The book YMOYL talks about “gazingus pins:” the stuff we buy even though we have plenty. For some it’s power tools, for some it’s crafting supplies, for some it’s clothes. They bring little satisfaction and we buy them with little thought, but we keep doing it because we don’t stop to think about it.

My gazingus pin is buying goods, especially books, to resell online. Last weekend I went garage sale-ing all day and spent $40 on stuff, including a Yakima car rack. Well, hardly any of the books were worth anything online, and the rack is obsolete even though I thought it would be worth something. So now I’m stuck with a bunch more junk to get rid of and am out most of the money, too, or at least have to work my tail off to recover some or all of it.

There’s a reason I abandoned the practice of acquiring goods to sell online: the profit just wasn’t worth the effort involved to obtain and sell them. It wasn’t worth my life energy, in YMOYL terms. My own junk, yes . . . online sales were a good way to get rid of it and make a few bucks. But I really have nothing left that I want to part with that would be of any value. So I have to come to terms with the fact that I am done making buck off eBay and Amazon for a while. I’d forgotten that and this is a sucky reminder.

And even though I’m pissed at myself for parting with $40 needed dollars on this crap (thinking I was going to recoup it all and probably won’t . . .), I just need to remember that for next time just to garage sale for pleasure and not business ;) Or at least not to buy a $30 car rack. :(