With the auctions that ended last Sunday the 2008 Garage Sale Challenge has reached it’s halfway point and I thought it would be interesting to take a look at how this year’s Challenge compares to last year’s at this time. It’s also time to check on how this year’s Challenge is progressing toward my goals.

This year’s net profit of $5132.44 at the halfway point is higher than the $3785.21 at the same time last year. However, that increase is likely almost all attributable to the fact that I’m including my Amazon sales this year. Last year I didn’t include them. Amazon has accounted for $1783.59 in gross sales this year.

My actual sales from eBay seem to be very similar to last year. In fact, they are probably slightly less than last year.

How am I doing in relationship to my goal for this year’s Challenge?

Not very well. With a goal of $15,000 net profit I should be somewhere around $7500 at the present time. My actual net profit of $5132.44 is more than $2000 less than where I would like to be right now. This means that to come close to my original goal, during the second half of the Challenge I’m going to have to roughly double my gross profits from the first half.

I’m still confident I can reach my original goal of $15,000 net profit, but it is probably going to require that I make some changes in how and where I’m buying inventory for the Challenge.

While I’d originally said that qualifying Challenge inventory would come from garage sales, thrift shops, book sales, and auction sales, up to this point I’ve concentrated almost exclusively on garage sales and thrift shops. To allow myself a better chance to catch up and meet my original goal, that is going to have to change and I’m going to have to concentrate more of my efforts on auction sales and, to a lesser degree, on book sales.

Doing so will increase my expenses (primarily mileage and inventory cost). That increase should, however, result in a larger increase in my net profits.

Photograph by Celso Roberto de Abreu Silva.

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