A very common sight when driving through the suburbs of Auckland are signs stapled to lamp post advertising garage sales that will be taking place over in the area. On the odd occasion I will drive past a garage sale in progress and a lot of the time, it doesn’t look like it would be worth my while to stop and see what they have on offer. People hold garage sales for various reasons, which could include de-cluttering and selling off items or selling because of a need for quick cash. Whatever the reasons may be for holding the sale, it is always nice to do it in such a way that you get the most revenue from your efforts.

Here are a few quick pointers that may come in handy if you are planning a garage sale in the near future:

1. Plan: just like anything else in life, it is good to plan for the sale. Set a date for when you are going to have the sale, what you are going to sell and make sure you have enough stuff to offer to actually warrant having the sale.
2. Price: set a price for EVERYTHING you plan to sell and don’t price it too low, keeping in mind that you want to make the sale worthwhile to you. Set reasonable prices and allow for negotiation and with that said, have a minimum price at which you are willing to let go of items for.
3. Advertise: it goes without saying that you need to let people know about the sale. It is probably best to start advertising a week or so before the sale. Put clear signs up around your neighbourhood and drive by them to make sure they are readable. If you have a few dollars to spare, a good place to advertise would be your local newspaper.
4. Presentation: lay out your items in the area where you are having the sale in such a way that your “big ticket” items are what your customers will see first. Also make sure that there is enough space for people to comfortably walk through and take a look at what you have on offer.
5. Payment: Make sure you have plenty of change on hand from different denomination coins to bills. You want to make the payment process nice and easy. It can be frustrating for a customer when they experience a problem of trying to pay for something because you don’t have change. If your customers don’t have cash, you could offer other payment solutions such as Pago (New Zealand), PayPal Mobile (Worldwide) or Square (U.S.) as options.

2 Extras Tips:

• Keep cash on your person: can you imagine it drawing to the end of a successful sale and someone comes along and walks away with your cash box?
• Consider a group sale: if you are friends with your neighbours, consider having a group sale and make it even more worthwhile for everyone.

Do you have any other tips to make a garage sale successful?

“Garage Sale” Photo by enfocar1200

The last couple of years or so has seen an increase in the number of companies in New Zealand that process tax refunds. They advertise by telling the public something like ”you could be owed a tax refund for the last five years. If any refunds owed are unclaimed after 5 years you lose it. We can check that for you, no refund no fee.”

Yes, it is true that you can claim refunds owed from the last 5 years and that if it is left unclaimed for more than five years you lose it. What they don’t tell you for obvious reasons is that you can do it yourself. Since it is just about that time of the year when you can claim a refund for the 2010 tax year, I thought I would write a post on how you can do it yourself and save you a bit of money.

These tax refund companies charge fees that range from 12.5% to about 30% (the highest I came across) of the refund amount owed to you. Depending on how much is owed to you, this figure could creep up into hundreds. In a couple of cases I have known it to go into the thousands but some of the companies do have a cap (one company had a cap of $500) on how much they will charge you. All that they are doing to get their hands on this information is getting a bit of personal information from you, a few figures from the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) and doing a few calculations to see if you are owed a refund or not.

The process of doing it yourself and getting to keep all of your hard earned cash is pretty simple. Here is a basic (I say basic because if applicable you may need have a bit more information at hand suck as Working for Families figures if you are receiving it) step by step guide on how to do it yourself:

1. Call IRD and ask them to send out a Summary of Earnings which they will mail out to you (if you are registered for their online services you can log into you account and get all the information you need there) or you can simple call them and ask them for your income details. You will also need to have the foll0wing information at had (if applicable):

- any interest, dividend or taxable Māori authority distribution details

- whether you’re entitled to one of the low income rebates

- details of any expenses you can claim

2. Enter the required information into their online calculator Personal tax summary calculation for 2010 which will tell you if you may be owed a refund or not
3. If you may be owed a refund, get in touch with IRD and request a personal tax and they will then process an application for a refund

Note: if after doing your calculations it turns out that you owe them money you can chose to keep quiet and do nothing until they start bugging you for it.

Doing all of that yourself really isn’t that hard and it wont take a lot of your time. If you are due a refund in the end it is you who will gain. A simple lack of that little bit of information that you can process your own refund leads us to literally give away some of our money for nothing. Now that you have that bit of information are you still going to get someone else to check whether or not you are due for a refund?

Do you live in Argentina, Chile, China (Mainland), Colombia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, or Romania? If you do, there is a new option for receiving your Adsense payments. You can now receive your payments through Western Union with Western Union Quick Cash.

Payments will be available for pick up from an agent the day after they are issued and it’s free. That’s means you don’t have to wait for a cheque to arrive, be cleared by your bank and potentially lose out on a bit of your earnings with associated bank charges.

The payment method is only available to individual payee names and not to businesses and as per Western Union TOS you will need your ID to pick up the cash. Payments are made out in US dollars and must be picked up within 35 days of issuance. If after this time period you have not collected the money it is put on hold and credited back to your Adsense account.

Find Western Union Agent locations Around the World

Besides trying to make money, it pays to also find ways of cutting down costs. There is no point in making a killing doing whatever it is that you are doing and at the same time spending a lot of money doing it.

If you are someone who makes a lot of phones calls, an option that may work for you in cutting down costs could be a internet telephony service such as Skype. The great thing about Skype is that it is free from Skype-to-Skype. Calls can be made to landlines and mobiles at really good rates. I have been using Skype for a while now and have not yet been disappointed. The sound quality of the calls is good and it has cut down my phone bills by a substantial amount. They also offer a whole bunch of other services such as sms and video calls. If you haven’t already taken a look at Skype, it would pay to do so.


Another great thing about Skype is that it can be linked to your ebay account (if you have one). If you are a seller this makes it even easier for potential bidders to contact you with any queries about your listing(s).

If you are already on ebay buying and selling then chances are you will also have a Paypal account which provides you with a quick and easy way to pay for auctions you have won and for sellers, receiving payments. Paypal can also be used to buy Skype credit and products.

There are other services that you could use but I just love ther way Skype, Paypal and Ebay all tie in together. Try them out for yourselves.
Find hard to find items on eBay!