The Burrow Relapses

Okay, maybe that's not true, but I did have to put the cure aside so I could focus on school and trying to get over allergy and asthma problems. I don't feel too badly about it--I've done a lot of clearing, cleaning, downsizing, and rearranging. I won't get the place anywhere near done, though, unless I cram this weekend since I have to study for a big final on Friday. That said, I did read this bit (see below) today that gave me some food for thought. Plus, Maxwell did a post about Calvin Tomkins' Living Well Is the Best Revenge. Making my place better isn't about buying things, that's for sure. It's about making it work for me and for the people I want to feel at home here. It's definitely not letting people make rough comments about things and places I care about, as I've seen happen again and again during the Small Cool competition. Certain people with taste might have well-edited homes filled with beautiful things, but without grace and manners to match, their homes aren't places I'll ever care to set foot in. So, I'm going to charge along and try to improve my home for me, and for my friends who I love to have here. I'll have to do it on my own schedule, though.

***
Americans unload prized belongings to make ends meet
By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO, AP Business Writer Tue Apr 29, 6:04 PM ET

NEW YORK - The for-sale listings on the online hub Craigslist come with plaintive notices, like the one from the teenager in Georgia who said her mother lost her job and pleaded, "Please buy anything you can to help out."

Or the seller in Milwaukee who wrote in one post of needing to pay bills — and put a diamond engagement ring up for bids to do it.

Struggling with mounting debt and rising prices, faced with the toughest economic times since the early 1990s, Americans are selling prized possessions online and at flea markets at alarming rates.

To meet higher gas, food and prescription drug bills, they are selling off grandmother's dishes and their own belongings. Some of the household purging has been extremely painful — families forced to part with heirlooms.

"This is not about downsizing. It's about needing gas money," said Nancy Baughman, founder of eBizAuctions, an online auction service she runs out of her garage in Raleigh, N.C. One former affluent customer is now unemployed and had to unload Hermes leather jackets and Versace jeans and silk shirts.

At Craigslist, which has become a kind of online flea market for the world, the number of for-sale listings has soared 70 percent since last July. In March, the number of listings more than doubled to almost 15 million from the year-ago period.

Craigslist CEO Jeff Buckmaster acknowledged the increasing popularity of selling all sort of items on the Web, but said the rate of growth is "moving above the usual trend line." He said he was amazed at the desperate tone in some ads.

In Daleville, Ala., Ellona Bateman-Lee has turned to eBay and flea markets to empty her three-bedroom mobile home of DVDs, VCRs, stereos and televisions.

She said she needs the cash to help pay for soaring food and utility bills and mounting health care expenses since her husband, Bob, suffered an electric shock on the job as a dump truck driver in 2006 and is now disabled.

Among her most painful sales: her grandmother's teakettle. She sold it for $6 on eBay.

"My grandmother raised me, so it hurt," she said. "We've had bouts here and there, but we always got by. This time it's different."

Economists say it is difficult to compare the selling trend with other tough times because the Internet, only in wide use since the mid-1990s, has made it much easier to unload goods than, say, at pawn shops.

But clearly, cash-strapped people are selling their belongings at bargain prices, with a flood of listings for secondhand cars, clothing and furniture hitting the market in recent months, particularly since January.

Earlier this decade, people tapped their inflated home equity and credit cards to fuel a buying binge. Now, slumping home values and a credit crisis have sapped sources of cash.

Meanwhile, soaring gas and food prices haven't kept pace with meager wage growth. Gas prices have already hit $4 per gallon in some places, and that could become more widespread this summer. The weakening job market is another big worry.

Christine Hadley, a 53-year-old registered nurse from Reading, Pa., says she used to be "a clotheshorse," splurging on pricey Dooney & Bourke handbags. But her live-in boyfriend left last year, and she has had trouble finding a job.

Piles of unpaid bills forced her to sell more than 80 items, including the handbags, which went for more than $1,000 on a site called AuctionPal.com. Now, except for some artwork and threadbare furniture, her house is looking sparse.

"I need the money for essentials — to pay my bills and to eat," Hadley said.

At AuctionPal.com, which helps novices sell things online, for-sale listings rose 66 percent from February to March, much faster than the 25 percent to 30 percent average monthly pace since the company was formed in September, CEO Maureen Ellenberger said. She said she was surprised to see that most of her clients desperately needed to sell items to raise cash.

For LiveDeal.com, a classifieds and business directory site, for-sale listings for January through March rose 10 percent from the previous year.

"We can definitely detect economic stress on the part of the consumer," said John Raven, the site's chief operating officer.

On Craigslist, Buckmaster said, three of the four fastest-growing for-sale categories are tied to gas — recreational vehicles like campers and trailers, cars and trucks, and boats.

Raven noted more and more listings for furniture, particularly in areas around Miami and Las Vegas and other regions hardest hit by the housing crisis.

Baughman, who runs eBizAuctions, said that over the past four months she's been working with mostly desperate sellers instead of mainly casual ones. Most are middle-class customers who can't pay their bills and now want to be paid up front for the items instead of waiting until they are sold, she said.

The trend may be hurting secondhand stores too. Donations to the Salvation Army were down 20 percent in the January-to-March period. George Hood, the charity's national community relations and development secretary, said that was probably partly because people were selling their belongings instead.

And secondhand buyers want better deals now as well, driving prices down. Secondhand merchandise online is going for 25 to 35 percent below what it commanded a year ago, estimated Brian Riley, senior analyst at research firm The TowerGroup.

"It won't hit the saturation point until the (economy) hits the bottom and right now, we don't know when that is," he said.

In Alabama, Bateman-Lee said that she only received $30 for her TV and $45 for her DVD player at a local flea market. She doesn't have too much left to sell, but she's going back to "sort through more things."

Her $30 water bill is due this week.

April 16

Yikes, I hadn't realized it had been two weeks since my last update! To be fair, it's been about that long since I've done any big jobs for The Cure. Aside from paint my front room ceiling, anyway. Foolishly, I decided to start prepping and painting at about 9:40 on a Thursday night, and I finished just after midnight. I was dead on Friday during work and school, but it was a huge relief to get it done.

This cut-in pad really came in handy! I really wasn't looking forward to climbing up and down a ladder to brush in all the edges.


It's amazing how big a difference a white ceiling makes. I love it!


And as I noted in the photo caption on flickr, it's going to get worse before it gets better.


Last week was Office week. I tidied up my home desk a little, but was hard-pressed to do any big work on it. I refuse to move on with any part of the cure until it's done, though, since it's my condo's biggest trouble spot. I'm going to pick up some cabinets for all my paper stuff. I don't feel too badly about cutting into the bathroom week, since my bathroom is almost exactly how I want it, except for painting it. I plan to get that done this weekend.

April 2: Food and paint, but not all at once

Tonights dinner: Braised lamb shank, roasted veggies, and brown rice with pan sauce.


Last week: Aspragus chowder.


Weekend breakfast: Hawaiian bread French toast.


Today, I bought VOC-free (VOC means volatile organic compounds) paint for my ceilings and walls. Good for the planet, and good for me and my asthma- and allergy-ravaged respiratory system. The ceiling paint is a little thicker than regular paint so it won't drip as much. The ceiling will be off white, the bedroom will be "Nightfall," and the bathroom will be "Crisp Morn." The customer service guy at the Home Depot was awesome. He looked my supplies over and strongly suggested I put just about all of it back in exchange for a $10 kit, an extension pole, and some tray liners for the tray that came with the kit. He saved me about $30! Very nice considering I questioned his color-matching job on my bathroom color. I told him it looked whiter than the blue-gray I wanted. He patiently popped the can lid, smeared it on my paint chip, dried it, and showed me that it would, indeed, dry the exact same color. He said that since it was a semi-gloss (my bathroom color), it would look a little lighter.


I'm seriously hoping to paint tomorrow night, but of course, I'm behind on my time line; my room is still a disaster. Ceiling painting may have to wait until Saturday!