Sundays are a great day for me.
Me and my wife don't have a lot so we rely on car boot sales and charity shops to keep clothes on our back and nice things in our house.
I can take £50 out and come back with enough stuff to fill my house.
There are a few tricks to car booting
Stay away from traders. These are the people who have big vans and loads of the same stock. They want to make more money than the odd weekend car booter
Stay away from people who have spent the night putting price labels on everything. These people have no clue that car boots are to sell things as cheap as chips. you could go to the next trader with the same thing and get it for half the price
Everybody's price can be knocked down. The items people bring to a car boot are stuff they no longer need anymore and a lot of them go to the tip after to get rid as they don't want it around their house. so make an offer all they can do is turn you down if they don't like the price you give them.
be friendly. talk to them, they are not a shop they know more about that item their selling than a shop will ever do. they bought it for a reason ask them why they are selling it in the first place.
stay away from car boots that charge the customer to park. these places are normally the ones that are on grass and are wanting as much money of everyone. I will not pay to park at a car boot. the sellers are already paying £10 to £20 to sell and if there is 200 sellers. well they have already made a lot of money before the buyers go on.
car boots are fun for all
Take your kids down with you, believe it or not, if you give them a couple of quid it will keep them happy for hours.
Take your dog with you. your dog gets a walk and you get to see some really cool stuff.
Take your gran. Your gran will be happy just to be out of the house.
this morning was a cold one, -3c I wrapped up warm and dress my son in a snowsuit so I knew he was toasty we made our way down to Chesterfield United ground where the car boot runs all year weather permitting.
It was a steady one with quite a few sellers and enough buyers to keep them sellers on their toes.
I bought some really cool bargains have a look.
I bought snow sledges. well, the beast from the east is meant to be hitting Sheffield over the next 5 days so if the kids are at home because school is shut we can go down a few hills with these.
These cost me 50p for the two. In my local shop, they are £2.99 each saving me nearly £5.50 bargain
Plus hours of fun with the kids = priceless
A white gravy jug.
As you know if you read my blog I am a foodie and I do take photo's of my grub so this will come in handy.
This cost me 50p I looked in Tesco's after the car boot and these sell for between £2.99 and £3.99 each.
this has saved me nearly £2.50
chinese set of 4 bowls. I got these for £1.00 I saw them and fell in love. I have been looking on eBay to see if i can find a price for them but nothing to show. the closest I can find is marked at £12.00 but I don't want to get quoted on that.
Saving my self = TBC
A crockpot. I love these, they are so easy to use, a few ingredients go in the oven on slow cook and you have a mouthwatering dish.
I bought this for 50p
this book I used to read to my oldest daughter and I found it today on the car boot. cost me 10p. It was her favourite book when she was 4 so I decided to get it for my 4 year old. I am going to read it to her tonight.
You see I have saved my self a fair bit of money just by going to the car boot.
Everything I have bought has a practical use and can be used.
I always like to visit the car boots that are on tarmac, you don't have to be towed of if you get stuck in mud, the one's on the feilds are ok but I will only visit them when the sun has been out for a few days before.
Happy steeming guys, get your self to your car boot and see how much you can save your selves.
Great post. I love bargain hunting myself, but I also buy from charity shops and car boots to resell on Ebay and Amazon. I manage to make a full time income doing this. I am still working my way through the pile I bought last year to make some space for when the local car boots start up again in my area. I often buy things for myself, and the house, and have saved a fortune by doing so!. Great for the environment too, better than things ending up in the landfill before their useful life is over.
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I know a women who only buys clothes from charity shops and car boots, she sells on eBay and Facebook and she makes a good living too.
I used to sell loads on eBay mainly computer parts that had been stripped from working machines but when eBay was taking £200 a month in fees and paypal with their fees it just was not worth it.
respect for the comment upvoted
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yes, you have to be able to get a decent margin to make it worthwhile. I work on buying something for £1 and selling it for £10 plus postage on top, this gives me a net profit of about 50% of my turnover including postage. The costs of running a business can be very high.
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Always better to run one from home than a shop though. I had a computer repair shop about 8 years ago and my outgoings on bills were £1200 a month before I took any money for my self.
So really eBay is not that bad, I just got frustrated with having to give them money even when something didn't sell.
I tried ebid but no one ever bought, and they were always trying to sell me a life time deal were I could sell and never pay a penny. the problem is that no one knows of ebid and everything I listed just ran its time and didn't sell.
If they spent more time advertising and less on trying to sell deals to there customers it could be big business and offer the deal when everybody joins.
amazon was alright for selling but I still like the auctions to sell things on.
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While I'm thinking about it would you like to join me in a steemit promo in April.
the link is here for what I am doing. its good fun and there will be other steemians there helping too. its a good way to get followers for you blog and also gives you something to blog about too.
https://steemit.com/promo-steem/@artonmysleeve/calling-all-steemians-promo-steemit-dates-times-for-sheffield-2018-help-needed-easter-steemit-promo
It would also be nice to meet another fellow steemian. after we have done we will all pop to a pub to get to know one another better and share a few stories. we had a steemit meet up last year and it was a blast. I think there was 5 steemians with family that turned up and for the first one I think that is a really good turn out.
cheers for the reply :)
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Thank-you for asking, that is so nice. I would love to come to that, but I am going on holiday Mid April for 2 weeks and it has cost me a fortune (cruise in the med), so trying to keep my outgoings down. I wouldn't normally go on holiday but its to celebrate my dads 80th birthday, so I couldn't say no. The car is currently having some expensive work done due to a dodgy electric window and a leak, so I am losing the battle to hold onto my savings!
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oh nooooo car problems I am having the same issues. broken gear selector, starter motor not turning over all the time, faulty injector and a leak on the turbo. I was quoted £600 to get it done.
I said to the guy who quoted, yes I'll have it done just let me go to that tree in the garden and give it a shake I'm sure there is money growing on it somewhere. haha
Well if you get the chance or fancy it one of them days pop down if you can. there is no pressure. it is just one of many I will be doing so there will be other chancers to get in on the action :)
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£600 is a lot. I have so far paid £120 for the window, mechanic is looking for a second hand one to fit, otherwise £250 plus at dealership. The leak on mine is a water leak, I thought it may be windscreen, but it could be a seal elsewhere so not sure what that will cost. Good to know you will be doing other meet ups though.
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wow crazy overheads for a shop, hence why I work from home, another big advantage is no commute, and I don't have to be there for customers all day. On Ebay I pay for a featured shop as I have about 1300 items listed. The fees aren't too bad if I have a decent sell through rate, which I manage to maintain despite the ongoing site changes supposed to improve the buyer experience. The hardest period for me is May to mid August as everyone just has holidays on their mind. Yes I joined Ebid, I have a lifetime membership, but I don't use it as not enough traffic
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That is the key to a good website, traffic. if a site only has one customer that goes on there to buy what is the point in having a shop.
My shop was a good size, it was in Sheffield so the rent was £730 a month then electric staff wages and other bills. I was making money but not enough. I was lucky if I made £100 a week and I was putting in about 70 hours a week monday -saturday so it really was not worth it in the end. I sold up and since then I have seen another 2 people go in as computer repairs, but now its a coffee house and seems to be doing well.
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yes there will soon be nothing left on the high street apart from coffee shops, betting shops and charity shops. It is a shame, but there is little help with business rates etc.
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sometimes we go to a car boot,
but today they have a give away on Facebook in my village,
the stuff you no longer want to have you put on facebook and then you can react to it and get it for free or for a very small amount of money
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Facebook is a good way for cleaning out the clutter, we use a freebie site to get rid of our unwanted things too. mainly over x-mas as I like to sell on car boots to make space for new stuff.
I was once in Holland and went to a car boot at the back of a video shop, it was a really big one, there was some good stuff on there.
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