One of the central tenants of frugality is buying things that are used instead of new. All financial independence bloggers will tell you to buy your car used because a new car loses “34 percent of its value” as soon as you drive it off the lot… or something like that.
I let the axiom “buy used” extend to almost everything that costs more than $50. There are some things that I won’t buy used, (mattresses, for one) but things that either don’t wear out or can be repaired easily, those are no-brainers for buying used. My bicycle is used. It cost $140 and already rode like a dream. Now I put few dollars and some elbow grease into it every year to keep it in good shape. Here’s the main categories of stuff I always buy used.
Hobby Items
There are no better things to buy used than items you need to start a new hobby. If you’re looking to start exercising, learn an instrument, make jewelry, brew beer, etc., Craigslist is your best friend. America’s basements are the graveyard of good intentions. It’s where dreams go to die!
I can only imagine what the true percentage is, but let’s just invent a number and say that 80% of people trying out a new hobby give up within a year. All that new equipment they bought just goes into the basement to collect dust. That’s where you come in! When you decide to try out the same hobby, you get to profit from their laziness! That stuff they bought will eventually appear on Craigslist, and it will be at a deep discount just to get it out of the house. (You can thank our nation’s spouses for this part of the equation)
Take the home brew set-up I bought. After successfully making a few gallons of hard apple cider last fall, this spring I wanted to try brewing beer. This requires a big pot to brew in, so I went searching Craigslist for just a five gallon pot.
The only listing I found was a guy selling his entire home brew set-up. He tried brewing a few times, but the hobby didn’t stick, so he was selling it all. This set-up included everything. Two huge glass carboys, a five gallon pot, a bottling bucket, another bucket, tubing, a huge funnel, cleaning solution, a hydrometer… you can see it all above. And he only wanted 60 bucks for it!
Well, I couldn’t resist. Those glass carboys can go for $50 themselves! So now I have about 40 bottles of porter aging in the basement. If the hobby ends up being a bust, I’ll just sell all of this stuff again for $60 and the ultimate out-of-pocket expense will be nothing, except for the ingredients used.
Another good example is exercise equipment. We are on our second treadmill, and we paid $0 for this one and for our first one. The first one was a hand-me-down from friends, and I think I actually sold it on Craigslist for a nominal amount, before getting the second treadmill as a hand-me-down from my parents. I actually made a profit from owning a treadmill. How many people can’t say that? If you have the capacity to move a treadmill out of someone’s house, you should never have to pay for one.
Also, weights. I have a barbell with over 200 pounds of weights. The price on Craigslist was $70, and I didn’t even take all of the weights the guy had listed. “I don’t think I’ll be needing the 50 lb plates, thank you very much.” Obviously, they are functionally identical to new weights, but cost 50-75% less.
Electronics
I bought three Apple devices new in my lifetime before coming to my senses. One, I actually got my first iPod (3rd gen) for free in college through a weird site where I completed surveys and things for points, and used those points to get the iPod. Two, I bought an iPod Nano at some point.
Three, I bought an iPod Touch after lusting after them for years. This was after Apple changed their stores to their current austere cash register-less environment. I was very embarrassed to ask one of their “geniuses,” “I want an iPod Touch. How do I buy it?”
These days I wouldn’t dream of buying new electronics. Have you seen how much those things cost?? Doesn’t the newest iPhone retail for a thousand dollars or something like that? Instead, I live perpetually behind the times by a few years. I buy a used item, keep it for a few years, replace it with a slightly newer item, and sell the old one.
Remember how you felt when the newest gadget came out four years ago? Well, basically I experience that today. Gadget-wise, I live behind the times, but since I never catch up to the present day, I never feel like I’m missing out, and I’m saving tons of cash.
For instance, I’m typing this on an iPad right now. Not the newest iPad, of course, but the fourth generation iPad which debuted in November 2012. It came with a $500 price tag, but I bought it for $76. I bought it to replace an Asus tablet which I also bought used for $80 in 2014. I’m now selling the Asus and will count its selling price against the cost of the iPad, so the net cost of the iPad will be less than the $76. See what I mean?
I’ve also discovered that when it comes to Apple products, people will even buy the broken ones! I assume they fix them and re-sell them. I’ve done the same thing with cameras, too. There’s a tiny scratch on my Canon Powershot SX260’s lens which has been bothering me for a year or two, so I might sell it and upgrade to a two-year old model soon before our next big international trip.
That’s a Barnes & Noble Nook, sold on eBay for $20, replaced with a more useful (and used) Amazon Kindle for the same price.
My favorite part of buying something used is that if you don’t want it anymore, sometimes you can sell it for exactly the same price as what you bought it! Then you’ve essentially spent zero dollars! I have no doubt that I could sell our two kayaks for $500, the same price we bought them for ten years ago. The same goes for my used bicycle.
Clothing
I haven’t done this in a while since I haven’t needed to buy much new clothing in the past few years, and what I have needed I’ve been able to cover with Christmas gift cards, but yes, I will buy used clothing on eBay!
It’s very simple. For instance, since I have a brand and size of shirt that always fits me (JCrew, slim medium) I will set a Saved Search on eBay for that. Then eBay will send me an email with few new shirts for auction every day, and if I find anything that looks in good shape, I will set a maximum bid of $8 or $10. (I almost always win because no one is bidding on used clothing.) Viola! That is an easy-as-pie wardrobe refresher.
Tools
If this all sounds familiar, maybe it’s because it was basically the theme of my third blog entry ever in 2014. I had bought some tools for putting in a fence and a paved patio, and was counting on selling the tools for what I paid for them to someone else who needs them, basically treating Craigslist like a tool library.
I never actually bothered to list these things for sale until last week, so I have $20 from selling the post hole digger and tamper, and a grading rake still collecting dust in the shed. I’ll be keeping the sledgehammer. If you’re a home DIYer, there are so many odd jobs that require a specific tool that you’ll only use once. Why not buy it used, then pass it on to the next person?