't play the game. Figured okay you want it for that much go ahead and try to make money on it LOL.
Second half of day I stayed home and John went by himself. He almost had a real good one but we had given ourselves a budget and only brought that much cash with him (thats how you keep within your budget no matter what lol). This time we were wishing we had brought an extra hundred on top of budget - like a just in case their is an awesome one kinda spare money but oh well.

At the last facility he did wind up winning a unit. Paid about $50 more than he was wanting to (but still well within budget). So now after taxes and all we have $351.00 invested in this unit. Unfortunately it was seriously missing that WOW factor ha ha ha.
We did some math though and it will probably take the vintage poker table (after we refurbish top which is not hard), and the leather chair & ottoman plus maybe the Hammock we found to break even. Then we will make a little profit from a couple telescopes, some bric & brac, and some plush for Halloween and Motorcycle/Biker plush Teddy Bears etc. So we MIGHT be able to at least double on this one, but we were not overly thrilled with it. They can't all be amazing though! Hopefully next time.

Other things we found in the unit: Books that were just too dirty to be anything but garbage, a ton of Christmas decorations most just dollar store or homemade and not good homemade, an entertainment center (we can resell that probably for 50.00), a long wood table but its missing its glass pieces, not sure what we will do with that yet. Some electric tools we have to test still also were in there. We have a small pile of old Christmas cards, some paperwork etc. with personal info we are going to hand into the office their on Monday so they can return to the previous owners.

Oh I almost forgot there was this neat little chair in there. It is a folding chair and is obviously vintage. We just took some quick photos of it. It has a metal tag/plate that has two little nails/tacs to hold it onto back of the chair but the writing is oriental so we need to figure it out still. It looks like a child size chair. The blue flip flop is there to show size its a womans size 6 or 7 shoe. The other picture has my husbands large McDonalds drink.



 
 
 I like the chair, but not sure if it has any value. As of right now all we know is it is cute and in good shape other than needing a little cleaning/dusting and some of the screws/nails are a little rusted on the heads from age.


Sometimes you find things in units that just don't go together. This unit was one of those kind of units. There was a glass pipe in there wrapped in a towel (certainly some type of drug paraphernalia) and also in the unit was a bunch of Jehovah Witness materials, books etc. These two things just didn't seem to be a combo that made sense to me. Certainly not the strangest combo we have found, but one to make you go hmmmm and scratch your head a little.

Well now time to turn this unit around and see if we can manage to at least double the money. Looking forward to the next auctions and hopefully will have lots of wonderful finds to write about.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Winners Of Our First Blog Contest - Better Late Than Never

Sorry to be a little late on this but we have just barely been able to keep up with our eBay shipments as we have been battling this evil cold/flu thing that has not only hit our house once now but came back and knocked me and my daughter on our butts AGAIN for almost a week now. The men of the house have been lucky and this time around our son only had a runny nose and hubby managed to not get sick at all. NO FAIR!

Well as fun as it is chatting about being under the weather I am sure that is not what everyone is really interested in. I am sure there are two people out there who are curious about their PRIZES! We ran our first blog contest, but did not do that great of a job promoting it. That is okay we live & we learn. We only had TWO OFFICIAL ENTRIES so there are two winners. With only two people being entered all we did was gave them the numbers 1 & 2 then for each of their entries wrote on pieces of paper, crumpled them up and put in a bowl. My son picked the Grand Prize winner out of the bowl........ and the Grand Prize winner is.........

The first person who entered and they actually had MANY entries due to they completed almost every option to enter the contest they possible could.

OUR GRAND PRIZE WINNER IS CORY BOUDREAU one of our Twitter followers.

Then because there was only two people entered there was no reason to pick any more out of the bowl by default the only other entrant would obviously win 2cnd place.

OUR SECOND PLACE WINNER IS: User: Vanwyckkelsie (that is the info from email address I am not going to enter the entire email here due to spam/junk mail issues I don't want her/him to have email plastered in the middle of a blog post).

I am getting ready to send them their WINNING EMAILS and they can claim their prizes and receive within 24 hours of claiming.

Thanks for entering. We hope next time around others will now see that YOU REALLY CAN WIN BLOG CONTESTS. Actually I personally love blog contests because I feel my odds of winning are a lot better than lotto, or other raffles with big companies.

Thanks again... and keep an eye out NEW CONSTEST COMING VERY SOON!!!!!

Below is the list for the winners to choose their prize from 

GRAND PRIZE: 

The Grand Prize WINNER gets to choose from this prize list below - The Grand Prize options 1 & 2 are open to BOTH US and International Winners.

Grand Prize Option 1 - $15.00 (usd) eBay Gift Card

Grand Prize Option 2 - $10.00 Cash Via PayPal

Grand Prize Option 3 - (For U.S. Residents Only) - Surprise Basket Of Goodies (Value Minimum of $20.00 usd)

 

SECOND RUNNER UP PRIZE LIST : 

Second Place Runner Up gets to choose from this Prize List - 1st and 2cnd options available to both U.S. and International Winners.

2cnd Prize Option 1 - $10.00 (usd)eBay Gift Card

2cnd Prize Option 2 - $7.00 Cash Via PayPal

2cnd Prize Option 3 - Small Surprise Package Of Goodies (Value a Minimum of $10.00 usd).

Friday, February 1, 2013

We Will Be Doing Drawing For Our Blog Contest 2/2/13

There was not too many entries for the blog contest for January. I did not do a very good job promoting the contest actually. Next time around I will do better I am sure.... Anyways with a handful of entries I am just going to put the entries into a hat (each person still gets the amount of entries they earned) mix them all up and draw one out for Grand Prize then so on.... So be sure to check back tomorrow and see who the big winners are.