Hello and welcome to the first issue of THRIFT.  This new frequent feature will detail adventures and knowledge from garage sales, pawn shops, Craigslist and any other place new items can be found.

As with most (but not all) first issues the best way to start is with an origin story.  “Hey Hellions, who are you to tell us about this topic?”  Well, most of all the reason is – I’m good at it.

This family went through a money crisis a few years ago.  As in, there was none of it to be had.  A perfect storm of bills and unemployment and nothing changing it.  Like most people struggling to find a way out we started selling things off.  Unlike many people though we didn’t do it by throwing everything on our front lawn.  We were smart, did research and started looking things up on eBay.  And it helped.  It helped a lot.

Once the money problems were better when work and other good things in life came along, eBay was now a thing in our lives.  Just like its easier to look for a job when you have a job, its easier to keep going on eBay when you don’t have to be desperate and take anything you can get.  This allowed time to find great items, wait for them to sell for high prices instead of taking low offers, and learn how to make things like shipping and storage work for us and not against the bottom line.

To find and resell items is one of the most fun hobbies/jobs one can have.  It is not a get rich quick scheme.  It is not easy.  There are up and down days.  But if you can be intelligent and play the long game it is incredibly rewarding.

I want to do something different with this column and let the readers choose the direction.  So lets open this up to a reader mail bag.  Send your questions as comments here or on other social media, or by e-mail.  I’m thinking this could be a weekly column and every week one of your questions will decide what direction the post takes that week.

Also, if anyone wants to donate a graphic that would be wonderful.

Tune in next week to see if your question is answered.