I move back in with my parents, prepare to wait out the economic crisis that people are saying hasn't hit rock bottom yet, try to explain to Discover that there is nothing I can do... (wonder why they don't just give a girl a break, it's not like I'm being stingy, it quite literally comes down to getting DIAPERS for baby and/or paying bills and lets not mention the electricity).
And it's not just us... apparently. From the AP:
Struggling with mounting debt and rising prices, faced with the toughest economic times since the early 1990s, Americans are selling prized possessions online and at flea markets at alarming rates.
"This is not about downsizing. It's about needing gas money," said Nancy Baughman, founder of eBizAuctions, an online auction service she runs out of her garage in Raleigh, N.C. One former affluent customer is now unemployed and had to unload Hermes leather jackets and Versace jeans and silk shirts.
Baughman, who runs eBizAuctions, said that over the past four months she's been working with mostly desperate sellers instead of mainly casual ones. Most are middle-class customers who can't pay their bills and now want to be paid up front for the items instead of waiting until they are sold, she said.
The trend may be hurting secondhand stores too. Donations to the Salvation Army were down 20 percent in the January-to-March period. George Hood, the charity's national community relations and development secretary, said that was probably partly because people were selling their belongings instead.
And secondhand buyers want better deals now as well, driving prices down. Secondhand merchandise online is going for 25 to 35 percent below what it commanded a year ago, estimated Brian Riley, senior analyst at research firm The TowerGroup.
"It won't hit the saturation point until the (economy) hits the bottom and right now, we don't know when that is," he said.
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