Sunday, April 6, 2019
As a long time fan of 2nd hand stores, and let me stop right there to tell you my favorite:
URBAN PROMISE, in Maple Shade, right on the corner of the Main Street intersection - it is large, well organized and has some wonderful things. To continue my first thought, I am happy when things can get a new home and a new life, a 2nd chance. Why should a perfectly useful item that you can no long use, be discarded when it can go to someone who may have needed just that thing. For example, last week, I saw two perfectly good walkers on the sidewalk at recycle day. I think the people who put it there thought it was metal and could go in recycle. It stayed there till the next day and if the weekend pick-up truck scavengers didn't get it, it went into the trash Too bad, someone who needed a walker and couldn't afford one could have used that.
Many people know that you can call The Red White and Blue to come and get usable items or you can take them to Goodwill, but people who are burdened with the double trouble of putting their elderly parents into long term care, or even their deaths, and clearing out the house, are sometimes too distraught to go the extra mile and make the call or make the trip to Goodwill. So in the last drugs of saddened energy, they put it on the curb where the next recycle may take pace. I have seen the trucks come by and pick up the good chair, the bureau, the storage chest, the child's bike. Perhaps it is headed for Columbus Flea Market, out Rt. 206 in Burlington County, or perhaps for another flea market such as my all time favorite NEW EGYPT FLEA MARKET. You'll have to look up the address for that one on google as I haven't been there in years.
Last week the good weather brought out a lot of yard sales and I had an idea: SUPPOSE A TRASH ENTREPRENEUR WENT AROUND AFTER YARD SALES AND MADE A BID ON THE LEFT-OVERS, say $25 for the lot The homeowners wouldn't have to re-clutter their already overflowing garage, and the trash entrepreneur would have a whole new load for the flea market!
"USE IT UP
WEAR IT OUT
MAKE IT DUE
DO WITHOU"
That's an old folk saying that I think is good to memorize and help you resist buying what you don't need. It doesn't always help me to stay off amazon.com but it gives me pause and it has from time to time gotten me to go through the closet or the attic one more time to see if I don't actually have that thing I NEED already.
That said, I just bought a folding yard sale table at ShopRite for $40 because I need it for an Art Show at Atsion Mansion that I will be in this June, and because I am going to start trying to summon the energy to go through things and get ready for a town-wide yard sale this summer. Now I have the table.
It is hard to find people who really want your stuff. I have an expensive adults bike I doubt I would ever ride again, and I have several collections of books on subjects that interested me that I don't use any more like my Civil War collection.
Now I have to be honest. Yard sales don't always work and I already took part in one that I regret. In a house clean out one summer, I took part in a yard sale with my sister in her side yard in Mickleton. It was emotionally draining and kind of boring. I don't really enjoy talking to random strangers and I HATE haggling. You put a tag on something for $1 and they want to know if you'll sell it for 50cents! I suppose that is part of the fun for some people, but not for me. AND I sadly got rid of a few things I wish I had now - vinyl records. We were so tired by the end of the sorting, hauling, laying out and selling all day, that what ever was left over, we left for the trash pickers, then for the trash. I watched some of my things sit outside for a couple of days unwanted and abandoned before the trash collectors came. We are all so glutted with stuff, no one even wants FREE stuff.
I haven't ever used it but I do hear FREECYLE is a good option.
That said, I may add, I am not a proponent of the recent craze for "Swedish Death Cleaning" whereby you clear out all your stuff before you die so you kids don't have to. I am not erasing my life before I die. There is a kind of mourning process and letting go that helps people when they take care of their parents leftover stuff and clear out the old family home. It is a good distraction from the grief.
I avoid yard sales myself, however, and don't often go into the 2nd hand stores either because it tempts me to buy things I don't really need and my attic and shed get all cluttered up again - baskets being a good example of that!
Good will has moved from the Black Horse Pike to the Audubon Shopping Center. I am sorry I don't have the number for the Red White and Blue but I am sure you can find that on google too.
Happy trails to you!
Jo Ann
wrightj45@yahoo.com
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