We finally sold our futon, for $80. I'm glad we listed it at $100 as it was probably inevitable that we'd get bargained down. $75 was my initial thought, so we did all right. 
We also took six big bags of books to a used-book store and a bag of CDs to a used-CD store. We made $118 on over half the books and $45 on all the CDs. Then we took the remaining books to another store down the street. They took a handful for another $18. We brought the rest back, about two big bags full, and tagged them for the garage sale.
So all told, we made $261 to put toward our fall trip to the East Coast. By my calculations we only have to make about $250 more; the rest will come from regular scheduled deposits into savings. I think we'll easily make that much at the garage sale, and anything else will go toward home improvement. We're rearranging some of our rooms and hope to get some cheap bookcases and other pieces at Ikea with the profits.
Some more people are watching my eBay sales: yes, despite all your admonitions to try and stop obsessing, I keep checking them a few times a day. Sorry! But so far no more bids.
We did make a few more book sales on half.com, including one for $8.99! I don't total those till the direct deposits come through, because with shipping and reimbursement, commission and Paypal fees, it's too confusing. But I think we've got about another $25 coming to us from there, and 25 books still listed that I hope will pull in some money.
Oh, and someone commented on our last post suggesting we check the battery on our smoke alarm. Well, the handyman came and tested our wired smoke alarm and found it worked fine. Then he noticed our battery-powered one down the hall, which we hadn't checked, and indeed all the beeping had been because of its low battery. We don't know how much the bill will be for wasting the handyman's time, but it will probably be $35. We feel like quite the fools.
Pre-garage sale profits
August 10th, 2008 at 05:39 pm
August 10th, 2008 at 10:03 pm 1218402217
We weren't even cooking... there was nothing smoking, but he still thought it was ours, lol. It wasn't until we opened the door and saw the lights flashing outside that we figured it out!
August 11th, 2008 at 01:07 am 1218413237
Wow, great profits on your efforts to clear things out! I lost my momentum to declutter and am still driving around with a bin in my minivan back for kids consignment.
What's the day of the big sale?
August 11th, 2008 at 03:26 am 1218421612
August 11th, 2008 at 05:06 am 1218427612