A Craig’s List I Told Ya So

That’s what Brett wanted to say to me when I recently made my first Craigs List purchase. And I don’t blame him whatsoever.

In fact, I’m truly disappointed in the entire experience.

We’ve sold a couple of things on Craig’s List before. A brand new telescope and a used workout bike. The telescope was still in the box, so we didn’t have to do much to prepare other than Brett taking several photos and writing a nice post for it. The bike was about 2 years old (but barely used I’m ashamed to say) and we completely wiped it down and included the owner’s manual and attachments. We got exactly what we asked for in both cases.

Other times we’ve needed to sell items (camera equipment, textbooks…not much, really), we’ve used eBay and had good results. We cleaned our items, took plenty of photos, disclosed any major flaws if there were any, and provided as much detail about the product and how much use it had gotten.

We once had a treadmill that we wanted to put on Craig’s List. We had known that the belt was acting funny, but we figured we could fix it before someone asked about it. So we listed it, but quickly realized that the belt wasn’t something we could fix. We quickly took the listing down from Craig’s List. Sure, we could have tried to sell it to someone that knew how to fix it, but we just didn’t feel right trying to sell something that was broken in our eyes. So we called our trash pickup company to schedule a curb pick up for the next day, we put it out by the curb and BAM! it was gone within 30 minutes, which is crazy since we don’t get a whole lot of traffic on our road either. I guess we could have sold it, but we were ok with just cutting our losses on it.

As a sidenote, do you notice the theme here? We got rid of a workout bike and a treadmill. We sound like lazy bums, huh? In our defense, both items were in the room that we were making into Trent’s nursery and we didn’t want to put them in the guest room…so out they went. And then we bought cake…just kidding!

Ok soooooo…after all that, back to our current situation. I had never actually purchased anything on Craig’s List. Any time I had ever went to look or search, things weren’t in great condition, had already been sold, or weren’t much cheaper than just buying new. I’ve seen quite a few friends get good items for a steal…why couldn’t I?

Currently, there are a few things we need/want for Trent…one of them being a highchair. We had been putting it off until he started eating solids and we think now’s a good time since he is outgrowing the Bumbo.

So last month, I decided to look at Craig’s List for a highchair. I saw 3 recent highchair listings. I looked up each one on Amazon for price and reviews. All seemed pretty good, so I emailed them. Two had already been sold and 1 was available. Score!

Since the person only used a stock photo of the item, I asked for a personal photo. They said they didn’t have a way to really do that. Hmmm…ok whatever.

So after a couple of calls, I met the lady at her job, drove her behind the building to her car and she took it out to show me.

This was the point I realized that Craig’s List MAY not have been the place for me to shop. It was not in almost NEW condition like the description said. It definitely needed to be cleaned, but I figured it was doable at a moment’s glance. The tray insert and toy attachment were missing, so I was able to talk $5 off (it was only $30 to begin with on an item that was regularly priced at $108). Then she couldn’t figure out how to fold it back up, so we tried for a few minutes and I finally figured it out, so she said “Make it $20 – Merry Christmas.”

$20 for a highchair…sweet, right?

Not one bit. The entire drive back to work, I kept thinking about how it needed to be cleaned. I didn’t get the high of getting something new and nice for my son and I felt guilty.

When Brett brought it in the house that night, we just stood there looking at it for a few minutes. We could tell that we were both disappointed, but were trying to make the most of it. He didn’t want to make me feel bad, so he kept saying we could try it. But I gave in and said no after he talked about how kids drop food and reach down in the chair to find it and eat it and since this wasn’t new or ours to begin with, you never know how clean it is. I immediately felt sad and guilty for comprimising when it comes to stuff for Trent. I felt like a bad mommy for trying to save some money when it comes to him. Especially on an item that gets eaten on. I’ve been trying to be better about saving and doing our best with Brett being home now, but we are just going to have to find other ways to do it because hand-me-downs from strangers are a no-go for us for certain items.
If you’ve found a great deal on Craig’s List, then I say kudos to you! I’m not downing ALL Craig’s List transactions, because there can be deals to be had…even things we’ve sold were in great condition.

After all that, we decided to purchase the highchair we’ve been eyeing online for the past few weeks, the Graco Blossom 4-in-1 Seating System.

 

We’re super excited about it because I think this will be the only highchair we’ll ever need. Trent can use it as a highchair now, then he can use the booster seat while his future younger sibling uses the highchair.

I also think having a highchair will help Brett prepare meals…they can hang out in the kitchen together. Maybe Trent will learn how to cook and I’ll have two chefs in the house!

I’m about to assemble it and I hope to do a review in the near future once it’s been Trent-tested!

 

So what about you guys? Have you had luck with Craig’s List? Tell me about your experiences, good or bad, in the comments!

 

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