Blogging Away Debt

Lessons to Learn From A Few Super Savers in New York

The New York Times had a very interesting article about some people that cut costs and saved as much money as they could to afford a downpayment to own their own home in the area. Their goal of saving isn’t that much different than debt reduction. You still have to spend less than you earn to make it happen.

First up are Janey Lee and Pablo AgÃ¼ero. This family of three had their sights on a $445,000 two-bedroom condo in Upper Manhattan. With their income of over $100,000 (they are freelance web designers), they could afford the mortgage. However, they needed a down payment.

They kicked it into gear and started cutting expenses. Pablo cut the daily dose of chicken, soda pop and cigarettes. They both quit socializing with friends as much and didn’t buy new clothes, etc.

By figuring out where they were spending money, but didn’t have to, they were able to save up $90,000 in 5 years (comes out to $18,000/year). They will be moving into their new condo shortly.

Next up is Amy Wegenaar. As a single woman making around $85,000/year, Amy would find herself crying because she thought a single person could never make home ownership happen. With her rent currently at $1,550 she was losing some breathing room in her finances.

What she did was start saving $400/month. Anything extra such as raises and bonuses also went directly into the savings. Then she started cutting costs like crazy, and even started buying fabric and sewing her own dresses.

In October of 2006, she found a $220,000 one-bedroom co-op that only required a 10% deposit. She had $17,000 saved which was $6,500 shy. Not wanting to lose out, she pulled out a credit card check and paid the rest with that. (I can understand why she did that, but I hope she turned around and paid off that credit card as aggressively as she was saving money!)

Those are only two recaps. There are two more to be found in the New York Times article about Obi Onyejekwe and Carina Katigbak & Michael Lenton.

Even though these individuals were saving money instead of using their money for debt reduction, they all have one thing in common with the rest of us:

They set a goal and worked very hard to achieve it!

Hat tip to Chris and May for sending me this story!

Operation Garage Sale: Successfully Selling Clothes

by Tricia

Whenever I go to garage sales, I rarely look at clothes. To me, the time it takes to sort through folded clothes on a table is enough to make me pass on by. I also am not someone who likes to fold clothes. Now, for those garage sale hosts that hang their clothes on hangers, I usually glance at something, look at the size and if it’s not in my range I keep on going to the nick-nacks. But I do look at them if they are hung up.

Taking from my own garage sale habits, I hope to have the best garage sale ever in terms of selling most of our clothes. Here’s my gameplan:

1.) I am going to hang as much as I can. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough hangers to hang everything so some of them will have to be on a table. As items are sold, I’ll use those hangers to turn around and hang some of the clothes on tables.

2.) I am going to organize the clothes by size. I haven’t figured out the logistics yet, but I’ll probably use a piece of paper to sort of mark where size changes occur. That way, people can see right away what sizes things are.

3.) I am going to mark the size with the price. I’m using masking tape for pricing items since I’ve had horrible experiences trying to get off those pre-made stickers from items. Masking tape always seems to come off with no problems. It takes a bit longer to put the size on there, but thinking as a shopper it would save me time and also make me think, “This person took a lot of care with setting up this sale…they probably also take great care of the stuff they own.” Or, they’ll think I’m crazy. But as long as they buy more clothes…it’s all good!

4.) The clothes will be situated where people have to walk by them for the flow of the sale. If your garage sale set-up is a “U” shape (which mine will likely be at this point), I’m having the clothes at the bottom of the “U” so they have to walk right by them to get to the other side of the “U”.

5.) Related to #4, I am going to place a few stellar articles of clothing on display so you can see the front of the item. Probably bright articles of clothing to catch their eye or something that is so cute that you walk by it and go “awe…” Anything to grab attention to hopefully draw people into looking through all of the clothes.

6.) About an hour or so before I close shop, I am going to offer a paper bag sale on the remaining clothes. I haven’t figured out a price yet (any suggestions?) but it seems like a good way to reduce the remaining items.

7.) I’m going to post a sign saying the children’s hangers are available for purchase after the sale. I have no idea why I purchased so many hangers for my son’s clothes. Since he’s older now, his clothes can be hung fine with adult hangers. When setting up for the sale I’ll get a count and then come up with a price.

8.) All remaining clothes will be donated to St. Vincent de Paul. I do want to make as much money as I can with this garage sale, but I also want to rid our lifes of all of the unnecessary stuff. St. Vinny’s helped us with having their clothing at such a low price (25 cents/each) so it is only fitting to donate the leftover clothes. That way they can help the store and help someone in need of children’s clothing.

Of course, a lot must be said for getting people to visit the sale. I can’t sell anything if I don’t get people to stop by. I still am working on the gameplan for that.

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