Buy High, Sell Low

Our parenting financial plan:
Repeat until broke.

I’ve mentioned it in a prior post, but children are really destructive. Attention people without kids – do you like your stuff? Do you have really nice stuff that you are proud of, that’s rare, has sentimental value, or even real market value?

Think long and hard about how much you love your stuff. Kids don’t give a crap about sentimental or material value. They will play with an object just because it looks fun. They might even break it intentionally just to see what the experience is like.

They’re not careful. They’re still developing their motor skills so they can’t even be careful if they want to.  Cody, for example, can’t even be relied on to stand up straight in the same spot without leaning on something or enter a room without banging into a wall or door. And he has a ridiculous amount of kinetic energy. In the absence of toys or activities, Cody will literally jump up and down in place or run in circles, until he bangs into some foreign object.

Cody knocks large, heavy, securely mounted pieces of artwork off the wall which cause all manner of reciprocal damage. So how well do you think he handles a tiny, delicate, antique Japanese porcelain cup? You know exactly how he handles them – and we have now sent several tiny, delicate, antique shards of Japanese porcelain cup to the garbage dump.

Do you think Andrea and I learn from our mistakes? No, we do not. Having outgrown the train table in the playroom, we decided it was time for a craft table instead. So we went and found one – a beautiful one from Pottery Barn Kids, with four beautiful chairs. This whole setup was like $300 (I only put that number so you won’t think we are outrageous snobs; Dear God I hope the price was that low). We put it into the playroom and the kids went to work on that. I have no idea what it is they’ve done to it, but after six months of use its former gorgeous shiny mocha veneer now resembles your grandfather’s workbench.

When you’re a first-time parent, everything just has to be new. No item can have been soiled by the slightest touch of other children who don’t share your cleanliness fetish or moral upbringing. You pay premium prices for the best products. Months or even weeks later, you’ve outgrown the item physically or realized its impracticality. So you take it to the resale event.

There’s a resale event in Strongsville tomorrow, which will be your opportunity to buy formally pristine items at a fraction of the cost. The exchange rate is roughly $100 new equals $5-20 if lightly used. I know for certain that our $300 Pottery Barn would fetch around $50 and we would call it a win.

$300 out, $50 in. Buy high and sell low. That’s our motto.