UPDATE 10/19/11 - We updated the items that have sold so far. More to come soon!
We are back with great news! We finally won a storage unit auction in Newport News. To read our first post on this topic Click Here. Now that we won a storage unit auction in Newport News, it is time to complete this experiment to see if we can at least make our money back buying a storage unit through auction.
Bidding raged, but we finally won this unit. Based on this, we wanted to clean out the unit ASAP and try to get our money back through ebay, craigslist, or any other way we could get rid of the product.
We were bidding on what we could see (as seen in the picture). We saw a nice bagger lawnmower, two mini refrigerators, a tire and one piece of art. We figured we would bid up to $150 for the lot based on the fact that we wanted to keep nothing and sell everything, with hopes of making our money back with what we saw, and keeping the sales of what we could not see. However, bidding raged and we felt the itch to finally win one. With $400 in our pocket, we decided that bidding a little more would not hurt. So we went to $180 and finally snagged one. We were excited to learn what we did not see. What was in the boxes?
We cleaned the storage unit auction winnings out. After going through everything, we isolated the storage unit into three different categories: trash, give, and sell.
Trash. Trash was everything that had no value and needed to simply be thrown out. This included dirt, broken items, and garbage.
Give. These were items that we knew would not sell. Old clothes, items without much immediate value, and items we were not interested in selling fell squarely into this category.
After the three categories were determined, we made trips to the appropriate places. First we loaded up the items of value (sell) and took them back to the office for photographing and posting online. We made a trash run to the dumpster with the trash and loaded the give boxes into the car and headed over to the Disabled American Veterans Thrift Stores, our favorite charity.
Now, we were ready for the important part of this experiment, SELL! These were the items assessed to be of value. These included the mini fridges, lawn mower, art work and other items found in boxes.
Here is what we found in our storage unit auction in Newport News -
Bagger Lawn Mower- Posted on Craigslist for $100 and took $80 for it.
Tire. Listed for $20 on Craigs list. No takers so far.
Mini fridge 1. Listed for $20 on Craigslist. No takers yet. UPDATE - Giving to charity. 
Mini fridge 2. Listed for $30 on Craigslist. No takers yet. UPDATE - Sold for a case of beer to a friend. 
Art. Not listed yet. Still trying to determine a value, if any. 
Youth football jersey and helmet. Sold for $20 through Craigslist. We found this one in a box unexpectedly. Bonus item!
Roller blades. Listed on Craigslist for $10. No bidders yet.
Sneakers, Converse, Girls- Listed on eBay for $0.99 right now with one bidder. Bidding continues for 2 more days.
UPDATE- SOLD - for $6.75 + shipping costs
Dress, Ladies, New - Listed on eBay for $0.99 right now with no bidder. Bidding continues for 2 more days. 
Sneakers, Nike, Girls/ boys- Listed on eBay for $0.99 right now, no bidders. Bidding continues for 2 more days.
UPDATE- SOLD - for $1.04 + shipping costs
Shirts, work, Wackenhut- Listed on eBay for $0.99 right now with one bidder. Bidding continues for 2 more days.
UPDATE- SOLD - for $9.01 + shipping costs
Robe, religious - Listed on eBay for $0.99 right now with one bidder. Bidding continues for 2 more days.
So far, we have $116.80 in our hands from sales of items we won through storage unit auctions in Newport News. We will continue to post updates as we sell items! Stay with us as we determine what is Bad Money and what is not.
