http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/boy...ld-on-the-street/story-e6frg12c-1225871869526 Chinese father chains his son to a pole on a busy street and tries to sell him. Focus: What is the weirdest thing that you have seen people try to sell? or Ever made out like a bandit on a sale? buy something for $50 and sell it for $500? Tell us about all your bargains.
When shopping for a new grill, go by Home Depot or Lowes and check out the already-assembled display grills that are set up in front of the stores. If you look closely, you'll notice that at least a couple of them have assorted defects: a missing knob, a dented cover, whatever. These are normally marked down significantly, usually at the discretion of the manager, and most of the abnormalities have no real effect whatsoever on the quality of the grill. About a year ago, I found a $300 gas grill at Home Depot that was missing a knob to the side burner (which I never really use) and the door to the tank compartment (who gives a shit if you can see the propane tank?). Other than that, the grill was completely fine. I talked the manager down to $150. I looked up online what a replacement knob would cost if I ever wanted to get one. I found the exact one I need for $4. They will also do this for other products in the store. When I was building my shed in my backyard, I bought a door that had a few small dents and scratches on the inside face, which you would never see unless you hung out inside my shed with a flashlight. I got them to come down from $130 to $80.
I buy and sell on eBay. 2 or 3 years ago, I was telling a friend that you can find pretty much anything on there. To prove it, I searched for used panties. I was blown away (and mildly disturbed) by the number of results. I bought a Nintendo DS Lite bundle about 2 years ago and it came with a shitty little case that was basically 2 pieces of covered cardboard that wrapped around the system. I had no use for that part of the bundle, so I listed it on eBay with a starting price of 99ยข. Someone in California, I think, ended up winning it and paying over $50.
I once talked a stripper into going into the V.I.P. room with me for $50 rather than $300. It was in Austin, TX at this great club called Baby.... Oh right, that wasn't me. Focus: One of my favorite things to do in Mexico is to barter with the locals. It's amazing how competitive the various street vendors are and if you play them against one-another you'll always walk away with a good deal. My biggest steal was when I was in the sixth grade and I traded two basketball cards (Karl Malone and Reggie Miller) to my buddy in exchange for a mint-condition Bobby Orr card during his brief stint with the Chicago Blackhawks. The total worth of the Miller and Malone cards was roughly $7. The worth of the Bobby Orr card three-years-ago when I sold it to a card collector in Dawson Creek was $150.
I bought a motocycle for $300.00. I had the bike tuned up,valves adjusted and carbs synced for $100. I then washed, waxed and generally just cleaned it up and adjusted everything. Two weeks later I sold it for $800. Yeah that does not happen often.
I bought a house with a buddy of mine in the middle of Phoenix in 2005 on an acre of land for 350k, I planned on living in it for a while and then subdividing it so I cleared the lot of a bunch of crap, redid the roof and the floors and was getting ready to move all while having the house listed. I got an offer for 750k and exactly 100 days after the purchase my buddy and I each got a check for 148k. 46,000 went to the IRS for taxes but I did not complain.
There was a sporting goods store in this little podunk town in Central MA that was going out of business. My father told me about it because they had tons of ammo they were selling dirt cheap. I went in and bought a literal trunk load of it. I could have armed a militia. While I browsed this dusty old store I came across a bunch of "vintage" mid-late 80's sneakers from Converse, Adidas, and Nike. The problem was that all of these shoes were way too small for me, mostly size 8,9, 10. I asked the guy what he wanted for the shoes figuring I could put them on Ebay. He took $50 for 13 pairs of shoes. I put these things on Ebay a little over 4 years ago and sold every pair to the same guy for between $175-$250 a pair. For shits and giggles I just looked up one particular pair of Converse and the fucking things are going for over $800. Damn. I'm always surprised by the number of people selling "scrap lumber" at yard sales or in front of their houses. Most of it is mixed and matched, already cut, etc. Who the fuck buys that shit?
Wow. The picture really does speak a thousand words. I'm actually quite happy to see the reaction that the people walking by had, which was to beat the ever-loving shit out of the "father".
Being an unemployed college student that plays tons of video games, I usually spend some time looking through specific forums looking for ways to save as much money as possible when buying games. You see, $50 and $60 for a game is an enormous outrage and I refuse to pay full price for a video game when so many deals are out there just waiting to save you money. Most of the time, I'll only pay $10-$20 for a game and if I trade it in to Amazon when I beat it in 2 days I can end up profiting $10-$20. This can also be applied to most electronics, dvds, blurays, etc. You really are a fool to pay full price for these products. The best deal in relation to my jewy video game savings method would be when the Wii came out. With the help of my immediate family, I was able to grab over 10 Wii consoles and resell them on eBay for a little over double the retail price. Having done this, I made somewhere around $1200-$1500 profit. Unfortunately for me, however, I was unable to get my hands on a single PS3 when they were selling for over $2000 on eBay when they only cost $600 retail. You can sure as shit bet that I'll be grabbing as many consoles as possible next generation.
A buddy of mine got a great big nice house for $129k less than it's market value at auction. God bless the shitty housing market. $171k for this:
They will beat the shit out of the father for doing that to his son, but had it been his daughter none of them would have given a fuck they would have just ignored her.
Craigslist is the greatest thing to happen to the free market since the sperm that would be Adam Smith won a footrace. Currently my room contains the following items pulled from the free section of Craigslist for no more cost than the gas it took to pick them up: -IKEA Galant Desk: retail $400 -2 IKEA Billy Bookcases: Retail $100 each -IKEA Expedit Bookcase: Retail $200 -Staples glass and metal desk: Retail $170 -LG air conditioner I also took another desk I got for free, and since I didn't need three desks, listed it on facebook. Retail was $115, I listed it for $85, and sold it for $100 (by charging a delivery fee). Then while delivering it, I got her roommate's phone number. In the not quite as brazen deals section (meaning I had to pay a non-zero number): -Saw a file cabinet listed for $40, and offered $20. They accepted, and after I went to Staples to pick up some hanging folders I saw the exact same cabinet retailing for $220 -Office chair + lamp for $15
Once on Ebay there was some guy trying to sell dirt. DIRT! He said in his description it was some special dirt that was being sold to raise money for a charity for Alaskan snow dogs. I made a fake account and placed a bid for like 400 dollars. My ebay inbox flooded with people trying to sell me dirt. One guy was trying to sell me a bag from Williamsburg and another from some NFL stadium (but I forget which one).
When I was in Acapulco with friends in 2000, we were walking by one of the many markets where peddlers jump out like ninjas at you even you even so much as sneeze in their direction. One smooth-talker who called himself "Hector the Protector The Money Collector" started trumpeting off about his stereotypical Mexican wares at us: "You want sombrero amigos? 30 peso! You want bull whip? twenty peso! You want afghan hoodie? 15 peso!! etc." Then suddenly, one of the many stray cats that populate the main drag there came shuffling out in front of us. The poor animal was obviously stricken with mange and was dragging it's paralyzed hind legs behind it. Hector noticed us staring at it: "You want the cat? One peso and kitty is yours, amigos!" Motherfucker tried to sell us a parapeligic stray cat. We couldn't help but laugh our asses off.
In Seattle I was down in Pioneer Square getting drunk and standing in line to get into a club. Some black guy offered me his woman's sexual favors for very little cash except I only had plastic. During the day, though, me and some friends had met up with some guy who had a bunch of frozen poultry in his trunk. I asked her if she would trade sex for an abundance of chicken and she immediately agreed. Next I had to pretend not to be able to reach the guy as the outright sadness of the situation was becoming a little too clear. Finally, they moved on to some other sap in line, but everyone kept calling me The Poultry Prostitute throughout the night. But if I'd wanted, I could have had sex with a woman for some (promised) frozen chicken.
This past Christmas, hubby and I came to the realization that our kids play with three types of things: guns, swords and video games. So that's pretty much all we bought them for Christmas. Therefore, I flip Amazon pre-order credits to get games way cheaper. Amazon had a deal just before Christmas where if you ordered 2 games for $80.00 or more, you got a $40.00 credit towards a future video game purchase. I got NFS: Shift for hubby (it sucked and has already been traded in) and FEAR 2 for myself and used the $40 to pre-order SMB Wii (total out-of-pocket cost: $6.44) which carried a $20.00 credit for that pre-order. I used the credit for that to pre-order Bioshock 2 and that had a $20.00 credit which I used to pre-order SM Galaxy 2, and that had a $20.00 credit which I am holding on to to pre-order Other M which will hopefully have a credit of some sort. I'll gladly keep that shit going as long as Amazon lets me (as long as I'm still giving them money, I reckon that'll be a while). Just before I had this most recent kid, I continually held off buying a pack-n-play with the bassinet because I kept thinking I could find them on sale or something. I wanted the one with the Pooh design (which I now realize is code for white-trash) but the only place that seemed to have it was Walmart ("The Evil Corporate Empire" around here) and at $120.00, I knew that it had to be cheaper somewhere else. I found one with that design, still sealed in the box, under a bunch of crap, wedged into the corner of a baby consignment shop for $85.00. I also bought a Bumbo seat for $20.00 from there. Those are normally $40.00 at least. Prospective parents: feel free to PM me for advice on buying for baby on a budget. I am the master at that shit!
When I was living in New York I'd go to tons of book signings because I'm a total whore for books. If the book looked at all interesting or if I recognized the name of the author, I would go. Well, a while back Ted Kennedy wrote a children's book called "My Senator and Me." It's basically Kennedy bringing his new dog to DC and explaining what goes on in different government buildings (very Bill on Top of Capitol Hill type stuff). Since his dog was at the signing, I got not only Kennedy's signature, but also a Splash Kennedy paw print stamp (yeah, fucking Lady Killer Kennedy has a dog named Splash). I'm not planning to sell the book, I just got it because I like collecting, but I bought it for $17 and the only place online I've seen with both the signature and the paw print has it listed at about $700. ...I should have fucking bought 2.