You can sell valuable personal property now. Maybe not after hyperinflation starts.
Posted by John Reed on
My hyperinflation book has a chapter titled “Advance Purchase and Sale.” It says that one way to avoid being hurt by future inflation is to buy everything you’ll need in the future now.
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Yes, I know that is easier said than done. But if you wait until we have hyperinflation, EVERYONE will be trying to sell all that sort of stuff in the house, garage, attic, storage locker.
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I generally make daily car trips to run errands or eat at a restaurant. It occurs to me that I should grab some item that is salable for cash every time I go out and use the proceeds to buy the restaurant meal of the trip.
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The venues for the sales are
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flea markets
garage sales
pawn shops
jewelry stores
gun stores
coin stores
eBay
Craig’s List
cash for gold stores
musical instrument stores (to sell an instrument)
collectibles stores
consignment shops
Facebook Marketplace
Nextdoor
.
If you can think of another venue for selling, please tell me.
.
If you are like my family, you have a ridiculous amount of this stuff. Your heirs will likely throw most of it away.
.
If you’ve seen Antiques Road Show, you got a good picture of his part of the economy. Ditto Pawn Stars.
.
At first, you will likely be disappointed and pissed at the low prices. But if you keep at it, you will get over your initial unrealistic expectations. You will also become more skilled recognizing the value of your time and how the various venues operate and what various “house junk” is worth.
.
My college roommate and Best Man had a younger brother who got into the habit of going to garage sales as a kid. Then he started buying underpriced items and reselling them for the actual market value at his own frequent garage sales. I assume he is now in his 70s. What was his adult career? Estate sales.
.
And that is exactly what I am suggesting you do NOT use for your items. When my wife’s siblings died, we had estate guys come to the houses. They turned their noses up at everything. They are cream skimmers. You see them in all sorts of commissioned sale businesses: real estate, stock brokers. There is nothing wrgon with cream skimmers. Cream skimming make great sense for them. Time is money. They choose stuff they can sell in the shortest possible time for the least possible effort.
.
By doing this stuff daily or weekly, you will become experienced and knowledgeable and efficient and do better than your heirs just consulting cream skimmers.
.
You should also buy everything you will ever need now. We have a substantial amount of freeze dried and dry pack (Mormon) long-shelf life food. I have a number of propane bottles. Hard to keep a zillion of those around safely. We also have lots of cleaning, hygiene, paper, razors, consumable supplies.
.
Fuel for heating, cooking, etc. is somewhat hard to stockpile. If you can use wood, living near woods or an ocean beach will give you an ability to stockpile or collect it during the emergency. If you do not live near such, you would need to build a suitable structure to safeguard the wood from thieves and termites.
.
MY MAIN POINT is similar to almost every other point I make on this issue. Generally, the stuff you need to do to protect yourself is relatively easy to do NOW before the ’flation hits the fan, but extremely difficult to do—often illegal—after the inflation starts.
.
Think about it. A bag of groceries that now costs $100 jumps up to $1,000—for everyone. You HAVE TO get the groceries, you go through your savings extremely rapidly during the inflation. Then what? You need to barter or sell the stuff I listed above. You and the rest of the world. You will probably find that jewelry stores and pawn shops and coil dealers put up signs saying something like “Enough. We are now only buying the most profitable items because we have almost all sellers and few buyers.”
.
DURING hyperinflation, everyone will be trying to sell the somewhat valuable junk all over their houses and storage lockers.
.
Yes, I know that is easier said than done. But if you wait until we have hyperinflation, EVERYONE will be trying to sell all that sort of stuff in the house, garage, attic, storage locker.
.
I generally make daily car trips to run errands or eat at a restaurant. It occurs to me that I should grab some item that is salable for cash every time I go out and use the proceeds to buy the restaurant meal of the trip.
.
The venues for the sales are
.
flea markets
garage sales
pawn shops
jewelry stores
gun stores
coin stores
eBay
Craig’s List
cash for gold stores
musical instrument stores (to sell an instrument)
collectibles stores
consignment shops
Facebook Marketplace
Nextdoor
.
If you can think of another venue for selling, please tell me.
.
If you are like my family, you have a ridiculous amount of this stuff. Your heirs will likely throw most of it away.
.
If you’ve seen Antiques Road Show, you got a good picture of his part of the economy. Ditto Pawn Stars.
.
At first, you will likely be disappointed and pissed at the low prices. But if you keep at it, you will get over your initial unrealistic expectations. You will also become more skilled recognizing the value of your time and how the various venues operate and what various “house junk” is worth.
.
My college roommate and Best Man had a younger brother who got into the habit of going to garage sales as a kid. Then he started buying underpriced items and reselling them for the actual market value at his own frequent garage sales. I assume he is now in his 70s. What was his adult career? Estate sales.
.
And that is exactly what I am suggesting you do NOT use for your items. When my wife’s siblings died, we had estate guys come to the houses. They turned their noses up at everything. They are cream skimmers. You see them in all sorts of commissioned sale businesses: real estate, stock brokers. There is nothing wrgon with cream skimmers. Cream skimming make great sense for them. Time is money. They choose stuff they can sell in the shortest possible time for the least possible effort.
.
By doing this stuff daily or weekly, you will become experienced and knowledgeable and efficient and do better than your heirs just consulting cream skimmers.
.
You should also buy everything you will ever need now. We have a substantial amount of freeze dried and dry pack (Mormon) long-shelf life food. I have a number of propane bottles. Hard to keep a zillion of those around safely. We also have lots of cleaning, hygiene, paper, razors, consumable supplies.
.
Fuel for heating, cooking, etc. is somewhat hard to stockpile. If you can use wood, living near woods or an ocean beach will give you an ability to stockpile or collect it during the emergency. If you do not live near such, you would need to build a suitable structure to safeguard the wood from thieves and termites.
.
MY MAIN POINT is similar to almost every other point I make on this issue. Generally, the stuff you need to do to protect yourself is relatively easy to do NOW before the ’flation hits the fan, but extremely difficult to do—often illegal—after the inflation starts.
.
Think about it. A bag of groceries that now costs $100 jumps up to $1,000—for everyone. You HAVE TO get the groceries, you go through your savings extremely rapidly during the inflation. Then what? You need to barter or sell the stuff I listed above. You and the rest of the world. You will probably find that jewelry stores and pawn shops and coil dealers put up signs saying something like “Enough. We are now only buying the most profitable items because we have almost all sellers and few buyers.”
.
DURING hyperinflation, everyone will be trying to sell the somewhat valuable junk all over their houses and storage lockers.
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