selling stuff still sucks...but freecycling is fantastic

So I'm really way too tired to post tonight---this should be interesting.

But I did want to relate my views on the difference between selling stuff and freecycling:

Selling stuff:

Process:

• Wait foreeeeeeeeeever to get the tiniest bit of interest.
• Carefully coax slightly interested prospective customer, wooing them with attentive emails, flashy photos and flexible pick up times, or even offers to drop off the item.
• Exchange multiple phone calls and emails about why the item is so perfect and how you are available for them to pick it up

Outcome: About 10% of the time, they buy something and you get good money for getting rid of something you don't need. The other 90% they don't show up, give up on you, never get back to you and you are stuck with the item, which you eventually freecycle.

Freecycling:

Process:

• Post a quick two-line email about something giving the minimum of details and emphasizing the need for you to get rid of it as quickly & conveniently as possible.
• Sit back and wait for the dozens of responses to pour in, each one more polite than the last.
  
• Sift through sob story after obsequious sob story and pick out the one that either makes you feel most warm & fuzzy or the one that seems most likely to pick up the item within the required time frame.
• Feel a warm glow of benevolence as the person arrives, usually promptly, and gratefully picks up said item.

Outcome:

• Hope that the warm glow of benevolence compensates for the fact that you didn't actually earn any money. But hey, at least the item isn't in the landfill or clogging up your storage space!
  

a few good things....

Life really hasn't been just one big ball of stress lately. I have in fact had a number of positive things happen, many of which have been a pleasant surprise, including:

• we got two offers on our house within 7 days....even our agent was surprised by this--apparently all our decluttering worked.
• Our older daughter has generally been coping much better than we expected with all the changes in our lives.
• We've found all the necessary paperwork for the house! something I certainly wouldn't have expected to be so easy given the state of said house a few months ago!
  
• I finish work in two days...not a surprise, but definitely a good thing. I've had to restrain myself from skipping through the hallways singing lately, which I suspect would not be appreciated.
• Other than a nasty cold that mainly hit my wife (sorry honey!) we've generally managed to keep sane, stress free, sickness free and even actually had a lot of fun.
• We've sold most of our big items! (with the notable exception of Pinkie Beauty, our beautiful spring horse, perfection in plastic horse form, only $50).
  

selling stuff sucks

Now I remember why we usually can't be bothered to do this, beyond a garage sale or two over the years.....

First you have to locate the item. Then you have to clean/repair the item (granted that my lovely wife usually takes care of these first two if I whine enough).

Then you have to decide how much to charge for the item....somewhere between 'I love this and others should appreciate it's unique beauty too' and 'hahaahahaha oh well at least it sold and we didn't just give it away.'

You know what else sucks about selling stuff ? Going back & forth, back & forth, back & forth with people over email and phone about how great said item is, how convenient it is for them to pick it up, how you have the perfect price, how big it is, how much it weighs, its shoe size, where you live....and then they never show up at the stated time and just disappear, entering the twilight zone of used item sales....never, ever to be seen or heard from again...

And yet when you are downsizing in the rather extreme way that we are at present, it's hard to get around selling stuff, sucky though it may be. I mean it makes a lot more sense to sell certain big ticket items than to try to store them in our limited basement space for an indefinite amount of time...and definitely makes a lot more sense than paying to store them somewhere else...

Some of the items we have managed to sell in the past few weeks:

• our rooftop car box thingy (we haven't used it since we got a bigger car 1.5 years ago).
• our espresso machine (we figure we don't have enough counter space and will be living closer to fancy coffee shops).
• Our lovely sit & stand stroller to some friends who just had a beautiful baby girl, baby #3, a few days ago. Time for Annie to walk more--at age 5.5, I think she's ready so long as we can handle the whining.
  
• Our big brown bunk beds...they will not likely fit in the girls new tiny (6' by 10') bedroom and will be replaced by, wait for it, something smaller from IKEA!
• This old, slightly odd looking wooden hutch from Beth's grandma's house. She was most decidedly NOT sentimentally attached to it (whew! I could learn from this example).
  

Some of the items we might, with any luck, be selling in the next couple of days:

• our leather couch. Lovely, but we also have a pull out couch and we need things with more than one purpose.
• Our Double Chariot Cougar Stroller. Weirdly we are having a lot of trouble offloading what is usually a hot item in Ottawa.
  

Some of the items we seem destined never to sell and might as well give up on at this point:

• our beautiful Radio Flyer Liberty Spring Horse. Perfection in plastic horse form. And yet nary a nibble...
• Our IKEA Robin bed. Maybe everyone else has read that they don't make it anymore due to pokey corners "(http://forum.canadianparents.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=198432) hmmm. maybe that's why we can't sell it.
• Our ibert front mount bike seat...perfect for carrying your toddler in front while your big kid rides on her trail-a-bike in back. If you're a toddler, imagine this: sun in your face, wind in your hair, waving and laughing at passersby, and for added enjoyment periodically leaning over to mess with your parent's gears/brakes/bell. hmmm.
  
• Our change table/dresser.
• A lovely Fisher Price pack n' play

(As you may sense from some of the above mentioned items, we have rather firmly decided that our family is complete, no more cute little Clarke-Ward babies will be coming our way. And yes, in our case, that is a rather definitive decision....for obvious reasons).

Some of the items we probably should sell but haven't brought ourselves to part with yet:

• The girls' massive 3 storey dollhouse
• Our Queen size bed & mattress.....mmmm such a nice mattress. And that nice basket-weaving IKEA bed. (IKEA should start sponsoring this blog).

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So now it's Sunday morning, and we have officially sold the couch, bringing to about $1000 the amount we have made selling stuff so far. Not too shabby and will definitely help pay for the move.

Except this time I think we may have gone too far. I am now experiencing a serious case of seller's remorse. What were we thinking!???!!!! That was our nice leather couch. The one that looked like it belonged in a grown-up's living room, not in a grad school apartment. The one that did not get dirty, no matter how many times it was peed on, spilled on etc. The one that never showed the cat hair from our WHITE cat. The one that was comfy and cozy. The one that I guess was really too big and anyway had a tear in it and really it is JUST a couch and we can always replace it some day and really it is just a thing, just an object, let it go, let it go, let it go....

Anxiety & insomnia can really be funny sometimes. No really. Not usually in the moment, but in the harsh light of reality that follows. As in, what the hell, I woke up early worrying because we sold a couch? Don't I have more important things to think about and worry about? Like hoping someone will buy our house?

There now, I feel better already. Maybe I'd better watch another therapeutic 15 minutes of hoarders. (and buy a new cover for our remaining IKEA couch?? That would probably help too, though it sort of goes against the whole point of this blog!)

Hmmm that gives me an idea for another post: how a green living, simple living, slightly broke Quaker girl like me still finds shopping strangely therapeutic at times. yikes!