Cleaning Up And Moving On

We had been ambushed by the last job. The clean-out of the duplex left us with little profit, filled up our storage space and wreaked havoc with our income stream. We could not bring any more loads to Toby’s double garage, since it was full of the junk storm. (See previous post)

Focusing on the massive amount of items in the garage became a priority. Tote after tote, box after box, we sorted through it and gradually made progress while also filling up both of his garbage cans every week. Toby was not interested in the selling side of the operation, so I became very familiar with Craigslist and began to take a truckload at a time from his garage to my house to sort and sell. Sellable items were categorized, photographed and posted for sale on Craigslist, while filling up a spare bedroom in my house. We ended up making three times as much from selling off the junk storm than we made from hauling it.

We were still advertising our hauling services on Craigslist and continued to receive inquiries. One potential customer wanted us to clear out one of his mini-storage units. It was full of items we thought we could sell, but we had no place to haul them to and store. We turned the job down. You can not turn down jobs and make money.

Then the other shoe dropped. Toby had to get a real job. We were not making enough with hauling for him to support his family. He wanted to expand the hauling business, buy a building and bigger trucks and the whole bit. I was looking at it as more of an experiment to bring in some side cash. He was in a different financial situation than me so were viewing the operation from very different vantage points. Toby went back to work and I continued pursuing other ideas.

Eventually the garage was cleaned out. Toby is still working, but everything is in place if we decide to haul again. Most enjoyable of the whole experience was being able to work closely with my nephew. We also liked the satisfaction of getting a job by advertising our services, doing the work well and making the customer happy. Getting paid was okay, too.

If we should ever do it again we have decided on a new policy: take the loads to the dump, sort through them there, and keep only the items we might be able to sell. Brilliant!

Next up: my experiences with surveys and reward sites.