We woke up on this blessed Sunday morning earlier than I wanted to. Instead of lying in till about 9am as I regularly did, this morning was different. There was a monster garage sale in the city. It’s the mother of all garage sales and our friends assured us there’ll be heaps of treasures at very cheap prices. We wanted to buy second-hand xbox games and Bea wanted to buy cheap toys. They warned us we had to be in there early to beat the rush so we were up and about at 6.30am with me scurrying around and asking Bea to hurry up and get changed while hubs was in the shower.
At 7.55am we were off! We made a quick detour to the cash machine. I could feel the excitement building up inside me. I was thinking about all those little trinkets that I could find in the garage sale.
I never used to like garage sales. I don’t know if because I was not used to it but I didn’t like the thought of buying second-hand stuff from people we didn’t know. Second-hand stuff is fine when given or sold by people WE know and not by total strangers. Who knows what their habits were?
Here in NZ, garage sales and second-hand shops are all over the place and kiwis come in droves when garage sales are advertised. There’s even a Sunday tiangge that people go to, to buy second-hand stuff, a newspaper called “Buy, Sell and Exchange” where sellers advertise their stuff and a dedicated buy and sell website called trademe for kiwi traders.
Slowly, hubs introduced me to the idea –
First, second-hand cars are fine, they’re the norm here. You don’t buy brand new cars because they’re way over-priced but second-hand cars from Japan are good. At first, I was doubtful but I saw the condition of the second-hand cars and they’re way better than second-hand cars sold in Manila.
Second, building your own house is not the norm here, it is perfectly acceptable to buy a house and lot previously owned by someone else. Back in Manila, people I know have their house built rather than buying second-hand homes.
Third, it is ok to buy second-hand furniture, bits and pieces and appliances from people you don’t know. It came as a shock to me on my first few weeks here when I found out that our lounge suite (couch, chairs in the living room), chest freezer, vanity mirror and side-tables in the bedroom were bought from second-hand shops! I said “ewwww” what if the owners or the previous owners’ pets had fleas or something! Hubs called me a snob. I refuted it by saying “I’m just not used to it.”
Fourth, it is ok to buy second-hand clothes. Now, that’s where I drew the line. No sirreeee, no second-hand clothes for me and Bea. Who knows which bodies these clothes came from. I do not mind hand-me-downs from family and friends — PEOPLE WE KNOW but not from total strangers and hubs have given up making me understand it’s perfectly all right.
So, now I am slowly getting used to the idea of scouring stuff from garage sales — I’ve been to my 5th or 6th since arriving in the country 2.5 years ago. We bought a second-hand TV from a garage sale we went to for a steal and it’s now in Bea’s bedroom. We’ve bought quite a few bits and pieces from our garage sale forays. We’ve also bought and sold quite a few items in trademe and from advertising in Buy, Sell & Exchange.
Would you believe, even hubs latest toy — a Yamaha Vmax motorbike was bought from trademe? We also were able to sell our lounge suite in trademe. I so love the online site — it’s our local ebay
Back to our trip this morning. We arrived bright and early hopeful that we’ve beat the crowd. We arrived at the stadium and wondered where all the people were — Where were all the cars? Where were all the stalls? — and then we saw the sign, pakinshet! the monster garage sale is on tomorrow (7th June) and not today (6th June) — blech. :<
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