Penny Saver Central and the Penny Pinchers

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marsha32  —  Kimbesa
Clipart Courtesy of OCAL on Clkr.com

Just because you have heard it a dozen times before doesn't mean it's a worn-out or dated idea. There are still some great penny-pincher bargains to be had from the more commonly talked about penny-pinching shopping sites. Yes, it is still a shopping site even if it's in someone's yard or garage! Oh, and don't be embarrassed to let your friends (even the boutique-shopper ones) know where you got your penny-pinching bargain. Remember, if you bought it at a yard sale or a thrift shop, you just saved some item from ending up in a landfill. You are the one helping to save our planet with your penny pincher habits! Let's get going. Here is a list of those shopping sites that are most familiar to those who want to pinch a penny here and pinch a penny there.

• Yard Sales (aka Tag Sales, Garage Sales, Rummage Sales, Boot Sales, Jumble Sales)
• Moving Sales (definitely not the "average" Yard Sale)
• Estate Sales
• Flea Markets
• Thrift Shops

Quick Tips:

• Shop yard sales for smaller ticket items, such as paper products and small appliances
• Shop moving sales for higher-ticket items, such as furniture and larger appliances
• Shop estate sales for collectibles, antiques, and other higher-end items
• Shop flea markets and thrift stores for intermediate items such as books, candles and decorative items

Notes:

• Yard sales will usually have the lowest prices you can hope to find when they have what you need. Be aware, however, that some sellers have no idea of the value of their items and will sometimes price them much higher than the actual value—especially if the seller is savvy enough to think you might think something is an antique or highly prized collectible. Be cautious!
• Moving sales can be a great place to buy higher-priced items because most of them are held by people who really have to get rid of "stuff" so they don't have to transport it to another location. This can be very good for you.
• Estate sales are almost always held by professional estate sale handlers. Usually, they receive a very high commission on the sales they make so their motivation is very different from someone holding a garage sale, and this may deeply affect the pricing.
• Flea markets have a mixed breed of sellers. Some will offer previously owned items and mark them up only slightly. Others will hope that you do not know the true value of their items or that you can be fooled into thinking something is an "antique" just because they choose to label it as such. Still others will offer brand-new merchandise and expect to receive high prices for the products. The products being offered are often cheap imports that are priced way too high. Again, be mindful of the value received for your dollars spent!
• Thrift shops are often run to benefit specific charities. For example, the Salvation Army has hundreds of thrift shops scattered across the United States (and possibly other countries). Proceeds from their sales support the network and help thousands of people. So, when you are spending your dollars in these charity-focused thrift shops, you are contributing to the "greater good" of humanity.

Photo Courtesy of Rubbermaid Products on Flickr.com

A dedicated penny pincher needs a little organization to maximize savings!

• Keep a small memo pad, shopping list or notebook handy to record the smaller items you need, but not right now. This might include such things as: pencils and pens, notebook paper, wrapping paper, cooking utensils, scrapbooks and photo albums or frames. These are often found in yard sales for only a few cents! (See my success stories below)


• Keep a separate list of larger items you need. Some of the items on this list might be: end tables, lamps, area rugs, linens, small household appliances, decorative items.


• A third shopping list should be reserved for higher ticket items, such as furniture, lawn equipment, power tools, and so forth. Note: When shopping for these items, make sure you have a vehicle that can carry them. You don't want to ask the seller to hold something for you, use expensive gas to go home to exchange vehicles, and return to find that the item has already been sold!

Hint: A small notebook with dividers will make this easier to to keep up with all three lists.

Photo Courtesy of morgueFile

Penny pinchers who intend to succeed also plan how to succeed! Although specifically geared to garage sales, most of these guidelines also apply to the other common penny-pinching shopping sites.

Remember to include retail shopping sites when possible to save both time and gas. For example, in the map shown here, point A (green dot) is my home. (Green arrows mark the outgoing trip; blue arrows mark the return home.)

On the major street that begins my shopping trip, there is a Dollar General store located prior to my first marked stop and after the last one. I would shop all my yard sales, moving sales, and so forth first. Then, if I did not find everything on my lists, I would stop at the Dollar General before turning back onto my street.

• Locate yard sales, moving sales, and estate sales using the online classifieds in your local newspaper if possible. Then use Google maps (or another mapping program of your choice) to plan out a fuel-efficient route to the sites you want to visit. Remember that you are not a true penny pincher if you use $20 worth of gas and end up saving 5 bucks on the items you actually buy. (It is also not good for the environment and will defeat your best penny pinching intentions.)


• Be sure to check the dates of the sales you want to visit. You will be very disappointed to arrive on Friday at an address with a particularly appealing list of goods for sale and discover that it is a Saturday-only sale. This also applies to flea markets and thrift shops as many of them are open on the weekends, but closed during certain other days of the week. For example, one of my favorite flea markets is about 12 miles from my home and is closed on Mondays so I would never include it on a Monday-shopping trip.


• Make sure your shopping list is in your handbag or glove compartment. As that famous slogan says: Don't leave home without it!


• When shopping cash-and-carry sites like garage sales, always take cash with you. Most sellers in these venues will insist on cash anyway so do yourself a favor and take only the amount you can actually afford to spend. Setting a limit on what you will spend and paying for purchases in cash will make you a better "pinch a penny"" shopper because you are always aware of how much you have left to spend. Cross items off your list as you accumulate them and STOP SHOPPING when you have spent the cash you brought with you!


• Take one or more environmentally-friendly shopping bags and some bubble wrap or other packing material with you. Some of your best penny-pincher prizes will need to be protected as you continue shopping, and not all sellers (especially at yard sales) will have adequate packaging materials to protect your goodies.


• Ask a friend to join you for a fun-filled shopping excursion. It can be a great opportunity to improve relationships as you drive from point to point and then share your discoveries with one another, while "competing" to see who can cross the most items off their list without breaking the "cash only" rule. You save gas (and the environment) while building relationships!

Caution: Be smart about the cash you carry. If you bargain hunt for both low-cost and higher-end items in the same trip, take smaller denominations as well as larger ones and keep them separated. Always use the smaller bills or change to pay for smaller items. You do not want to advertise the fact that you may be carrying a lot of money with you - especially when these desperate times may lead otherwise good people to desperate measures!

Photo ©guardianstar77, 2011. All rights reserved.

I will be sharing many more penny-pincher success stories with you over time, but today I am sharing two of my favorite ones!

The Teacher's Yard Sale
Several years ago, I happened to pass by a sign for a yard sale. It was only a block or two away from where I was, and I was in no hurry so I decided to drop in just for the fun of it. (Did I mention that this penny-pincher LOVES yard sales?)

I was blown away. The sale was by a lady who had just retired from teaching elementary school after almost 30 years. Most of us are aware that teachers quite often have to buy their own supplies for their classrooms. In addition, this teacher had bought small gifts and toys, materials for arts and craft projects, seasonal and holiday decorations for her classroom, and a ton of other stuff. She had kept it clean and well-cared for throughout all the years of accumulation.

Being an arts and crafts nut case as well as the (at that time) primary provider of school supplies for one of my grandchildren, I quickly counted the amount of cash I had. Then I began shopping. I bought all kinds of delightful (and in perfect condition) decorations and art and crafts supplies. I also bought a ton of pencils, notebooks, and children's books. For less than $40, I walked away with approximately $400 worth of products. I'd say that was a very successful "pinch a penny" shopping day indeed!

Photo Courtesy of PhotoRack

The Bottom of the Basket

One lazy day, I decided to hit a few sales in my close neighborhood...just for the fun of it! At the intersection of two streets, I saw a hand-written sign advertising an "estate sale". It was not a professional estate-sales sign so I didn't know what to expect. As I approached the address, I was thinking "uh, oh" because it was obvious the house was very old and the owners had not been affluent. Still, I was there so why not just browse around for a bit?

Everything was old, worn out, and very dirty. I had started to leave when I happened to see a very large basket off to the side and mostly up under an old, rickety table. I could see that it held a bunch of smaller items, all wrapped in faded newspaper. Curious, I lifted the item on the top, only to discover it was a chipped and cheap coffee mug. Without knowing why, I lifted the next item and found it to be a very pretty little blue-green vase (which I still own) that would go well with my home décor.

There was no price on the basket so I asked the seller for the price, which he quoted as one dollar. Being very mindful of pinching pennies, I simply said: "Would you take 50 cents?" He did, and I walked away with my pretty little green vase for all of 50 cents.

At home, I proudly cleaned up my dirty little blue-green vase and put it on display. Then, I went back to see what else might be in the basket.

There was a lot of broken junk that went immediately into the trash. There was also a tiny little cobalt blue vase (about 4 inches high) that was in perfect condition. And, at the bottom of the basket were 20 frosted beverage glasses, each about 10 inches high. They were the type with a handle and heavy pedestal feet. They were all in perfect condition.

I didn't need either the tiny little vase or the beverage glasses. However, that was back when a non-professional-seller could actually make a little money selling on eBay. I had an account, so I listed the vase and four of the glasses. I had decided to sell the glasses in sets of four because they were very heavy and shipping costs would be high.

The little cobalt-blue vase sold for $26 to an individual who had a "thing" for cobalt-blue.

The first set of 4 glasses was bought by a gentleman from England who was more than happy to pay the very high shipping cost to get them. The final bid was $60, making the cost per glass $15. The buyer must have had a sixth sense about them because after receiving them and verifying the quality, he contacted me directly to see if I might have any others. Long story short, I sold him the other 16. I don't remember exactly, but I think the final price we agreed to was $12.50 per glass. The gentleman in question had just built a new house with a full bar, and the frosted mugs were exactly what he was looking for!

So, I got the sweet little blue-green vase to keep for myself. And, from what I found at the bottom of the basket, I made almost $300. This penny-pincher spent her 50 cents very well indeed!

Okay, I have shared a couple of my favorite success stories, so it's time to share a story that hopefully will serve as a good lesson learned at my expense for those beginning penny pinchers who also sometimes buy for resale.

Ever heard of Raku Pottery? Well, I hadn't when this story begins—on a Saturday, with another spur-of-the-moment tour of yard sales in my neighborhood.

A few streets over from me, I found a sale being held by a woman who was moving out of state and was trying to unload everything she could to avoid the expense of moving it. I have an eye for the unique, and I spotted two vases that were unlike any I had ever seen before. I asked the lady what they were, and she told me they were Raku vases. Expressing my total ignorance, I asked her what exactly that was. She gave me the highlights, and I was very impressed.

The smallest of the Raku vases I don't even remember. The other I have a very nice image of in my head. Regrettably, I have long since deleted the image of the actual one that is featured in my "near miss" story. The picture at the top (courtesy of Tobbyotter on Flickr) shows three Raku vases so you can get some idea of how unique Raku pottery truly is.

Well, I knew they were different (although Raku is fairly common now, I think) so I noted the price of each ($10) and kept shopping around. After several minutes, I approached her and asked for a lower price. She didn't budge much, so we repeated this routine for probably an hour or more. She knew I wanted them, and I knew she didn't want to ship them. It was a stand-off. Finally, she offered them to me for $5 each. I countered with, "How about I give you $5 for both of them." Poor thing—she was exhausted and desperate to get rid of stuff. She agreed. I couldn't believe it! I had just purchased those unique and beautiful vases for $2.50 each.

This is a long story, but you have to understand the nature of my prized vase, the biggest one. It was fully 18 inches tall, with the vase itself being about 13 inches. It had the most unique lid I have ever seen. It was so very intricate and detailed. And, tall. It added easily another 5 inches to the overall piece. And, guess what, both pieces were extremely heavy.

Without giving it much thought, I came home, dusted them off, took pictures and immediately posted them to eBay, stating the shipping as some small amount rather than actual shipping cost. Big beginner mistake!

I was over the top with joy when my prized vase sold for $64! Then, of course, began the task of actually shipping it. I'm not the brightest candle in the church, but it didn't take me long to realize what a fool I had been. Not only did the thing weigh a ton, but each piece had to be carefully bubble wrapped and separated from the other with layers of packing peanuts. The box itself was overall several inches taller and wider than the pieces themselves so I could use enough packing peanuts to keep them from being damaged in shipment. Long story short, it cost me $58 to mail that thing! I learned in a hurry to always think about the packing that would be required for shipment if I wanted to resell anything I bought.

An early lesson, never forgotten.

PS - Hindsight being 20/20, I should never have sold that vase at all. In the intervening 10 or 12 years, I have never seen another like it (especially the lid), not even in the finest stores that sell Raku pottery or online. Some "penny pincher deals" should just be kept as heirlooms, shouldn't they?

Penny Saver Central and the Penny Pinchers is dedicated to helping you turn your pennies into dollars in the best way possible and helping you learn to pinch a penny until it screams. With this introductory article, I hope you have found information that will help you immediately as well as driving you to a higher level of commitment to become the best possible penny pincher that you can be. Especially in these times of economic uncertainty, all of us need to learn how to maximize every dollar we spend. With a little bit of effort and planning, each of us can get better at penny pinching pennies and increase our wealth -- even if it is just a few dollars here and there.

We, the penny pinchers, will also help save our planet as we recycle, re-use and re-purpose goods that otherwise might just end up in a landfill.

Bookmark this site and come back often to discover new information and ideas for making the most of your hard-earned money!

Coming Soon! Lesser Known Shopping Sites for Dedicated Penny Pinchers!

Photo Courtesy of PhotoRack

I started Penny Saver Central as a means to further discipline myself and to help others learn about frugal living and becoming good penny pinchers. It is my way of sharing with the community what I have already learned and what I continue to learn that will help families deal with the downsizing of our economy. Our shopping habits can be modified to benefit our environment as we re-use, recycle and re-purpose existing products. And, in some instances, we can contribute to the charities that are engaged in helping those who need our help! We, the dedicated penny pinchers, can make a difference in the world as well as in our individual lives.

Besides being a dedicated penny pincher, I use my graphic design talents to supplement my family's income. I would be honored to have you visit my Zazzle Gallery where you will find many of my abstract art designs in the Altered Art, Kaleidoscopes and USPS Stamps categories.

guardianstar77 is a writer, graphics design artist, nature enthusiast and lover of everything that resembles a horse. She lives in Central Arkansas and shares her life with a husband of almost 40 years, 2 sons, and 4 fabulous grandchildren. guardianstar77 is not domesticated, finding that spending time doing almost anything else beats doing housework. Her passions include recycling, frugal living, feeding the hungry, old-fashioned vintage everything, nature, reading, writing, flea markets and yard sales, Christmas, mystical creatures, carousels, and artwork filled with glorious earthy colors or nature's warm, soothing colors of green and blue.

guardianstar77 is a devout Christian, a staunch conservative, a passionate American, and a defender of capitalism. Although she is, by her own definition, somewhat of a "professional hermit crab" , guardianstar77 is deeply loyal to her family and those she chooses to have as friends. When not pursuing writing and artistic goals, she spends her time deepening those relationships.

guardianstar77 is a long-standing member of Squidoo, and she shares her royalties with many Squidoo charities. View all my lenses!