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Americans unload prized belongings to make ends meet

nonothing

Well-known member
NEW YORK - The for-sale listings on the online hub Craigslist come with plaintive notices, like the one from the teenager in Georgia who said her mother lost her job and pleaded, "Please buy anything you can to help out."



Or the seller in Milwaukee who wrote in one post of needing to pay bills — and put a diamond engagement ring up for bids to do it.

Struggling with mounting debt and rising prices, faced with the toughest economic times since the early 1990s, Americans are selling prized possessions online and at flea markets at alarming rates.

To meet higher gas, food and prescription drug bills, they are selling off grandmother's dishes and their own belongings. Some of the household purging has been extremely painful — families forced to part with heirlooms.

"This is not about downsizing. It's about needing gas money," said Nancy Baughman, founder of eBizAuctions, an online auction service she runs out of her garage in Raleigh, N.C. One former affluent customer is now unemployed and had to unload Hermes leather jackets and Versace jeans and silk shirts.

At Craigslist, which has become a kind of online flea market for the world, the number of for-sale listings has soared 70 percent since last July. In March, the number of listings more than doubled to almost 15 million from the year-ago period.

Craigslist CEO Jeff Buckmaster acknowledged the increasing popularity of selling all sort of items on the Web, but said the rate of growth is "moving above the usual trend line." He said he was amazed at the desperate tone in some ads.

In Daleville, Ala., Ellona Bateman-Lee has turned to eBay and flea markets to empty her three-bedroom mobile home of DVDs, VCRs, stereos and televisions.

She said she needs the cash to help pay for soaring food and utility bills and mounting health care expenses since her husband, Bob, suffered an electric shock on the job as a dump truck driver in 2006 and is now disabled.

Among her most painful sales: her grandmother's teakettle. She sold it for $6 on eBay.

"My grandmother raised me, so it hurt," she said. "We've had bouts here and there, but we always got by. This time it's different."

Economists say it is difficult to compare the selling trend with other tough times because the Internet, only in wide use since the mid-1990s, has made it much easier to unload goods than, say, at pawn shops.

But clearly, cash-strapped people are selling their belongings at bargain prices, with a flood of listings for secondhand cars, clothing and furniture hitting the market in recent months, particularly since January.

Earlier this decade, people tapped their inflated home equity and credit cards to fuel a buying binge. Now, slumping home values and a credit crisis have sapped sources of cash.

Meanwhile, soaring gas and food prices haven't kept pace with meager wage growth. Gas prices have already hit $4 per gallon in some places, and that could become more widespread this summer. The weakening job market is another big worry.

Christine Hadley, a 53-year-old registered nurse from Reading, Pa., says she used to be "a clotheshorse," splurging on pricey Dooney & Bourke handbags. But her live-in boyfriend left last year, and she has had trouble finding a job.

Piles of unpaid bills forced her to sell more than 80 items, including the handbags, which went for more than $1,000 on a site called AuctionPal.com. Now, except for some artwork and threadbare furniture, her house is looking sparse.

"I need the money for essentials — to pay my bills and to eat," Hadley said.

At AuctionPal.com, which helps novices sell things online, for-sale listings rose 66 percent from February to March, much faster than the 25 percent to 30 percent average monthly pace since the company was formed in September, CEO Maureen Ellenberger said. She said she was surprised to see that most of her clients desperately needed to sell items to raise cash.

For LiveDeal.com, a classifieds and business directory site, for-sale listings for January through March rose 10 percent from the previous year.

"We can definitely detect economic stress on the part of the consumer," said John Raven, the site's chief operating officer.

On Craigslist, Buckmaster said, three of the four fastest-growing for-sale categories are tied to gas — recreational vehicles like campers and trailers, cars and trucks, and boats.

Raven noted more and more listings for furniture, particularly in areas around Miami and Las Vegas and other regions hardest hit by the housing crisis.

Baughman, who runs eBizAuctions, said that over the past four months she's been working with mostly desperate sellers instead of mainly casual ones. Most are middle-class customers who can't pay their bills and now want to be paid up front for the items instead of waiting until they are sold, she said.

The trend may be hurting secondhand stores too. Donations to the Salvation Army were down 20 percent in the January-to-March period. George Hood, the charity's national community relations and development secretary, said that was probably partly because people were selling their belongings instead.

And secondhand buyers want better deals now as well, driving prices down. Secondhand merchandise online is going for 25 to 35 percent below what it commanded a year ago, estimated Brian Riley, senior analyst at research firm The TowerGroup.

"It won't hit the saturation point until the (economy) hits the bottom and right now, we don't know when that is," he said.

In Alabama, Bateman-Lee said that she only received $30 for her TV and $45 for her DVD player at a local flea market. She doesn't have too much left to sell, but she's going back to "sort through more things."

Her $30 water bill is due this week.
 

loomixguy

Well-known member
C'mon....SIX BUCKS for granny's teakittle? Worried about a THIRTY DOLLAR water bill?

Sounds to me like they have a crack habit.
 

jigs

Well-known member
exactly my thoughts Loomix..... most people feeling the crunch need to re-evaluate the way they live...... lots of corners can be cut.
 

backhoeboogie

Well-known member
You can push a lawnmover, pick up flagstone and sell it, sell cedar posts from brush being pushed and burned and find all other kinds of part time work. Bust flat tires, haul hay, baby sit, dig fence holes, get a part time job on an oil rig. Take that extra earning and invest it for 30 years and keep adding to it. At the end of 30 years you are looking at paying taxes on $40K capital gains.

All the while you can go to night school and put yourself through college, get a better job.

Or you can sit back and whine on your $500 razor phone that is more important than food for the kids. Blame everyone but yourself.

I started out with absolutely nothing.
 

kolanuraven

Well-known member
backhoeboogie said:
You can push a lawnmover, pick up flagstone and sell it, sell cedar posts from brush being pushed and burned and find all other kinds of part time work. Bust flat tires, haul hay, baby sit, dig fence holes, get a part time job on an oil rig. Take that extra earning and invest it for 30 years and keep adding to it. At the end of 30 years you are looking at paying taxes on $40K capital gains. What if no one is wanting these jobs done...OR no one is paying for the posts, etc?????


All the while you can go to night school and put yourself through college, get a better job. If you can't get any $$$$$ because no one is hiring ' other' people to work for them, they are now doing those tasks for themselves now, how do you pay for nite school????


Or you can sit back and whine on your $500 razor phone that is more important than food for the kids. Blame everyone but yourself. They come free now when you get a $29.99 monthly plan with a cell phone.
I started out with absolutely nothing. Good for you....but different times then...different rules applied.
 

BRG

Well-known member
For the most part, the ones who are hurting were overextended in the first place, they wouldn't be in the situation if they would be more responsible. Now that times are tough they can't get out. Tough times are good, you learn how to save instead of just spend!
 

burnt

Well-known member
Yup. Different times now. Absolutely correct. No hope left. The land of opportunity is no longer the land of opportunity. Free enterprise is a thing of the past.

Selling your granny's tea kettle for 6 bucks is the solution. I love evolution. It weeds out the weak ones. The ones who cannot see a way to adapt and fend for themselves once their comfortable little world collapses. Is that not the main principle in keeping an ecosystem happy and healthy?

Or maybe it doesn't work that way. Not when we have social support systems that hand out aid without requiring accountability in return.

No more expensive handbags and silks? Aw shucks, it makes my heart bleed.

Whatever happened to using a little foresight? Like maybe saving for a rainy day?

Aww forget it. Just live for today.
 

backhoeboogie

Well-known member
Junk iron and things like old barbed wire are going for ten cents a pound. They probably don't buy it from underpriveledged people.

Edit: LOL it is a good thing scrap wasn't going for that price back when I was hungry.
 

kolanuraven

Well-known member
backhoeboogie said:
Junk iron and things like old barbed wire are going for ten cents a pound. They probably don't buy it from underpriveledged people.

Edit: LOL it is a good thing scrap wasn't going for that price back when I was hungry.


Now you're just being a smartarse.

There a lot of ' extra' jobs that were available last year or so ...but now people will do them themselves instead of hiring someone to do them.

The " extra' job idea will be a hard thing to find....the trick will be keeping the ONE job you have as companies etc cut back themselves.
 

Mrs.Greg

Well-known member
jigs said:
exactly my thoughts Loomix..... most people feeling the crunch need to re-evaluate the way they live...... lots of corners can be cut.
Although NN posted an American piece I'm jumping in here and saying this crunch is also happening in Canada. Jigs,respectfully, your comment annoyed me for the simple reason,the ones feeling the biggest crunch are the ones that are already struggling to make ends meet. HUGE gas prices and power,telephone,heating,food prices have jumped enormously. Greg and I are comfortable,not struggling but WE feel this bite...tell me you guys also are,if not say Hi to the tooth fairy for me.
 

backhoeboogie

Well-known member
kolanuraven said:
backhoeboogie said:
Junk iron and things like old barbed wire are going for ten cents a pound. They probably don't buy it from underpriveledged people.

Edit: LOL it is a good thing scrap wasn't going for that price back when I was hungry.


Now you're just being a smartarse.

There a lot of ' extra' jobs that were available last year or so ...but now people will do them themselves instead of hiring someone to do them.

The " extra' job idea will be a hard thing to find....the trick will be keeping the ONE job you have as companies etc cut back themselves.

Take a look at the jobs on Craig's list and then come back and tell me your hard luck story.

Flag Stone will sell for $65 a ton whole sale all day long if you can deliver it to the local rock yards. It does not take much to make a ton.

People in the city will be assessed a heck of a fine if they don't keep their yards mowed. Some are not able to do it and others just hire it done.

If there are no jobs, why in the heck are all these people moving in here? Please tell them we are starving to death and there is no work for them here so they will quit coming.
 

jodywy

Well-known member
bought a old rusted out toyota that get great gas milage to run around in the bigger trucks are parked unless absoulty needed.
The Duramax dose get over 20 mpg(23) on long road trips.
See a few people here complaining but there lots of jobs here between Jackson hole, the mines or the gas patch. But they don't want to get thier fleet of cars , trucks , 4 wheelers and snowmobiles down.
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
kola, the newspaper here is FULL of HELP WANTED. Gillette, Wyoming advertises for employees on Billboards along the highway--along with actively promoting job opportunies there in Michigan and Ohio.
The coal mine jobs have great pay and benefits.

They are crying for help in this whole area.

I think people would rather WHINE as MOVE.
 

backhoeboogie

Well-known member
Say it aint so FH? OT says the government is lying to us about the economy price indexes and unemployment rates.

I guess folks run all those help wanted ads on Craig's list just to throw money away.
 

kolanuraven

Well-known member
Faster horses said:
kola, the newspaper here is FULL of HELP WANTED. Gillette, Wyoming advertises for employees on Billboards along the highway--along with actively promoting job opportunies there in Michigan and Ohio.
The coal mine jobs have great pay and benefits.

They are crying for help in this whole area.

I think people would rather WHINE as MOVE.


Well that's just hunky dorey!

BUT...here we're a tourist based industry...not by choice...as industry left this area YEARS ago to Mexico & China. Many people shifted to make their living/ investments from the tourists that come to our area.

Now that people ARE NOT riding the roads as much nor spending as much money....jobs are being lost and there is no place to go to for a replacement.

You say move to where jobs are....great idea BUT who's gonna buy their house here if they move out there or anywhere for another job?

If they can't sell their house they just left.....how can they buy a new home in the new area? Guess is that they'd prob have poor credit by this time and the banks are getting tight with loans now...so how's does that add in then???



You all make it sound so easy....but you and I , we are all lucky are we're not in the position most of North America is in right now.

We're lucky and we should be glad of that instead of spouting off that people down on their luck have to sell grandman's tea pot cause prob they have a crack habit or some other assine statement like that.

Our natural resource was the tourist trade. Gillette does not have quiet the same situation and can not be compared to us.
 

backhoeboogie

Well-known member
kolanuraven said:
BUT...here we're a tourist based industry...not by choice...as industry left this area YEARS ago to Mexico & China. Many people shifted to make their living/ investments from the tourists that come to our area.

That is not good with the price of fuel keeping most folks from traveling as much.

If they can't sell their house they just left.....how can they buy a new home in the new area? Guess is that they'd prob have poor credit by this time and the banks are getting tight with loans now...so how's does that add in then???

Take a job that pays per diem. Spend it so that you don't pay taxes on it. I was on the road nearly 5 years and kept my house.
 

jigs

Well-known member
Mrs.Greg said:
jigs said:
exactly my thoughts Loomix..... most people feeling the crunch need to re-evaluate the way they live...... lots of corners can be cut.
Although NN posted an American piece I'm jumping in here and saying this crunch is also happening in Canada. Jigs,respectfully, your comment annoyed me for the simple reason,the ones feeling the biggest crunch are the ones that are already struggling to make ends meet. HUGE gas prices and power,telephone,heating,food prices have jumped enormously. Greg and I are comfortable,not struggling but WE feel this bite...tell me you guys also are,if not say Hi to the tooth fairy for me.

let me clarify that for you. we are feeling the pinch also, but there is a difference between those living sensibly and those who want all the "extra's " in life and are not willing to sacrifice those in tough times.
the people living on $25,000 a year and spending like it is $50,000 a year are the ones I was aiming my statement at.....

there is a huge difference in my opinion. trust me, there is a lot of belt tightening going on here too!!
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
jigs said:
Mrs.Greg said:
jigs said:
exactly my thoughts Loomix..... most people feeling the crunch need to re-evaluate the way they live...... lots of corners can be cut.
Although NN posted an American piece I'm jumping in here and saying this crunch is also happening in Canada. Jigs,respectfully, your comment annoyed me for the simple reason,the ones feeling the biggest crunch are the ones that are already struggling to make ends meet. HUGE gas prices and power,telephone,heating,food prices have jumped enormously. Greg and I are comfortable,not struggling but WE feel this bite...tell me you guys also are,if not say Hi to the tooth fairy for me.

let me clarify that for you. we are feeling the pinch also, but there is a difference between those living sensibly and those who want all the "extra's " in life and are not willing to sacrifice those in tough times.
the people living on $25,000 a year and spending like it is $50,000 a year are the ones I was aiming my statement at.....

there is a huge difference in my opinion. trust me, there is a lot of belt tightening going on here too!!


And thats where I disagree with current Administration policy....My belief is that we should be working to have the US workers/citizens have the highest standard of living in the world--not the apparent current policy of trying to take American workers down to closer to the standard of those in China, India, Mexico....

Where we were once leaders of the world---The U.S. now ranks 4th in GDP, yet it is 92nd in distribution of wealth— by UN measurement. In other words the top 5% live the best of all nations, and the bottom 25% live worse than in countries such as Greece. This disparity explains why the U.S. with the most expensive medical system is counted as 37th as to quality of care by the World Health Organization. Instead of addressing this disparity, both parties have been handing out tax breaks to the top 5% and corporations.

Under the UN Human Development Index (HDI) the US ranks 10th... The Human Development Index is a comparative measure of poverty, literacy, education, life expectancy, childbirth, and other factors for countries worldwide. It is a standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare.

1. Norway
2. Iceland
3. Australia
4. Luxembourg
5. Canada
6. Sweden
7. Switzerland
8. Ireland
9. Belgium
10. United States
 

nonothing

Well-known member
First off,I feel those people in the article do not have snowmobiles.four trucks,or two four wheelers and so on..

then you folks say move to where there are jobs..well to move costs money and second how many of you people would give up your land and move to a 1 bedroom walk up in Jackson hole and consider it just part of living in north America.

One person here said to sell flag stone,it goes for 65 bucks a ton,how far does 65 dollars a ton go in gas millage just to transport it to a buyer.

Almost everything to do with the cost of living has gone up except wages...

To those of you who complain about gas prices or beef prices or food prices....please stop your complaining ,for you can all move to jackson hole and apparently life the good life..

Every story that involves terrible goverment decisions,most of you put it back on to the people....Some of you have even accepted goverment assistance yet you make fun of a women who has to sell family pieces just to eat....You all should respect her,for if it gets much worse ,you all may need her advice on how to get by in jackson hole....

No one is asking for hand outs.all they want is for the bleeding to stop so they can live in the place they call home...and honestly thats what all of you want too for yourselfs....
 

TSR

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
jigs said:
Mrs.Greg said:
Although NN posted an American piece I'm jumping in here and saying this crunch is also happening in Canada. Jigs,respectfully, your comment annoyed me for the simple reason,the ones feeling the biggest crunch are the ones that are already struggling to make ends meet. HUGE gas prices and power,telephone,heating,food prices have jumped enormously. Greg and I are comfortable,not struggling but WE feel this bite...tell me you guys also are,if not say Hi to the tooth fairy for me.

let me clarify that for you. we are feeling the pinch also, but there is a difference between those living sensibly and those who want all the "extra's " in life and are not willing to sacrifice those in tough times.
the people living on $25,000 a year and spending like it is $50,000 a year are the ones I was aiming my statement at.....

there is a huge difference in my opinion. trust me, there is a lot of belt tightening going on here too!!


And thats where I disagree with current Administration policy....My belief is that we should be working to have the US workers/citizens have the highest standard of living in the world--not the apparent current policy of trying to take American workers down to closer to the standard of those in China, India, Mexico....

Where we were once leaders of the world---The U.S. now ranks 4th in GDP, yet it is 92nd in distribution of wealth— by UN measurement. In other words the top 5% live the best of all nations, and the bottom 25% live worse than in countries such as Greece. This disparity explains why the U.S. with the most expensive medical system is counted as 37th as to quality of care by the World Health Organization. Instead of addressing this disparity, both parties have been handing out tax breaks to the top 5% and corporations.

Under the UN Human Development Index (HDI) the US ranks 10th... The Human Development Index is a comparative measure of poverty, literacy, education, life expectancy, childbirth, and other factors for countries worldwide. It is a standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare.

1. Norway
2. Iceland
3. Australia
4. Luxembourg
5. Canada
6. Sweden
7. Switzerland
8. Ireland
9. Belgium
10. United States

But OT all those corporations need those tax breaks to make the working man's life better. :x :x And people are against workers organizing to try and better themselves? :???: It seems to me that's what the corporations have done via their lobbying/campaign donations.
Maybe not in our lifetime,but it may be the only way Communist China changes through the unionization of its workforce. Just a thought.
 
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