Wild week ahead

[linda/IL]

All this is not good news for me.  My mom looked at an apartment while DB was here.  Can't make up her mind.  At times she can't wait to get out of the house with the acorns on the drive way that she sweeps 2x's/day and the next she wants to stay there until she absolutely has to move.

Either way I've convinced her to start going through the house & getting rid of at least some of her clothes.  She has so much other "stuff" I don't know where to start.  I told her I'd come up one day a week to help her but I truly don't know where to take it other than the back corner of the basement.  I went to an auction a few months ago.  The lady had LOADS of nice things.  Longanberger baskets, Rowe pottery, complete antique dishes, complete Christmas village ($30-could kick myself), a complete white wicker set-6 or 7 pcs. and the 2 braided rugs under it for $300.  Another kick in the pants.  Point is that people aren't putting out money like they were.  Town garage sales the end of the month & I could sell some of mom's stuff but I don't think it's worth my time.  Kids stuff go really well.  Other stuff, not so much.

[turkey feather]

I suggest a resale shop for the clothes. Longerberger Basket and Boyd Bears do not bring anything.

DDIL tried to sell baskets for near what she paid and had no offers. I think some auctioneers do better than others but it all depends on the crowd. My McCoy collection is no where near what I paid for it. Some people think it will turn around. It is the same with everything.

[Kay/NC]

I like to watch the vintage episodes of Antiques Roadshow, where they go back 20 years, and show what has gotten ahead, stayed even, or fallen in value. Much of it has fallen off considerably.

That which has stayed even is just equal $$ in value, which means it hasn't gotten any better in two decades...and we ll know that the buying power of each one of those dollars is a fraction of what it was in 1993. Even the things that have risen haven't kept up, with precious few exceptions.

I think seeing so many people lose everything in the mortgage meltdown may have sobered up the shopaholic zeitgeist. I know I look around our places, tell myself how fortunate we really are materially, and hold onto our money tighter.

I am finding myself wanting so much less. Too much uncertainty. Too little of real worth...maybe it is seeing how things people really thought would grow in value, didn't.

Issues like Obamacare have got folks in an uproar, too. We finally got a firm explanation of our grandfathered plan's status today, and now know we have to do nothing different. Our next year's premium will probably sting more than usual, since we hit the next age bracket in 2014, but that was going to happen regardless.

Hoarding shows do enter into my mind, just aren't in the front of it, when I am in town. I am in a mode of having to get rid of something we already have, in order to make room for anything new. This comes from really liking what we have, at last.