Auction Update
Still at 36 active auctions. Of those, 24 listings will sell (the others so far don’t have an opening bid). There have been a total of 61 bids placed and if everything were to sell this minute, my sales would total $288.08. The first auction ends in 1 day, 14 minutes, 26 seconds.

I’m hoping to get some more listings ready tomorrow but I don’t know if I’ll start them until Tuesday. My impression is that Monday’s not a good day to end an auction. I do want to keep some auctions running at all times until I’m done selling the mountain of clothing I have to sell or until I get totally burned out. Some last-minute bidding wars on my current auctions would certainly provide some incentive and inspriation.

Auction Update
Now I’m up to 36 active auctions. As of right now, 23 will sell. There have been 52 bids placed and if everything were to end right this minute, my total sales would be $252.28.

My boy’s suit lot (2-piece suit, 2 buttondown dress shirts, and a silk tie) has met the set reserve!

I’ve pretty much gotten myself back under control and check on my auction status no more than 100 times a day. Just kidding. I’m really trying to stop watching the kettle in hopes that it will soon come to a boil. The first auction ends in 2 days 12 hours 54 minutes.

I took a break from listing auctions because I believe that this type of product does better if the auctions close on a weekday, not too late at night. That’s just my theory; could be completely wrong. But it’s my theory and I’m sticking to it so I won’t list any more auctions for another day or two. Maybe a Sunday late-afternoon or early evening end time would be good. Hm, I wonder.

Refrigerator Update
It’s been nearly two weeks now since they delivered my new fridge. We love it! The Husband likes the ice maker (I told him he would). The Daughter likes the water dispenser. The Son — I don’t know what he likes, he doesn’t like much of anything or anyone these day.

I love it. I love the double wide refrigerator doors. I love the shelf in the door that will hold a gallon of milk. I love the fruit and veggie drawers. I love the wide deli drawer with a divider that let’s me separate the meat from the cheese and makes everything so accessible and visible.

We’re still learning how to stock the non-milk holding door shelves so that the bottles don’t rattle against each other when we open and close the doors. The Husband has three stray bottles of beer, leftover from our last family gathering, and they rattle against each other in the door. To put them on the shelves would require us to move a shelf up or down and commit a large portion of space to being tall enough to accommodate beer bottles — a true waste of resources, if you ask me.

I like the bottom freezer drawer, too, though it bothered me at first that drips and ice shavings dropped down onto the kitchen floor through the wire basket. Now that the fridge has reached it’s ideal temperature, though, and we’re over the novelty of opening doors and drawers and the contents of the freezer has stabilized, I’ve found that the amount of drips and drops has dropped to almost nil.

Auction Update
I’m up to 30 current auction listings on eBay. There have been 28 bids placed on 16 items. Two items are tied for the most number of watchers: 11 each. It’s very hard to keep from refreshing my summary page every few minutes to check for new bids.

I’ve got photos for several more auctions that I hope to list tomorrow. I’m only about 1/10th of the way through all of the clothing that I’d like to get listed. I’m not sure how realistic my goal is to get it all done in one big wave of auctions. I do know, however, that I don’t want to keep any more boxes of clothing stored in my basement. If I don’t get it listed, it goes to consignment or to the DAV or ARC. Same with the stuff that gets listed but doesn’t sell. I will declutter my basement if it’s the last thing I do.

I’ve been wondering if maybe my Daily Dollar Diary shouldn’t also income. What do you think?

The reason I’ve come to ponder the issue is that I’ve actually had a few dollars float my way in the past few weeks. I’ve finally gotten off my duff and listed a few things on Craigslist. I’ve even broken my more-than-a-year boycott of eBay and started listing some of The Son’s outgrown clothes.

Today I sold a pair of wooden play stands for $125 but I’m passing all of that money on to my mother who’s the one who gave us the stands for our children about 14 years ago. I figured, given her terminal state of desperate overspending and depressing debt, that she should have any cash that that particular sale brought in.

Last week I sold The Son’s old 1/2 size cello. We took a huge loss on that one but did recoup $325 in cash. And I sold The Daughter’s no-longer-played full-size violin and the brand new case she only used 1/2 dozen times before giving up her violin “career.” Again, an overall loss if you added up what we’d paid in rental fees and the case we purchased new, but still we recouped $400.

And a few weeks ago I sold the old glider rocker in which I’d spent so many hundreds of hours sitting and rocking and nursing those two little monsters. I think I got about $150 for that.

I still have an old carpet steam cleaner and a tow-hitch mounted bike rack to list on Craigslist as soon as I get a chance. I need to concentrate on the clothing listings on eBay first.

I’ve been thinking about holding a garage sale for years but for me the cons by far outweigh the pros. Garage sales are a ton of work and require the sale-holder to be organized and have a place in which they can store all of the to-be-sold stuff during preparation. These space and organization requirements are way beyond me.

As it is, the discipline to put together a batch of clothing auctions within the space of a week (my goal) is taxing my time, energy, and organization skills almost beyond capacity.