This past weekend we had a garage sale with some friends from church. We got rid of all our junk, most of which we inherited from the previous owners of our house. They had left a lamp, a coffee table, and a ton of toys and Christmas stuff. Plus we had a microwave, another coffee table, and other random clutter.

The garage sale didn’t go great. We only had a? dozen customers before it started raining on us around 9:30. Some of our stuff had? sold, but most of it didn’t. Tired from waking up? before dawn? on Saturday morning and depressed by the rain and lack of business, we gave up early and decided to donate everything left over. We? managed to at least get rid of one of our coffee tables for $1 right as we were closing down. That $1 pushed us up to a whopping grand total of $18.50 in sales!? In the end here is what it looked like:

• Sales: $18.50
• Our share of newspaper ad: $7.50
• Cost in gas for two trips to haul our stuff: $8
• Donuts and coffee: $11.43
• Waking up 4 hours early on a Saturday: (Very costly)

That comes out to a loss of $8.43 and 4 hours of sleep. Hardly worth it. I was glad to get rid of all of our stuff, but next time, it is straight to the donation drop off.

? –Mitch

1. Yodlee. Do you hate logging into a dozen seperate websites just to pay your monthly bills or keep track of your financial accounts? Me too. Luckily, I found out about Yodlee MoneyCenter while browsing www.stopbuyingcrap.com. Yodlee automatically links to your accounts, letting you see all of them at once. It works for almost any account–for me, 16 out of 17 of my accounts were compatible with Yodlee. Just one click can sign you in to any account. You can also view your net worth, track your spending (Yodlee can even show every transaction by date between multiple credit card and checking accounts), or see when your bills are due on a calendar. Let Yodlee send you automatic emails when an account is close to due, when you receive a large deposit, or when your checking account balnce falls below a certain level. The best part is it is free! To sign up go? to the MoneyCenter login page and Register.

? 2. Lavasoft’s AdAware. Here you go, Liz. ; )? Keep your computer spyware free with the best free anti-spyware. Run once a month to keep the evil spyware away.? Click on the link and select Ad-Aware Personal from the left side menu.

3. Gmaps Pedometer. So how far did I run tonight? 1.6216 miles–not too good. Map out your jogging route with this Google maps resource.

? –Mitch

?