Everyday Woodworking Podcast Ep4
SHOW NOTES
Private Buys - The Best Places To Buy Bargain Tools
Welcome
Hey everyone. I’m Ricky Fitzpatrick with Everyday Woodworking, your Podcast Home for tips, tricks and information on how to make the most of your woodworking time and money, every day.
Well welcome back to the show. If you’re a regular listener, you know we are in the middle of a fun series about The Best Places To Buy Bargain Tools. And if you haven’t listened to the earlier installments, you’ll want to go back and check out Episodes 2 and 3, which will get you up to speed.
Also, if you’ve watched or listened to us before, you may know that I never record a show without having a cup of coffee on hand. And I try to give a shout out to our favorite people by using a coffee mug with their company logo or favorite saying on it. So if you have a coffee cup you’d like to send us, we’d love to add it to our show. Check out the show notes for our mailing address, and you can send your cu along with a little info about yourself or your business.
Our last show was all about Garage Sales, or as we Southerners call them, Yard Sales. And the plan was to bridge that on over into Estate Sales and Private Buys today.
Frankly, I think I’m gong to change that though.
The more I thought about Estate Sales, the more I thought “That’s just a rehash of most of the Yard Sale points”. And it would be. I know there are some differences, but I think we’ll just sort of lump those together, for our purposes.
If we do what I have in mind, which is devote this episode solely to Private Buys, then that’ll be plenty enough to keep us busy!
OK. So what do I mean when I say “Private Buy”?
A Private Buy is buying something from an individual, privately, versus buying something from a retail establishment, and that could be physical or digital. With that definition though, we could include Yard Sales, and yes, that’s why I was originally going to be talking about all these things together. Yard Sales are Private Buys, but they are sort of their own animal. And now that leaves “the rest”.
Now “the rest” is still a huge category. We’ve got online marketplaces like Facebook and Craigslist. Plus we’ve got Classified Ads. And then of course, my main focus…neighbors, friends and family.
A lot of the online marketplaces are a mix of Yard Sales and Retail Buys. Some of the posts you’ll find are even put there by businesses. So there’s some overlap. And you’ll need to treat these areas with a lot of the same Yard Sale mentality:
- Be Informed
- Inspect Things
- Ask For Discounts
One of my big additional suggestions though when buying from an online marketplace is to do your in-person transaction in a public place, if possible. If we’re talking about a drill, that’s easy. If it’s a commercial table saw, then you’ll have to go where it is. But as a rule, always meet in public. I hate to say it, but in today’s world, you just can’t be too safe.
Also, don’t pay for it until you see it. Don’t pay when you and the poster “agree”, say “I’ll Venmo you when we meet and I take a final look at it.” If they have a problem with that, then move on.
Classified Ads. Sort of a dinosaur these days, but they’re still around and they still hold some potential treasures.
There are of course, traditional classifieds, in the back of your local newspaper. And that’s great! But don’t forget online classifieds. With that in mind, Classified Ads are treated with the same rules as Online Marketplaces.
- Ask Questions
- Meet Publicly
- Pay After Inspecting
- And so on
Usually, if someone posts in your local paper, they have to pay to do it. That does weed out some of the riff raf. Although not all. Some dummies are persistent.
Now to Neighbors, Friends and Family.
In my opinion, one of, if not THE best source of great quality, great priced power tools.
But the key to this is one simple thing that most of our crazy world does so little of anymore. VISITING.
Visiting. Or talking. Hanging out. Chewing the fat. Stopping by for no reason. Getting to know people and letting them get to know you. And not just your neighbors. Hey most of us don’t even visit our family more than a few times a year anymore, let alone our friends.
And I’m not just talking about seeing them at work or school or church or in Home Depot. I’m talking about going to someone’s house and getting out or your truck and having a conversation.
You’ll quickly find out that when you start to get social with your peers, you’ll learn that you probably both have things that you don’t need, that the other one does.
That neighbor who is also a weekend woodworker, has a drill press that they never use any more. And you have a router that you’ve outgrown. Wow. Maybe y’all can trade. Maybe he’ll buy your router. Maybe he’ll sell you his drill press for a song. Maybe he’ll just give it to you because his wife is hard on him to make some room in the garage.
But you’ll never know if you never stop by.
And I’m not just talking about stopping to build a network. I’m talking about the tools and equipment you get, being a beautiful byproduct of a web of relationships that go far beyond a saw.
Having said all that…
Make sure you keep a few things in mind.
- Know what you don’t need
- Don’t take home junk
- Learn how to say no
- Still be informed about what is a “good deal”
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that my friends’ generosity can quickly outweigh my wife’s tolerance.
If you aren’t careful, you’ll wind up being a catch-all for all your neighbors’ junk, or all your uncle’s broken tools. Make the best of what you get, and know when to politely decline.
Wow. Now that went fast!
That was a lot! But I hope it was helpful.
Be sure to join us on the next episode where we continue our series on The Best Places To Buy Bargain Tools. We’re going to open up a controversial can of worms and talk about…Home Depot.
Look out. That’s going to be fun. Hey thank you as always for hanging out with me for a few minutes. Again, I hope this was helpful and I hope you’ll join me again here on Everyday Woodworking.
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OK, that’s it. Have a great day. Thanks again. And I’ll see you next time…on Everyday Woodworking.
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