Stripping Wire: Slow and Steady Wins the Race

My husband and I have a difference of opinion when it comes to stripping wire.  I tend to be of the slow and steady school: I’ll plant my butt in front of the TV with a utility knife and a mess of wire and strip, strip, strip away.  I don’t care how tiny the wire is: if there’s copper in there, I’m going to get it out. 

Mind you, I’m a person who loves needlework.  So the picky, repetitive aspect of stripping small wire appeals.  Copper’s going for $2.30 a pound up here: the same wire, still inside an appliance/radio/car pulls down less than 9 cents a pound.  To me, the value is there.  You have to practice before you work up an acceptable return on your time: I’m not stripping anywhere near ten pounds an hour yet — but every little bit helps.  If I’m watching TV anyway, I might as well make some money while you’re doing it.

Tim’s theory is to just accumulate a lot more weight and that will more than make up the price disparity between mixed scrap and clean copper and/or aluminum.  What do you think and why?

Economic News and Job Free Living

There was a blurb on the morning news this morning about the sudden surge in popularity of pawn shops.  Pawn shops, in case you’re not familiar, function as a sort of bank: you bring in something (jewelry, often, or electronics.  Guns.  Stuff like that, although I’ve been at pawn shops and seen baby strollers) and the pawn shop owner gives you some cash.  If you can repay the pawn broker in a given time, say 7 days, you get your stuff back.  If not, the pawn broker resells it, obviously for a profit.

 Now I know what you’re thinking: what does this have to do with me?

 Two, maybe three things.

 First: if you’re short on cash and considering a pawn shop, stop and think it through.  This might not be the best idea you ever had.  If you can’t raise the money to repurchase your own stuff, you’re going to lose it.  Someone else will buy it, it will be gone forever, and if this is something near and dear to you, it hurts.

 Never pawn anything you can’t bear to live without. 

Secondly, if you’re functioning on the assumption that you’re likely not to get the item back (let us be pragmatic here: sometimes that is truly the case) pawn shops do not pay top dollar.  You’re going to realize a higher price by selling the item outright: either to a flea market dealer, through the classified ads, or on eBay or a similiar auction service.

Finally, and this is where we shift mindsets, I’d urge you to proceed very, very cautiously before acting as a defacto pawn broker yourself.  Pawn shops are surprisingly tightly regulated.  This is in part due to the fact that one of the most efficient ways to move stolen goods is via pawn brokers. People who do this as their business know how to handle the issue of stolen goods. You, acting as an individual, have neither the training nor any legal protection whatsoever if you’re found to be dealing in stolen goods. Worse, it may be illegal in the state you reside to act as a pawn broker without the proper permits and licenses. Check with local authorities if you’re determined to do this.

Additionally, you’re putting yourself in a very bad position: people often react badly when they discover you’ve sold the item they left with you as collateral — even if the time you’ve agreed upon has lapsed, two or three times over!  Avoid the heartache and stress by purchasing things from people outright, for keeps, to do with as you see fit. 

You always want to keep track of where you get the things you later re-sell.  This is good common sense anyway: you want to make sure you’re realizing a profit, and it makes end of the year accounting much, much easier.  If you do purchase an item from someone that later turns out to be stolen goods, when the police come knocking, you can tell them exactly when you bought the item, what you paid, and where and who you sold it to. 

 There are some clear indicators that the economy is not doing well.  The spike in pawn shop usage is one of these indicators. While it’s tempting to take advantage of this trend, I would advise proceeding very cautiously.

Touching Base

Wow!  It’s been a little bit since I stopped in here.  The first two weeks of January were largely consumed by writing two client books.  Everything else got caught up in the slack — but now I’m throwing things up on eBay again, and am devoting some free hours to crafting with an eye to resale.

I worry, because no one’s selling what I’m making — but on the other hand, I rejoice because no one’s selling what I’m making.

 Now I need to buckle down and dig my house out.  Expect more regular updates anon!

Scrap Metal: What You Need to Get Started

This is a question people ask me all the time: what do you need to get started collecting scrap metal?  I thought I’d make a list, and you can see what you have and what you need to acquire. Obviously, this is my list — other people do it differently, and people who have larger operations than we do would have their own requirements. 

Gloves  You need a good pair of work gloves if you’re going to do scrap  metal.  Metal is sharp, it’s rusty, it’s dirty.  You’re going to get cut, but you want to keep that to a minimum.  Getting fixed up at the dr. is expensive!  Your hands bear the brunt of the damage, get a good pair of gloves.

Good Eyesight The ability to spot metal alongside the road, in dumpsters, behind buildings, etc. is a learned skill, but some peole just have more talent for it than others.

Chutzpah This is a yiddish term, meaning, frankly, balls.  You have to have the nerve to go up to people’s houses and ask them if they want to sell you that junky car in the yard or if you can have that pile of junk next to their barn.  If it’s out on the curb to be collected by the trashman, it’s free game.  Otherwise, you have to ask, and that takes nerve.  This, strangely, is where most people fail.

A vehicle I recommend a pickup truck, but I’ve scrapped in a station wagon, on foot, and other ways.  Pickups are nice because you can toss things in the back.  Metal is heavy: scrapping on foot is hard, and you’re not going to earn enough that way unless you’ve got the motherload of clean copper to go over.

Wire Strippers  You can get these at the dollar store.  Stripping wire is time consuming, but if you’ve got the free time, why not do it?  The difference between clean copper (stripped wire) and dirty copper (wire with a casing still on it) can be as much as 50 cents a pound.

A Clue About metal identification.  Being able to tell copper from aluminum, steel from tin, and so on is not rocket science.  Look up pictures on the internet.  Go to the scrapyard and have them show you.  Learn what things are commonly made of: you’ll see copper dinnerware, brass knicknacks, etc.  Go to the plumbing supply section at home depot, and look at piping. 

 That’s what you need to get started.  Other items make it all better: a trailer to haul more stuff, a place to store/sort things, minions to do your bidding…but this is a good starting point.

Waste Not, Want Not

Part of the year’s coming plan is doing crafts with materials salvaged from the Every Little Bit specialty waste removal business, which I’ll go on and on about at some point.  Today I’m in a bit of a rush, but I wanted to give you a look at the first ornament from the Waste Not, Want Not line — a frog, embroidered on fabric salvaged from a denim miniskirt no one wanted to buy.

 

More later, when I’ve time to turn around twice 

Resolutions: The Year in Review

The year’s drawing to an end, and I find myself in a period of reflection and planning: what worked last year, what didn’t.  What would I like to do differently, and how can I be more efficient?  Right now I’ve got some very loosey-goosey ideas, and am devoting the next week’s worth of entries to goal setting and moving forward.

 But first, I want to hear from you.  What are you planning to do in the coming year?  Will this be the year you start your own business?  Leave behind the 9-5 world?  Start doing the work you love, instead of the work you have to do? Tell me what your dreams are!

Selling Art on eBay

Doing some research while my ancient printer does its thing: found this article on selling art on eBay , which is not something I do (although hey, if someone wants to pay for my stick figures, I’ll sell them! However, lots of my friends and people reading this are artists, so perhaps it’s useful to them.

And remember the band sweatshirt auction? Less than 10 hours to go, and it’s up to $8. $8! For someone’s old sweat jacket. Wow.

Nano entrepreneurship

Wow.  Time is flying by — I turn around twice, and it’s already afternoon.  Nothing like work to make time evaporate.

Anyway, concpetually, I’m coming to a realization about the Every Little Bit lifestyle: it’s really a state of nano-entrepreneurship: making a living by creating several small businesses, rather than one large one.  Structuring these all so they fall into one LLC has great tax advantages for me: also, there’s the flexibility to pick up and put down businesses as needed: if one stream isn’t profitable, there are six or seven others to rely upon.  The stress on any one channel is reduced.

This is particularly important for things like scrap metal: when the metal’s there, it’s there when it’s not, it’s not.  Because it’s not the only income stream, I’m not screwed if I don’t find something.  The trick is to always have something.

 That being said, I’d better get back to the writing stream!

Scrap Metal: Realizing Maximum Value

Again, returning to scrap metal.  How to realize the maximum value for what you collect?

Obviously, some if this requires knowing your scrap yards and your markets.  Who’s paying what?  Be advised that not all yards pay the same amount, and generally, payment varies individually at the yard: if you’ve got a good relationship with the guy running the yard, you’ll pull down more than the guy he’s never seen before.

Consider always if scrapping is the best way to deal with the stuff you’ve collected.  If you’re knowledgeable and have the space, you can sell a car for parts: advertising in a local Pennysaver, on Craigs list or whatnot to sell the parts.  People will quickly learn to come to you to see if you ‘ve got something.  Drawbacks: you need space and knowledge.  Zoning is difficult: many localities have a limit to how many junked cars you can have in your yard.  Break them down as much as you can, store the bits you’ve got, and scrap whatever isn’t immediately salable (chassis, etc)  If you’ve got the room to store doors, etc, more power to you.  You’ve got to be ORGANIZED.

Always sell radiators, catalytic converters seperately.  They’re worth more.  Same’s true for the battery.

Random scrap: can it be resold?  Reselling generally always brings in more than scrap, especially if you’re looking at mixed steel. 

Consider value added options: can you turn it into a craft, art, a useable item?  Now we’re looking at investing your time, to realize a higher return.  Might be worth it, might not, depending on your skill set and personal drive.  It’s a matter of how much are you going to be happy with?

Stealing Ideas

One of the reasons I love wordpress is it lets you track your blog stats.  You can see what people search for, and what ideas brought them to your blog.

 One of the strangest, and most common, searches, is ’stealing ideas’.  This is a pet peeve of mine, so let’s address it right here and now.  If you’re going to succeed at the Every Little Bit lifestyle, you need two things.  One: the ability to recognize a good idea if you see it.  Two: the ability to generate lots and lots of good ideas of your own.

Ideas are not like your silverware.  You can’t lock them away in your closet and keep them safe forever and ever, Amen.  The only way to benefit from an idea is to use it, and by using it, you demonstrate to others the power of your idea.  As sure as the sun rises in the East, someone is going to copy it.  You can make yourself crazy worrying about this, or you can get over it.

I recommend getting over it.  One of the reasons many writers never get anywhere with their work is that they’re afraid to submit their stories to publishing houses for fear ’someone will steal my idea’.  So they protect the idea — and they never get anywhere.

 An idea is only one element in a sucessful product, whether it’s a novel, a craft, a code, a service, anything.  There’s also the execution, the materials used, the marketing — a million different components that help us discern between one product and the next.  Don’t believe me?  How much does it cost for a black Hanes T-shirt?  How much does it cost for a black T-shirt from Abercrombie?  There’s a world of difference price wise, although both sprang from the same initial idea.

Don’t let paranoia paralyze you.  If worrying about someone stealing your ideas is keeping you from implementing your ideas, you’ve harmed yourself far more than anyone else will ever harm you.  Someone had to knit the first scarf, carve the first wooden penguin, embroider the first iPod cover.  The fact that every subsequent variation of those items is, in some small way, a copy, does not invalidate their worth — nor the worth of the initial item.

 Here’s a little secret.  By and large, customers don’t care who had an idea first. They want whoever had the execution of that idea that works best for them.  That means there’s room for all of us.