Where Have You Lived...?

Places you've lived:
DC, Arlington, Rochester (NY), White Plains, OCMD, Pleasantville (NY), Armonk, Stamford, Malibu, London, Brooklyn (Carroll Gdns, Bay Ridge), Manhattan, Spokane, Boardman (OR).

Location you enjoyed living the most:
Arlington has been mostly decent; but I feel that I have over-stayed here & it is past time to re-locate closer to the ocean.

Location you didn't enjoy:
Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. Those were my brokus days; there were way too many Guidos in those days; had to take filthy, violent subway everywhere.

And why ^^ if you feel like spewing.

Reason for this treade: the political treades are getting repetitive; as well, it's a bit flat, maybe a bump on Sunday at TPTSNBN, but The Surfing Season is upon us.....so do tell...

 

Good add, sidawg.....

Like to Try: Thailand

postscript: the only reason that Arlington has been decent is cause I travel so much; if I were locked down in Arlington, meaning couldn't go places away from, fuggedaboudit...

 

The RV Life - - how to make money
By Greg Bensinger
Updated Jan. 4, 2017 2:05 p.m. ET
WSJ

Jason Wyatt nabbed one of his greatest prizes on the back roads of rural Georgia.

At a regional wholesaler near where he hitched up his 42-foot recreational vehicle, he spotted Char-Broil grill covers for $4 a piece. Mr. Wyatt, a 38-year-old former aviation electronics technician, knew he had a score.

Mr. Wyatt talked the salesman down to less than $2 each, hauled away 150 grill covers—his truck-bed sagging under the weight—and made a handsome four-figure profit by reselling them on Amazon.com .

“I saw they were selling for $28 on Amazon, so it was a no-brainer that I was going to have to buy them all,” he said.
Jason Wyatt
Jason Wyatt

Mr. Wyatt is one of the adventurous road warriors who have ditched their permanent addresses in order to tour the country in RVs, financing the nomadic lifestyle by hunting for odds and ends in small-town stores and garage sales and selling them for a profit online.

 

They are traveling salespeople for the digital age. These deal hunters use barcode-scanning and price-comparison apps to calculate their expected profits and turn their RVs, some the size of Manhattan apartments, into mobile retail-distribution centers, sometimes with children in tow.

Jerry Siegel, a 65-year-old Bend, Ore., native, has rigged his 37-foot trailer with six computers he and his wife use to list merchandise on Amazon’s site, as well as to manage his new line of private label skin-care products and 3-D printed goods. The former heavy-equipment driver estimated he logged $100,000 in sales in his best year but didn’t say what his net profit was.
Danielle Leonard has been touring since this summer with her husband and their four children in a Ford Excursion hauling a 37-foot trailer.
Danielle Leonard has been touring since this summer with her husband and their four children in a Ford Excursion hauling a 37-foot trailer. Photo: The Leonard Family

The allure, they say, is a life exploring national parks and small-town America. “You can learn about America in a classroom, or you can get out there and really experience it,” said former Hazlet, Texas, resident Danielle Leonard, who has been touring since this summer with her husband and their four children in a Ford Excursion hauling a 37-foot trailer.

They are also after the thrill of the hunt. Mr. Wyatt said he once bought a handful of 18-ounce jars of Manuka honey, which is made in New Zealand and Australia, for around $5 each at a Dalton, Ga., store. He then sold them for about $45 each on Amazon. “I guess it’s some kind of special honey,” he said.

The practice, known as retail arbitrage, is easy in principle. Buy store products that sell for more on Amazon and flip them online for a profit. Sellers prefer Amazon over, say, eBay , because it allows them to ship and store their goods in Amazon’s warehouses—where they are entered into the marketplace’s database—meaning they don’t have to hold on to their inventory in the cramped confines of an RV. Amazon then ships the products to customers.

But life on the road, not to mention navigating Amazon’s maze of rules, requires experience and intuition.

In a moment of impulse, Mr. Siegel once bought 11,000 books from a Craigslist seller as he was passing through Reno, Nev., for just $900. Only, he hadn’t considered where he would store them or how he would ship them to an Amazon warehouse. His solution: a separate U-Haul to lug the books to a storage unit where he and his wife spent most of two months sifting through the volumes and entering them into Amazon’s filing system.

 

“I lost 12 pounds doing that work,” Mr. Siegel said. “I made $3,000, but I learned my lesson about buying that many books at once.”
Huck Wyatt, son of Jason Wyatt, scans books at a thrift store. Deal hunters use barcode-scanning and price-comparison apps to calculate their expected profits.
Huck Wyatt, son of Jason Wyatt, scans books at a thrift store. Deal hunters use barcode-scanning and price-comparison apps to calculate their expected profits. Photo: The Wyatt Family

Many Amazon adventurers turn to the web for tips. The bushy-bearded Mr. Wyatt, who said he expected to log at least $75,000 in profit last year, operates the “Touring Freedom” website with posts and webinars on yard-sale merchandise sourcing and achieving what he calls “meth margins,” profits that rival what drug pushers can make.

He also runs a Facebook page with over 2,400 followers where discussions range from buying compact-size label printers to the merits of flipping a kit to make a gingerbread house in the shape of an RV.

Others keep their best tricks close to the vest. “I have to keep something to myself if I want to make a living doing this,” said Ms. Leonard.

When pushed, she offered up one piece of advice: Buy seasonal foodstuffs. Ms. Leonard said that “somewhere in Tennessee” she found packages of candy-corn flavored Oreo cookies after Halloween.

“They sold so quickly, I wish I could have bought more,” she said.

Full-time RVers say the vocation is no way to ​get rich. With no rent to pay their bills are lighter, and many subsidize family trips to the grocery store by simultaneously shopping for things they can resell. “We’ve taught the kids to look for the clearance stickers,” said Ms. Leonard, who is expecting her fifth child later this year.
Jerry Siegel’s loaded truck with an outgoing shipment for Amazon.
Jerry Siegel’s loaded truck with an outgoing shipment for Amazon. Photo: Jerry Siegel

She said she typically spends a full day shopping when the family arrives in a new town, where they will spend a week or so. Once in a while they have hit big margins, but most of the time they seek creative ways to eke out a profit. Ms. Leonard said she once bought tubes of Crest toothpaste for 75 cents each and bundled them for sale as a two-pack for $7.50.

Most RVers prefer to rent space at campgrounds, but in a pinch many Wal-Marts allow for overnight parking. When Alan Cook and his girlfriend Laurie Clark first pull their 30-foot RV into a new town, they often look for a Wal-Mart . “It’s safe, and when we get up in the morning we can walk right in and go shopping,” said Mr. Cook, 38, a web developer from Richmond, Va.
Tracking down UPS locations to ship items to Amazon requires planning, though experienced sellers know that Staples and Office Depot stores can also accept packages. Internet coverage is spotty in some smaller towns and rural areas. Mr. Wyatt shared this secret: “ Lowe’s has excellent Wi-Fi. I can get it in my truck from the parking lot.”

Boxing the goods to ship to the warehouse is another challenge. RVers seek out empty boxes in grocery stores, parking lots or on Craigslist. It is a daily hassle, Ms. Clark said. When her back is against the wall, she said she can always buy boxes from Home Depot . “But that cuts right into our margins,” she said.
Yard-sale items Jason Wyatt planned to resell.
Yard-sale items Jason Wyatt planned to resell. Photo: The Wyatt Family

After a shopping day, usually spending about $1,000 on goods, Ms. Leonard clears the couch and dining room table in her trailer to pack and label merchandise with her husband—after the children, who are home-schooled, fall asleep.

“Sure, we have to step over boxes in the morning before breakfast,” she said. “But it’s worth it.”

Corrections & Amplifications:
Jason Wyatt said he expected to log at least $75,000 in profit last year. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said he made as much as $75,000 in sales. (Jan. 4, 2017)

 

Not as much as you, schmuckola. You're yet another SI buoy who's either banned or boring or both, come back to haunt the place under a stooopit aviator. That's about as much of my time as you deserve - - now, go read all my posts & don't ejaculate on your retarded IQ 85 mummsy. I'll send your sister home when I'm through with her.