Hi, my name is (fill in the blank), and I am an IRK Addict.

@netmasa I have been buying IRKs and Fukus since the beginning. I have certainly had my fair share of crap, but I have also had some really solid hauls and even once scored the unicorn item. I can say even the crappiest of times the value of the contents has always been at least what I spent. It depends on what you want out of them as to whether they are worth it to you. Good luck!

@cbilyak @netmasa I think there were one or two that were absolute trash, but across maybe 15 or 20, it’s not a bad ratio. The real issue is the hundreds I’ve spent maintaining my VMP status all these years…

@cbilyak @netmasa Whether taking a day, a night or part of each out of your life once or twice a month to try to get one of these is worth it is something only you can decide. Like cbilyak I scored a very expensive gaming system and even if I never get another IRK ever again, getting that item would keep me fulfilled as I probably wouldn’t get another one of such value. But they are still fun to get and laugh about when you get (especially if the person preparing them is out to get you as he is with me).

@kcface LOL. I have not given up yet but I keep nodding off so think very soon I will be out of the race for a few hours.

@61kristin65 hang in there . Eventually you too can be disappointed by what’s in the box.

@61kristin65 i hope you got lucky. I did. Good night.

@Tadlem43 As the only income-producing adult in my house for the past 12 years, I too enjoy the surprise. No one else gets me gifts (because there is no money to buy them without me knowing it’s being spent).

Also when I was a kid my mom would just give me money and tell me to buy my own gifts. then I’d have to wrap them and when I unwrapped them be happy/surprised about what I got.

So I enjoy having someone else, even it’s a stranger in a warehouse like @koolhandjoe, pack a mystery IRK that will eventually make it to me.

@Tadlem43 My beloved got kinda trapped in Indiana during the beginning of the lockdown, leaving me alone with the cats. I think I get what you’re saying–and it seems consistent with Mediocre’s own thinking to increase their frequency over the last year.

Wasting your time here can count for a life, imo.

@Koolhandjoe @mbersiam @Tadlem43
That’s so sad as a kid.

@joelmw

I hope you were eventually reunited?

@f00l Oh yeah. We spent a good bit of the lockdown apart. But she’s here now.

I installed CAPTCHA to save my fellow robots from wasting money on this crap.

@cengland0 tell me more about these amazon giveaways?

@cengland0 Wow, that is quite a story. I am sorry it has put you into a situation like this. I don’t have nearly as much but still seem to have more than I know what to do with.
I have gotten rid of the stuff that I deemed almost worthless, but the items that seem like the good things in IRK/BOC I have kept. Now trying to do something to clear out.

Was wondering if there was a list of kinda local to re-gift pile of decent IRK items to other meh members. I know they do the gift exchange but most things are big enough to not make shipping feasible.

@mbersiam Amazon used to have a page where companies were giving away items for free. All you had to do was click on the button to participate in the giveaway and then Amazon will determine a winner. Some of the giveaways were awarded to a specific entry number. For example, it would say entry #1000 will be the winner. Others were given away randomly and selected at a specific time and date. The more people that entered in the second type, the less chance you have of winning.

It appears that Amazon has since stopped with these giveaways as of October 10, 2019. I wasn’t aware of this until just now. All of my winnings, of course, were before that date. I had a formula for winning the first kind where you had to be a specific entry number. You actually knew when the program started and the average number of entries per minute so you can calculate a good time to enter into the contest. It didn’t always work but since there were probably a thousand new items offered daily, the chances were good that I could win something every day.

“Amazon Has Ended Its Giveaways Program” https://www.dealnews.com/features/Amazon/Amazon-Giveaways/

@cengland0 Damn, man. That is an awesome story, and almost cool in a way, but it does seem like an actual burden and I’m sorry for that part. But kudos for kicking the habit. My wife read it too and she is worried for me because I think your success and accumulation are at all cool.

I think we do a decent job either using or getting things out of the house, but she disagrees and while she continues to indulge me, would definitely rather that I gave it up. We scored some nice shit in the most recent IRK though, so I think that helps my case. All of the extra IRKs and the lack of a 2020 in-person office Christmas party (where we’d usually unload a fuko or twos worth in white elephant gift exchange; IRKs are awesome for that).

POKER! JOKER! NOT MEDIOCRE! AWESOME!

@cengland0 @mbersiam
Your like the people that win radio contest all the time when no one else can get through that phone number to save their life.
There are people you can hire to help you clean out your house, list stuff on Craigslist or other sites (I know bc I hired them to help me pack and clean out my apartment when I moved). Shit, if I lived in your area I’d offer to help. While I have my own hoarding problem I’m very efficient at cleaning out other peoples stuff. Just start small and start listing stuff in small groups everyday and eventually you’ll get some buyers for your stuff. If your on Facebook I’ve herd Facebook market place is one the best places to list stuff.

@cengland0 @Star2236 I once won like a $2500 prize package for a father’s day contest on a radio station. It included theme park tickets, a fishing trip, a bed and breakfast stay, $200 cash, t-shirts, a live radio spot, and I think some other things.

I was 17 when I entered, so I used my older sister’s name. I happened to be the one that answered the phone when the station called to tell my sister that her name was picked.

At that point my sister had moved out so I gave the station a forwarding phone number. hung up and immediately called her to tell her the station was going to call her and tell her she won and to make sure to answer the call.

I was so excited. but she kept the cash and t-shirts from the package for using her name. my mom and I stayed at the B&B, my dad went on the fishing trip, and I took my cousins to the theme park.

@cengland0 @mbersiam @Star2236 Wow, that’s just wrong - she should have shared the cash with you! Or you should have told her that’s her present for her birthday and Christmas combined for the next 5 years, sheesh.

@cengland0

That is one hell of a story.

I’m guessing you have OCD related to the anxiety. Understand.

The economics of getting rid of excess, potentially usable things, is complex.

If you donate saleable stuff to Goodwill, sure, they will get pennies on the dollar. But your are still helping yourself, Goodwill, and the purchaser.

And tho you don’t ensure that way that either you or Goodwill gets maximum $ value, you do clear your life of a problem. You no longer have to store or spend more time and energy.
That’s worth something.

I think that, usually, unless one is in the flea market biz as a professional, it’s neither possible nor wise to try to maximize every vector for potential gain in the process of “stuff disposal”. Because so much personal time is involved in the attempt.

If one is in the flea market biz, it’s just more of what one already does professionally, so fine. It’s not taking time and energy away from other competing professional and personal obligations.

If one is not in the flea market biz, most of us already have professional and personal lives that need more attention than we can give every 24 hours.

A garage or yard sale can help here. But that’s a lot of work for whoever does it. I don’t know that that sort of work (selling) can be “assigned out” and then have personal relationships stay in a contented place.

As far as max returns, or worrying about whether Goodwill maximizes their returns, all that takes up personal time.

If one is selling stuff personally, the time investment can be huge, and the customers who say they want something are more often than not very unreliable; they will ask endless questions and then not show up or be an 2 hours late, and then try to haggle one down to nothing. And then change their minds.

I’ve learned to just give to Goodwill and not worry further about that, or give to a friend of mine that really wants an item, or to offer stuff for free
(with restrictions: the other end must show up on time at my choice of time and place, and not take up my spare time during the exchange. But if you offer something for free, you don’t have to deal with endless time spent on unreliable purchasers)

Getting the max $ return, or even recouping most of ones costs in getting rid of stuff, means (in my experience) committing to an open ended and enormous time sink.
That’s an additional huge cost. How would I even begin to recoup that?

My take:
If one wants to be sure that someone somewhere gets max $ returns, donate to someone who is in the flea market biz. Or sell to them, in bulk at a 99.99% discount and don’t look back.
Or donate to anyone who will come get it promptly and not be weird or difficult. And not need help with the pickup.

If I donate to Goodwill, I don’t look back.

I wish Goodwill would donate what they can’t sell. Perhaps some locations do this. Dunno. But I don’t have infinite time each day, and neither does anyone else who might help a little. I don’t have time for either policing Goodwill, or worrying about their policies.

Some people might be willing to assist with garage sales or with transportation of stuff to Goodwill. But I have to respect their personal preferred limits on donated time and energy.
They aren’t my employees. They have the right not to want to be involved.

Economics is the study of the competition, strategies, and choice making, re the flow of scarce resources, and the resulting flow of exchange, currencies and items of value, isn’t it?

In the modern world, the most scarce commodities re this issue can be, in many instances, personal time.

And, also, another scarce resource: the happily donated assistance from others before they start becoming “used up”.

I try, while bumbling along, to respect both of those resources, within my own life. I could learn to be better at both. Way better.

@cengland0
I totally understand wanting to make your $2000 back bc that’s money spent so now every time you look at that stuff you look at as some form of monetary value. I had the same problem after I had a stoke a blew a bunch of money bc my brain wasn’t processing right. I had several garage sales, gave away loads upon loads to senior homes (they benefited a lot bc the place doesn’t have a lot of money to spend on entertainment for them) and donated a couple hundred boxes. I’m now looking for a woman’s shelter (batterd woman that leave in the middle of the night with nothing to get away from their abuser) to give my stuff to from moving back in with my boyfriend. Bc I’m like you I want it to go to someone who can truly use it and not just somewhere their gonna sell it to anybody, I have some nice stuff and would fell better about giving it to someone who needs it.

@cengland0 I too have OCD, but not to your extent, and I have a hoarding problem. I used to think of it as collecting: Hot Wheels, records, CDs, DVDs, PCs, stereos, etc. We have a 4 bedroom house we’ve lived in for 30 years with one room called the office that has 2 desks because I couldn’t get rid of the one my dad made but it’s not good to be a computer desk. My desk has 4 computers I built attached with a 4 pc selector switch, but they are all old and should be disposed of. There are Hundreds of records, CDs, DVDs and books in the office and cables and other crap stacked in there that is getting to the point that it’s hard to find things.

My daughter was giving me shit about being a hoarder because of all the stuff in our garage in addition to the office. My wife was hurt and couldn’t get the Xmas decorations out 2 years ago, so I went out to the garage to find them and started opening boxes. Almost all were my daughters! I went to our storage unit (another sign of hoarding), no Xmas decorations there either and 90% of the boxes were my daughters again! I made her start paying for it and got her to get her shit out of my garage.

I just need to get busy and get rid of all of this shit. 30 years of stuff is a lot of stuff to get rid of. My wife said for me to throw away the CDs but wants to sell 20 year old ski boots! I don’t think the boots have any value because the technology always changes, but the CDs are at least worth a couple of bucks each. I’ve been ripping my CD collection to MP3 and it’s amazing how many CDs fit on a 512 GB micro sd card! Anyway, I know what I have to do, it’s just doing it that’s going to be hard and I should give up on IRKs. They aren’t helping.

@f00l Wise words.

@Star2236 That’s awful that you went through that . @cengland0 you too. Every time I move I’m like, I’m not moving with this stuff again. And somehow I still manage to accumulate . Work in progress. Hugs.

@raccoon81 Like you mentioned, the problem with regifting the items is that shipping costs makes it not worth it. I will give the stuff away to any of my friends for FREE if I know they want it. I have already given away a lot of stuff but not enough.

@joelmw At least I began phase 1 of the recovery by refusing to buy more and adding to the pile. I’ve been lucky in most of my IRKs and have scored some valuable items like a Go Pro Hero Black when they were selling for around $800. I can say that I usually get more than $5 in value but lately the quality has gone down and is the motivating factor for me to stop buying. How can they sell 1,000 IRKs per mehrathon and have 3 mehrathons a month and still include something good in every box?!?!?

@Star2236 Yes I am like those people that win the radio station contests all the time. In fact, I was winning so often that they eventually made a rule that you cannot win more than once every 30 days. It was easy with the phones at work because the phones were digital and you didn’t hear it dial at all. Once you press the redial button, you either heard a busy signal or it was ringing instantly. I don’t listen to the radio today so I no longer try to win anything.

Regarding Facebook Marketplace, I have to tell you that there’s no way I’ll go through that. It was okay when Mrs cengland0 offered to help but I’m not going to post anything on Facebook, eBay, Offerup, or LetGo. It’s not worth my time to sell a $100 item for $5 and then have people contact me and try to negotiate a deal for 50 cents. This is the same reason I will not sell at a garage sale either. I would rather give the stuff away for free than to sell it to someone who will probably resell it for pennies.

@mbersiam I also won the Father’s Day contest on a radio station. I’m not even a father. hehehe. It included a huge BBQ grill that came in 3 large boxes that wouldn’t fit in my car and I had to get help from a friend with a large truck. I’m a vegetarian and had no use for it so I gave it to my parents. It turned out to be too large for them too so they donated it to their church. Sort of made me angry that they did that because I’m sure another friend of mine would have appreciated it especially since it was such a nice grill and probably worth over $1,000.

@cengland0

Curious. Do your anxiety meds help much?
Do they help much with the OCD side of things?

@f00l My OCD is related to anxiety. I worried about the stupidest things that wouldn’t matter to most people. But today I take anti-anxiety medication and that has cured me of the OCD and now my house is cluttered and disorganized. That wasn’t the way prior to the medication. My house was sterile before with a place for everything. Nothing was out of place – ever! But now I’m cured of that problem.

I’ll have to consider donating it all to goodwill but that decision isn’t going to be easy. It would be like tearing a Band-Aid off quickly. It’s so much easier for me to give a few pieces away at a time instead of all at once.

I wouldn’t consider myself to be rich but I can tell you that I don’t need the money that selling this stuff would give me. Maybe it bothers me more than it should but I still like to get good value for things. I have a hard time paying regular prices on Amazon when camelcamelcamel reports that it frequently goes on sale for a dollar less. It’s only a dollar but that really bothers me to pay that extra buck when I know it will be cheaper and it’s probably something I don’t need right away. So there’s no way I’m going to go though the stress of negotiating with people in the public over the prices of things and it’s not worth my time to box things up and ship them out. If I was in need of money, then that would probably change my behavior but there’s no real motivation for me to sell the stuff.

@Star2236 That $2,000 tax burden was a surprise and made me mad when I got that 1099-Misc. I should have suspected something was up when Amazon requested to verify my SSN after I won the first $600 of stuff. They said I must pass the verification or forfeit the prize and I couldn’t let a free item go so I verified. The products weren’t even worth that much. The freebies were items that retailed for $100 during the giveaway and then after I won, the price went down to $25 (as an example). If I was offered the chance to buy those products for just the cost of the taxes, I wouldn’t buy.

Garage sale is not an option. First, my HOA will not allow them except for 2 dedicated days throughout the year. Then it’s my time. I’m not sitting in the sun for 8 hours dickering with people to make $500. It’s always nice to have extra money but the added stress and me not needing the money makes it not worth it.

@Kyser_Soze I have lots of collections. I even collect digital items like software and music and don’t even use them. When Epic has a free game each week, I get it but have never played any. When Amazon was giving a paid Android app away each day, I got it. I have over 800 paid apps and games for Android now but only use 1 program from that collection.

I used to run a BBS in the area and had 6 phone lines coming into my house so I know all about connecting a bunch of computers. I had a dedicated room full of computers and this is when “multi-sync” monitors were outrageously expensive so I had to use the pc selector switches like you currently do. I keep my original CD’s, DVD’s, and Blurays even though I have ripped versions of them on hard drives. It’s difficult for me to get rid of media that I paid anywhere from $16 to $30 to get. I know there’s no real value in the original disks anymore except it might keep me out of jail if I was accused of copying a movie and I still had that original.

@f00l

Curious. Do your anxiety meds help much? Do they help much with the OCD side of things?

Amazingly so. I don’t take the meds for that reason at all. It’s Klonopin that I take, by the way. It’s specifically for anxiety but it has that secondary property that gives me the “I don’t care” attitude for things that would have bothered me before. The 3rd property is that it acts as a mild sedative which makes it hard to stay awake sometimes.

@cengland0 @f00l @Star2236 I read an article that the RIAA quit suing the kazaa uploaders, so I think we’re safe as far as downloading what we’ve paid for. Many of the downloaded tunes I have I either have the record or the CD, but I’ve never used any of the peer to peer services that uploaded at the same time you download and every person that was ever accused of piracy was caught because of the upload.

I’d like to keep them but if I keep 2 copies and upload to youtube music, I should be OK with getting rid of them.

@f00l

One thing I have learned over the years:

I used to be obsessed with finding the perfect path for getting rid of stuff. I’m now convinced that, at least within my life, this is a bad and counterproductive practice.

It might make sense to worry over this if I were in the “possessions biz” as a profit center and profession. But I’m not, and don’t want to be.

In the meantime, if I fail to deal with stuff, then during every single day, this is a burden and a weight on my life, whether I’m conscious of it or not.

The stuff takes up space. Perhaps the space is commercial storage I pay for. Perhaps it’s merely in my way or cluttering up my life daily at home.

The stuff means I can’t have the home I want. It sits there needing to be dealt with, sorted thru, put to use, disposed of

When I want to find something I need to use, I can’t, since there are so many extraneous things I should have gotten rid of already. It can also mess up relationships. Other people, if they have to deal w it my stuff, or with the demands stuff make in my time, come to quite properly resent this always being an issue.

And if people helped me with this in the past, and now they might feel I haven’t adjusted my conduct, and that they’ll have to go they the whole thing again: Another cause for justifiable resentment.

And if I’m not watchful and careful about the storage conditions, something worth $ or something I personally actually value highly can either deteriorate to uselessness or get lost.

If I am careful and watchful about storage conditions, that’s another substantial time sink chore.

Andy I forget what’s stored. Wind up purchasing dups. I feel so stupid catching self doing this.

And, the entire prob is very stressful, even to the point of exacerbating anxiety or serious depression.

So … I’ve gotten steadily more ruthless in my personal pruning. I’m far better at instant decisions and instant execution to get rid of it Now!

I still have some spaces that need cleaning out and much that needs to be gone. I’m getting better at this. I hope.

I now look at it like this:
Those of us who can’t live like royalty, with a personal set of servants, need to live within the boundaries of not owning more than we can deal with ourselves.

For most of human history we’ve lived along scarcity, and hoarding/collecting conduct was more good than not for survival.
But now we have the other side of the temptation. We mostly have close to enough. Many of us have too much.
But our built in brain wiring hasn’t adapted to this, and we are still wired to have everything that might “someday possibly in an alternative universe” be absolutely essential.

So we have to learn and discipline ourselves to behaviors for the new circumstances. For me this isn’t entirely fun.
I’m trying. : )

In my own life, i’m reminded a bit of a jack Russell terrier I had once. He loved to fetch. He thought he personally had rights to every yellow tennis ball in the universe.

The other dogs also liked tennis balls. Just not quite so much.

One way to make him crazy was to fill a bucket with yellow tennis balls and throw them all out into the yard at once.

The other dogs went and grabbed some tennis balls, which made the Jack Russell go kinda nuts.
And altho only one tennis ball would fit in his mouth, he was vainly trying to corral thirty of them while also trying to intimate the other dogs into dropping theirs. In order to grab one he had to drop the one he had. And repeat.
It was kinda hilarious.

Sometimes I think that Jack Russell and I had the same buggy brain scripts running.

@cengland0

I have a hard time paying regular prices on Amazon when camelcamelcamel reports that it frequently goes on sale for a dollar less. It’s only a dollar but that really bothers me to pay that extra buck when I know it will be cheaper and it’s probably something I don’t need right away.

One way to deal with this is to put a proper value on the time it takes someone to track this sort of thing or research it
If somebody is spending a lot of time doing this or noticing it or paying attention to it then they’re not spending that time doing stuff they might value far more.

Time and personal attention are the final scarce resources.

People who are really good at dealing with money or life learn which things need to be instant decision and not maximized or worried over
and which things or issues really need to be treated carefully.

This is not a skill I have.
I Wish!!!

like you I’m way too obsessed with worrying over trivia

@cengland0 Therapy is legal, just FYI

@cengland0 @f00l @Star2236 Shit, I need help. I bought another one.

@cengland0
Another idea is just list everything for one flat price, firm, only serious offers and say you won’t take any less than the price listed. See if it sells that way. And just hang up if people try and negotiate. What do you have to loose, the time you take to post instead of messing around on the computer.

@cengland0 @Kyser_Soze DON’T SELL THE CD’S! Some of them are worth some bucks and some folks still love them. There’s a good market out there for them.

@cengland0 @Star2236 That reminds me of a 1990 Dodge dynasty I had. I won the right to buy it from a local dealer for $50 and drove it for 5 years. It wasn’t pretty but drove fine and had cold AC. I just wanted it gone after I bought a 2 year old Genesis G80. So I put it on Facebook for $100. It had new tires and a new battery that were worth more than I was asking, which I put in the ad, and some guy tried to talk me down! Then he got pissed off when another guy bought it! Hell, I could’ve driven it to the local car crusher and made more money!

@cengland0 @Tadlem43 I know! Some of my CDs are promo only and I’ve seen prices over $100, asking, that doesn’t mean anybody bought them. I did sell a CD I bought for $15 for $65. I had read the band was going to re-release it, but the buyer hadn’t seen that until after buying it!

@cengland0 @Kyser_Soze @Star2236

@cengland0 @joelmw @mbersiam @raccoon81 @Star2236 I did a garage sale once where everything on one side of the front walk (and in certain categories) was a dollar. Everything in the tree lawn was 25 cents if you had exact change and 50 cent if I had to make change (yes I had some rolls of quarters - amazing how so many people came up with exact change or bought enough that it ended up exactly a dollar or five or whatever LOL). Everything on the other side (and other categories) was make an offer but it had to be two dollars or over (I didn’t tell that part and almost everyone offered $1 first. I said if it was $1 it would have been on the other side of the front walk. They then offered more and I accepted the first offer. Made about $600 at that sale. Just had it one day 7am - 2pm. When you don’t have to tag anything, just drag it out doors it is much easier.

@cengland0 @joelmw @Kidsandliz @mbersiam @raccoon81
I went to a garage sale like that too, everything started out at like $6 or $7 and every hour it dropped a $1, except for one table where things were marked. The guy even grouped different things together and something may not have been worth $6 but in a couple hours later it would be worth $3. He said he had done it in the past and made like $1200. I thought it was a cool idea. But I like garage sales, I like running them. It’s probably the interaction I miss these days.

@Star2236

But I like garage sales, I like running them.

You and I are opposites. I do like buying from garage sales but have been successful in resisting the urge to visit any. I just load up with more crap that I probably will never use.

However, I ran one garage sale and will never do that again. It was horrible. I cannot stand people trying to negotiate a lower price with the prices were already ridiculously low. It was like the standard protocol for every customer. See something for a dollar, ask if you can get it for 25 cents. I said no to most things because I would rather smash it up with a sledge hammer and throw it away than to feel like I’m being screwed. Suppose I needed to charge 4 bucks so I could negotiate down to 1 dollar later. I hate that.

This is the same reason I hate car shopping. Depending on how good your negotiating skills are, you can get a different price on the car. They should have a price on the sticker and make it illegal to sell for more or less than that price to make sure everyone is offered the same deal. If the business realizes they aren’t making a sale, then lower the sticker price and try again but you cannot do it while a customer is considering the purchase.

I have walked away from car purchases only to have them call me an hour later to accept the final offer before I walked out. My goal in changing the law would to make sure that everyone gets the same deal. You don’t have to negotiate your loaf of bread when you buy it at Walmart so why do you have to negotiate for your car?

Why doesn’t everyone pay the same prices for medical services? Seems the doctor charges different prices depending on your insurance plan. They should be required to offer the same lowest price to everyone that they offer to their customers. Why does the VA pay a lower price for prescription drugs than anyone else?

It’s probably the interaction I miss these days.

It’s probably the interactions that I hate the most. When I walk into a store, I want to attempt to find what I’m looking for alone. It annoys me when a “helpful” salesman asks me what I’m looking for so he can help me. Note to salesmen reading this: Leave me alone and let me shop. Be available if I have questions but let me come to you. You can greet me at the door by saying hello and if I have any questions to let you know but don’t stalk me while I’m browsing.

@cengland0
I need a car and I’m only buying used but my boyfriend keeps telling to go to dealerships but I wont bc of the game they play with cars. I will either tell the muther fucker to get fucked or walked. Unless they had a game that said stick your hand to the side of a car for the longest period of time, I could do that.

@cengland0 @Star2236
There were a lot of suggestions for buying a car without having to go to the dealership in this recent thread:
https://meh.com/forum/topics/buying-a-car-how-the-hell

@cengland0 @Kyeh
Yeah I know

@cengland0 Negotiating at a garage sale is not very productive. But I bought and sold a business and negotiating was the most money per hour I’ve ever made in my life. I did good buying it but when I sold it, I bought a book on negotiating and the guys that bought it had bought others before. After the sale they said “We don’t know how you did it, but we’ve never paid that much ever!” I also used some technics from the book to negotiate lease terms for some commercial properties and when you are talking about cash flow for 10 years, plus the starting point for the next negotiations, these are very important and profitable negotiations. The funny thing is, most people don’t seem prepared to negotiate. They haven’t read any book on how and they lose!

I love going in to car dealerships. Those guys are amateurs. My only problem is, I end up getting cars. I showed a deal to my accountant and asked him to explain to me how they made profit and he couldn’t, but a month later he told me about a deal he made as if he were looking for approval! If there weren’t negotiations on big items, like cars, you wouldn’t have the opportunity to save huge amounts of money. Probably more than you make per hour at your job, when compared to the amount of time negotiating. Just adapt the attitude that it is fun and profitable.

@Kyser_Soze You seem like the kind that likes to negotiate. That causes me stress and I try to avoid it whenever possible. When you’re buying something expensive like a car or house, it’s important to get it for as low as possible and making those purchases become one of the most stressful times of my life. A dollar difference at a garage sale isn’t a life changing event. And, if you’re trying to get a new job, negotiating your salary isn’t fun either. You might really want/need that job and could possibly negotiate your way out of it and they could pick the next candidate for less money.

I’ve been very fortunate later in my life where I didn’t have financial problems so when I go to the car dealer, I have already done my research on what I should pay and I start there and they can take it or leave it – I don’t budge. It’s a cash sale for them so I don’t want to hear talk about monthly payments or interest rates, etc. Maybe I’m doing it wrong but I start with their cost price (not from what they show me but a 3rd party like KBB) and then give them anywhere from $500 to $1,500 profit depending on the car. That should be fair for both parties. But they usually go talk to the sales manager and come back with a higher price and say “You Win.” That’s not a win. It’s either my price or I walk. I do go in at the end of a month when they are trying to make their sales numbers though.

If you must have a new car and you also need to finance it, they can probably screw you more. I don’t even talk about my trade in until I’ve established the price of the new car first. I tell them that I’m keeping the old car and may sell it myself. Then at the end we can talk about the value of my trade. Only one time did I go home with both cars and I sold the previous one myself. I cannot remember all the details on that deal but you do have to take into consideration the tax burden of the new car. If you trade one in, you pay sales tax on the difference between the new and the trade. If you sell it yourself, you pay tax on the whole amount of the new car so even if you can sell your trade for more, will you sell it for 7.5% more (the tax rate here)?

@cengland0 @Kyser_Soze @Star2236 for those who don’t like negotiation then there are countries of the world where you don’t ever want to live as it is presumed everything is negotiable (within certain acceptable norms for the item that is).

@cengland0 @Kidsandliz @Kyser_Soze
Yeah, I would hate that.

@cengland0 Even though you don’t like negotiating for a car you’re doing a lot of the right things to get the lowest price, so I congratulate you! I’m lucky to live in a state without a sales tax.

@Kyser_Soze Thanks for that, coming from you being such a good negotiator, that’s a compliment.

Regarding you not having sales tax in your state, that’s just one method of the state getting money. If you’re not paying sales tax, they are getting it through property tax, car registrations, licenses, permits, special taxes on cigarettes/alcohol/gas, and state income tax. We don’t have a state income tax in Florida but we do have 6% sales tax and then 3 separate 0.5% discretionary taxes for my county making it 7.5% total.

Doing a quick search, there are only 5 states without sales taxes: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon.

Out of those 5 states, only Alaska and New Hampshire do not have state income taxes. But, they both have discretionary taxes for some of the counties and New Hampshire does charge an income tax on dividends and interest in excess of $2,400.

So the question is, would you rather pay tax on items you buy or at the time you earn the income? Does it even matter? To prevent me from having to file two income tax returns (one Federal and one State), I would rather pay the sales tax.

@cengland0 You’re correct, the money must come from somewhere. We have a state income tax. But I’ve enjoyed being able to look at the price of an item and know that is the total price. Sales tax has come up for a vote and we’ve voted it down every time. It’s never been proposed with eliminating the property tax, just adding another tax. I would rather file a state tax return. I wrote a spreadsheet that calculates it with just a few entries. I used to teach classes about income taxes, so the concepts aren’t hard for me. Most free tax software requires money for the state returns.

@mbersiam I’m thinking about getting one too LOL. Even if I don’t get IRKs Think I’m just addicted to meh in general

@kerryzero @mbersiam Same here. Plus “meh” sums up my philosophy a lot of days.

@futurian
I should try that it sounds fun.

@futurian That is such a good idea! I have a big box of silly meh items I’m about to send to family in NC. Once I reach critical mass, I just share the crap lol.

@lisac670 Or parents

@crow YES they do!!! I got a Dyson vacuum back when they were Fuko’s and then I was hooked for life. I kept my last IRK unopened after it arrived until I could share the reveal with my fiancé, who has never done any of this meh stuff (YET!). Not sure he is hooked enough for a mehrathon but I’m introducing it all slowly. First one is free and all that. Muahahahahaha

@Star2236 the bags are my favorite part. Sorry about the blood clot, are you doing ok now?

@kerryzero
I’ve had for 2 months it’s getting a little smaller but still there. Very annoying, thankfully it doesn’t hurt anymore.

@Star2236 that’s good. Hope it’s going away and leaving you alone for good. Have never had one, but those are scary.

@baronrocco

@f00l shallow pool or shallow f00l?

@Barney

Both, obviously. : )