Purchasing goods using craig and his list

I originally started this blog to share some helpful money saving tips, my thoughts on being a cheapskate and also write about my day to day personal stuff.  I've hit the personal stuff pretty hard recently so it's time to be Mr. Helpful and share some pro-tips for scoring on craigslist (HEYYYYOOOOOO - Perhaps the phrasing on that is a bit misleading, though the same principals may apply).

As great as craigslist is, it has it's drawbacks.  Any free site is going to attract scammers and spammers, so that is a given.  It also really limits your search radius to what it considers your other nearby craigslists, sometimes that's helpful and others it's not.  I live in an area that is lucky enough to have it's own specific craigslist site, but that doesn't mean the "market" is so large here that I never have to search other craigslist regions depending on what I'm looking for.

Being awesome:  A case study
My leaf vacuum was a recent craigslist find, one of my best to date.  A leaf vacuum is somewhat specialized enough that you're going to have to cast a wide net to find what you're looking for.  I found this one a few hours away, corresponded with the seller over a period of time and in the end he even delivered it to me.

A few things that really worked to my benefit were:

• Motivated seller:  He no longer had any use for it after moving.
• There were some missing parts, I was able to quote the cost of replacement parts and whine about how it's not all there to negotiate a better deal.
• Early and often:  I started looking early enough so that timeline wasn't a problem.  If I had waited until now that the leaves were falling I'd have a lot more competition and would have paid a lot more.  
• Blind luck:  The seller travels a lot, and he just happens to head up my way on a weekly basis, give or take.

I ended up paying $400 for a machine that was used approximately 5 times and looked brand new, and while it was technically incomplete, $45 worth of parts was all I needed to make it, and me, whole again.  Retail on these bad boys is about $1200 and a comparable used ones, going by other craigslist ads, were in the $800+ range.  Awwwwwww yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee [muffins]!

Get by with a little help from your friends

In this wonderful technologically advanced age we live in, there are some tools to help a brotha out.  Personally I use Craigslist Search Helper (CSH), an extension for Chrome, Firefox, or Safari web browsers.  There are other options as well, but this one is my favorite so far.  It basically sits "on top" of craiglist, formats it a little differently, and adds a bunch of nice features to make navigating and searching craigslist much easier.

A lot of fish in the sea

You may need to broaden your horizons and leave your mom's basement and search a larger area.  CSH does exactly that, allowing you to put exactly how far you're willing to travel that's not limited to what craigslist considers your nearby regions.

Early bird gets the worm

CSH lets you set up search alerts to run every XX minutes/hours/days so that you can keep on top of whatever you're looking for.  Your browser needs to be open, and the alerts seem specific to the computer you have the extension installed on.  I may be missing an option to create an account and logon to that so it would work over multiple computers, but I haven't really looked for it, either.  When it finds new stuff you haven't looked at yet, it will pop up a little alert.

Zen and the art of helpful stuff

CSH makes the craigslist results more helpful by allowing you to mouseover the ads to read the text, view pictures, flag as spam, set a flag that you want to follow up with that, and even take notes all without even clicking into the ad.  

And I thought we were friends *harumpf*

The downside to all this is that CSH injects ads in it's layouts and overall it's "skin" for craiglist is not really that great to look at, but since we're all flawed in some way or other I've decided we're still going to go to prom together.

Bring forth into my RSS reader, peasant!

An alternative to CSH I've used in the past is the website crazedlist.org.  It's a bit clunky, you have to use Firefox (after making a change in the hidden browser settings), but one options is that you can save your search as a .OPML file that you can import into your RSS reader.  This was is pretty nice in that you can set it up in Google Reader, for instance and from any computer that has internet you can check to see if there are new ads.  

I find myself using the RSS method for long-term searches that I be creepin' on, and CSH on a daily basis to browse around craiglist and do my "Hmmmmm I wonder what kind of XYZs are for sale within 100 miles of her" type stuff.  

The Final Countdown

Hindsight being 20-20, I really should have started to document our debt-free journey long ago instead of starting when we're already in the home stretch. I think it would have been more motivating to be able to keep up with our progress on a monthly basis or so, but yet here we are. Better late than never, I guess?

Amber and I got married October 11, 2008 which marked the day that I was no longer debt free. While we did a great job saving money and paying for our wedding in cash, it was once again time to buckle down and look toward our future.

Through some relatively frugal living, generous wedding gifts, some help from uncle Obama (first homebuyer tax credit), and hard work, we will have paid off ~$50,000 of student loans and bought a house in our first two years of marriage. Never one to shy away from complimenting myself, it is an amazing accomplishment.

What's the secret? Well, there isn't one. I read this book, it gave me the ideas and the motivation to do something about my debt (We've probably bought 15 of these so far to give away as gifts so far - If you want one, ask!). Aside from the book, here are some general guidelines that have helped me just starting out:

1. If you're not already, keep track of all the money you spend. This can be an real eye-opener when you see how much those fast food runs add up over time. I'd recommend doing something at least like Mint.com (which does all the work for you), even better would be doing a spreadsheet or a program like Quicken.
2. Create a budget and stick to it. Base your budget off figures you've gotten from past months spending, and what you think you should spend in the categories. Don't freak out if you have to adjust these over time.
3. Minimize your spending. Do you really need a new MP3 player or laptop? That monthly subscription to fantasy football forum? Nope, you don't. And don't try and justify it, either. (I'll punch you in the face)
4. Pay yourself / your bills first. Every payday I'll update my quicken file with the income, and then everything I have to pay until the next payday. This will tell me "what I have left", so I know how stingy I have to be. If I'm out of money coming up on payday, then I guess I'm not going out to eat. Easy as that.
5. Plan ahead! If you know your car inspection is coming up and you're going to need tires, then start setting money aside for it. Life's little surprises can un-motivate you really quickly. Constant vigilance, citizen!
6. Plan for what you can't plan for. Set some money aside that is for emergencies only. If something comes up, you won't "lose traction" or add to your debt.
7. Make some extra money. Whether is be a side job or selling stuff on craigslist, any extra income will help you reach your goals.

Amber and I don't have a tremendous income, but without car payments or a $130 cable bill, what we do make lasts pretty well. We only have to concentrate on getting our mortgage, utilities, and living expenses taken care of, and then anything left over is thrown at the student loans.

Every two weeks (on payday) I feel a great satisfaction pressing the "Make a Payment" button on the AES website and watching the student loan balance drop. We're really in the home stretch now, and honestly it's going to be weird in a few months when we don't have any super-aggressive debt payments. But somehow I think we'll make do :)

7/16/10 Debt Counter: $5,842.47