Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Found a TRX Tactical Force Kit last night at the swap meet for $10. Some of the webbing is discolored but otherwise works as it should. I still have my poor-mans version which I like very much so this one goes to craigslist.



$959.43 - $10 = $949.43

jacob wrote:http://earlyretirementextreme.com/i-was-me.html

Found seed stock for my laundry room magazine library experiment in the recycle bin today.



Also found two backpack style beach chairs in the trash.

Oooo, the chairs!

No dumpsters to dive into where I live. I won't quite say darn it, but something like that.

Found a pair of Redington fly fishing waders (retail $300) today at the swap meet for $10. To craigslist.


$949.43 - $10 = $939.43

In addition to a slew of peonies, I found an extremely dirty $1 bill while clearing brush/vines and picking up litter. I wish I could upload a picture. I'm not sure if anybody will still accept it as legal tender unless I give it a wash. One good thing about being an urban gardener in a realm of verdant growth such as Michigan, is that all my neighbors have leaves, grass clippings, food scraps and wood they want to have hauled away. So, I have free materials to build endless hugel-kulture and lasagne/sheet-mulching beds if I am patient enough to sit through compost-cycles. I am a bit too ants-in-my-pants for doing that (since it might require my plan to expand to more like another 10 years rather than 6) , so I will buy one truckload of processed organic compost this spring.

Junk: Digging Through America's Love Affair With Stuff
http://www.npr.org/2016/04/02/472784727 ... enerations

Our stuff from a generational perspective. In book form. Which is hilarious.

Today I found another pile of magazines. If I encourage the tenants to leave them in the laundry, the room will quickly become overwhelmed. I decided to drop the magazines at one of the Little Free Libraries in the neighborhood instead.

Irony.... someone had thrown the latest issue of National Geographic in the trash, not the recycle bin. The cover story is titled, Too Good To Waste, about food waste.

I'm guessing there are no takers in the laundry room? Only givers?

The little free library (or similar) is where I got the original idea. I think I should be brave enough to challenge possibly non-existent zoning ordinances and establish one on the front lawn. Our street is a main thru-way for the pool in the community park on the corner of our block during summer time. Lots of people.

jacob wrote:I'm guessing there are no takers in the laundry room? Only givers?

I didn't start because there really isn't enough room. Each of the three laundries are just big enough for two machines and a trash can. I thought about getting a wall mounted magazine rack at the swap meet, but even that would get in the way.

May I jump in the log?

The lecture hall across from my office was renovated a few months ago and the workers kicked out the old benches. Me and a colleague grabbed three of them, stored them in the office and I sold two of them for 50 € each, while he kept one for the hallway.
And today I found a 5 € bill on the road on my way home, thanks to riding a bike to work. Car drivers would've never seen it.
2 x 50 + 5 = 105 €

Thanks for your posts, Ego, they're truly inspiring. The next flea market around here will be on Saturday and I'll be there.

Florian, absolutely!!! Thanks!

A few weeks ago I found a pair of damaged hiking boots at the swap meet with Mr. Twofingers. One of the hooked eyelets had pulled out so I ordered a set of six replacement hooks from ebay for $6.95 and installed one today. I had to slice the liner and remove the old broken eyelet before riveting the new one in place (well actually I smashing it with a hammer and a crowbar as a backing plate). So far so good. The boots are my size so I am going to wear them a few times to make sure the repair holds before selling them. The boots sell for $199 new. Vasque would have repaired them for $25 plus shipping both ways.

I always lust after high end hiking boots like that, but it seems like my most comfortable ones are just the military jungle boot (cloth uppers) type that I can get cheap at Goodwill, and I put in a good pair of insoles. I can go back packing on scree without them filling up with gravel. They don't even try to be waterproof but most waterproof boots are low enough that tops are under water anyway.

Today I found four down sleeping bags (REI, North Face) for $5 each and a bunch of other stuff. The batcave is filling.

That is a heck of a flea market.

It is! I found those while elbowing my way through a giant mound of bedding the size of a truck. I ran out of hands and had dump them under the watchful eye of a friend. By the time I dove back in, another woman saw that I was grabbing all of the sleeping bags so she snagged two others on the assumption that the gringo must know something. One of these days I'll have to take a video of the chaos.

BTW if anyone has used camping gear they want to get rid of, now is the time to sell on ebay.

I just got an email from Paypal telling me that 47% of my ebay sales were done on a mobile device. Time to redesign my listing template to be more mobile friendly.

http://for-business.ebay.com/how-optimi ... seven-tips

In other news, I ran out of storage bins for my inventory. Today at the swap meet I found ten of these fold-flat farmers market crates for $3 each. I'll have to keep the inventory in plastic bags because the batcave is dusty, but they seem like a good alternative to the traditional plastic bins. We shall see.


I've sold three of the four sleeping bags within 48 hours of purchasing them. Each sold for $120 or more.

Dang, I want some of those folding plastic crates! Wife wanted something in the car and I remembered they exist, but we haven't gone hunting them yet.

She had more than a hundred crates. I would share but I think the shipping costs would be prohibitive.

I saw this today and decided I am going to have to start checking out the Harbor Freight dumpster.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DumpsterDiving ... that_this/

I travel a lot for work. Mostly on flights. So far this year I've volunteered twice to be bumped from my flights home to later flights. For these two times, the voucher amounts were $490 and $515. I sold both of them quickly on Ebay. After paypal took their cut, and ebay takes their HUGE cut, I got about $700 out of them. Yeah buddy! I decided I would spend all of the money guilt-free on whatever I want. It has taken me a while because there aren't a lot of things I want, or I wasn't ready to buy them right off without research and so on. So far I've spent about half the money.