Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Buying New And Selling Old

This evening I made a trip to the local used book store.

We have been slowly compiling a bag of books that were no longer ones that we read - which turned into two bags, which then became three.  To be fair, most of them belonged to The Ravishing Mrs. TB, but over the past week I have started to become almost maniacal in my need to downsize things.  For me, it was probably maybe 20 books - but the fact that I would part with any of them should indicate the height of my energy.  They were all books that I had kept for years but had never gone back and read for one reason or another, so into the bag they went.

The grand total for a haul of three bags worth of books?  $12.00 (That is $15.36 to my Canadian friends).

Hardly seems worth it, does it?  Mind you, I would guess that well over $300 went into those books over the years as they were purchased.  And everything is driven by the market, of course (and I suspect cookbooks and some Christian books, which were in the mix, are hardly the sorts of things that sell well these days).  Still, as I pointed out to her, it is $12.00 we did not have yesterday and a little bit of additional space in the house.

What it did impress on me once again is the foolishness of buying new and selling old.

Buying new books is not the thing it used to be for me, once upon a time - I have not set foot into the last remaining Major Bookstore Box Marketer in probably three years.  Why?  Because the mark up compared to Amazon is stupid.  But even on Amazon, I more often will try to get the new rather than the older because, in my mind, I am "gaining value" by not paying the postage.  Fool!  What is more important - stretching those book dollars or just getting a slightly used one, like I would if it in the local used book store?

And selling old - once you have something that is not immediately usable or disposable, it seldom increase in value.  Yes, I can understand moving things out to make room or cut down on clutter, but never do it on the basis that somehow you are going to make back anything compared to what you put out for them.

Really, a lesson for almost anything you spend money on: very few things are best new, and almost nothing is quite as good selling old.

4 comments:

  1. Books are a sore point around here right now.

    My 82 year uncle was an academic professorial type. He had hundreds and had written a few himself - back in an age where getting published was a big deal.

    His wife passed away in the fall, and he was getting old and frail and it was time to go into a home for seniors. TB - he couldn't GIVE the books away. Nobody wanted them. He dropped a few off at the homeless shelters but they didn't have a need for old professional and technical texts either. I had never seen the man so sad. Most of them went to the paper recycle.

    Guess that's where we all end up once our days are done.

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  2. We have always pretty much figured that anything bought new automatically drops in value by 50% as soon as you walk out the door or drive off the lot.
    Some things that is not true for. 55 Chevy's, for instance.
    But overall, as you say, almost nothing.

    Guess that makes the case for buying used whenever you can, and it is logical to do so.
    You all have a blessed week, TB. :)

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  3. It is a hard thing Glen, and something that I have given thought to more than once. The reality is that as a civilization, we do not read as we used to - not that things are not more available than ever, just that no-one has the time or concentration to do it. We are essentially becoming illiterate in an age of information.

    The other thing - which is giving me equal pause - is that in some cases, I fear that books will start to disappear: books that are inconvenient or buck the current popular thinking of what is correct. Especially with the establishment of electronic books, things can just "disappear" - even if you own it.

    Wiser minds than I have pointed out that we have reached the edge of the society mentioned in Bradbury's Farenheit 451 - but in our case. we did it to ourselves.

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  4. You know Linda, I always thought the case for big ticket items. I guess it just never came through to me that this applies to everything. And yes, I should be thinking more in terms of used.

    Thanks, as always, for stopping by!

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