I've gotten a lot of feedback from my website visitors saying that they wish they could do the same thing as I am doing on this project. The main problem that I'm hearing is that money is tight and most people don't have enough spare cash lying around to be able to purchase all the tools and other great toys.
It was my plan in the beginning to explain how a normal, average nobody (that's me) could go from start to finish on a pretty ambitious project, so that's what I'll do. I try to give a lot of details in my explanations, but at the same time I have to keep it short enough so that the reader doesn't get bored. In trying to keep it short, I have eliminated some of the details about topics like money......mainly where it's coming from hahaha. I'm not rich (much to my wife's dismay) so I've had to get creative. You can do it too if you just look around the garage and attic.
Most of the funds (about 80% so far) have come from selling old junk out of the garage and attic. It took a while to figure out the right way to turn my junk into cash but here's what worked for me..........
Garage sales are NEVER the answer in my book. A garage sale is a good way to get rid of stuff, but a lousy way to make money (at least any kinda real money). At a garage sale the people that show up are looking to buy stuff for pennies, dimes and quarters. You don't usually sell a high ticket item at a garage sale unless you plan to give it away for nothing. Here's an example: I had an old Pentium II 233 mhz rackmount server that I don't use at all. It sat on the rack and never even got powered up. So when the garage sale day for our sub-division came along I pulled it out and was asking $200.00 for it. It was a fine machine nothing at all wrong with it and for 200 bucks it would have made a heck of a PC for a teenager. The problem is...people were trying to talk me down to 50 bucks!!! That's right 50 bucks for a 233 server. After that experience I decided that the whole garage sale thing was no use. Your items are only seen by a few people that happen to drive past during the sale, and they didn't really set out that morning to go buy a server, and they want a deal, and they always think "what's wrong with it" why is this guy selling it.....must be junk. That's the whole mindset.
So I decided to give E-Bay a try and boy am I glad I did. Most people have stuff that they wish they could sell, but just don't know where to go to find a buyer. I listed the same Pentium II 233 rackmount server on E-bay and unlike the garage sale crowd...these guys were actually bidding the price UP. The server ended up selling for 435.00 plus shipping. I paid for the bead blaster and the Brownell's order with that old server. (good trade if you ask me). An old CB radio, Scuba diving dry suit, 3 computer hard drives, an old printer, and a night-vision scope later and we've secured funding for the first half of the project.
Look around in your attic for any old items that you may have but don't know where to unload. E-bay has really worked for me. You have a place that's open 24 hours a day so people can browse at any time, most folks are actually looking for an item, and your stuff gets seen by hundreds of people, not just the ones that drive by. Here is my best number 1 tip. If you sell on e-bay ALWAYS include a picture. An item with a picture will sell for twice as much as the exact same item without a picture. It doesn't matter what the item is. Even a music CD. Take a picture of the cover standing on end with the CD showing through. Pose your shots so they look good. Use a backdrop or a towel. Make the picture look as good as you can. If you don't have a camera, then do a search on the web and find a professional picture of your item. For instance, if you are selling a Black and Decker cordless drill....visit Black and Decker's web site and copy a picture of a cordless drill that looks sorta like the one you are selling.
If you don't know how much your item should sell for, do an e-bay search and see what similar items are bringing. Also, remember that ALL THE BIDDING takes place in the last hour. So don't get scared if that super cool toaster oven that you want $20.00 for is only at $2.40 the last day of the auction. It is common practice to "Watch an item" until the last hour and then come in and bid. All of my stuff was like that. You can set a minimum reserve price (the least you'll take) and if the bidding doesn't get that high then it's a no sale, but DON'T....people don't like reserves. Use a different trick. Create a second user-name and bid on your own item in the last few hours. Have your "alter-ego" bid the amount you want and then when someone out bids you you're all set. Just be aware that if you bid too high you may end selling your item to yourself. That's OK too, just re-list it do the same thing again.....it'll sell eventually.
You can't sell firearms, but all those spare parts are ok. Magazines, springs, pins, holsters, that sort of stuff. Go to the e-bay website and use the search feature to search for what you are thinking about selling. look at what other items like yours are selling for, that will give you an idea as to what you can expect to get. Look at the wording, how other sellers are explaining their items. You can even rip-off their pictures (if you don't have a digital camera).hahaha. Make sure that you list for at least 7 days. Even though the bidding all takes place in the last few hours....you'll need to have your item listed for as long as possible so that you'll get a lot of people viewing it. That makes for a real nice bidding war in the final hours. Weekends are a great time for a bidding war. So list your item for sale at 3:00 pm EST on a Saturday. This will make it so that the item will end on the following Saturday at 3:00pm. This means that at the end you will have maximum bidders online to bid. Saturday is the best day and 3:00 pm EST is 12:00 PST so all time zones should be awake and online...hehehe little trick of mine.
I'll add to this section as I get more creative with my fund-raising adventures. Hope this helps someone out there to be able to fund their own project......best of luck to all of you.
PvtRyan