Hot, but a little bit cooler. National map has us on the edge of a system for the next couple of days, and we seem to be getting some overcast and cloudiness. That is definitely helping with the overall temps, but it’s still hot and humid by any measure. Only 103F in the shade yesterday. It was less than 100F for longer though, and cooler overnight. We may finally be getting a break.
I did my auction pickup (for the BOL) and chatted with the auctioneer for a bit. He’s noticing several new businesses opening that have bins full of merch from the same sort of sources he has. They have different models for selling. He’s going to try some new stuff too. There is a lot of competition in the secondary/reseller space, and a lot of evolving business models. I think that like most markets, it will consolidate and regularize and that will happen fairly soon. Some deep pocket big players will enter the field and the mom-n-pops will be forced out. Year, maybe two…
D1 hurt herself at school, so picking her up killed my late afternoon plans. Nothing too serious, just bruising. We went grocery shopping instead. I scored some meat, finally. Choice sirloin cap roasts, $5.50/pound. I bought 5 or 6 for the freezer. Made one for dinner that was well received. In the store I was giving lessons on prices, grades, moving up and down market, and inflation. They had very few items on sale this month. Lays Classic potato chips are now $5/bag. They used to be $2.50 for the same “party size”. That’s 100% price increase in a year or two. Other items are up 30-50%. And there were things I would normally buy that weren’t available. The bill is getting bigger, and the shopping cart isn’t as full…
Today is another auction pickup day, but also a drop off day. I’ve got a pickup truck load for the auctioneer. It would also be nice to do settlement and get paid for a few of the previous auctions. I’ve been letting that slide for various reasons, but I don’t want to get too far behind. And some money coming in never hurts.
Some of it I’m stacking. Some of it I’m using for improvements. Some is just daily living. But all of it is cheaper through the auctions and thrift stores than it would be through retail.
Save some money, use it for stacking!
nick