Bad Investment

We made a bad investment. Really bad. 

My husband and I thought we hit the jackpot when we drove for several hours, from Michigan to Ohio, to pick up approximately 400 new-in-the-box basketball returns/rebounders from the 1990s: heavy-duty metal contraptions that attach to a basketball goal's rim and ensure the ball rolls straight out from under the hoop rather than off into the bushes or into the street. Only paying $400 total ($1 per piece), we estimated our profit as thousands of dollars through selling them on eBay, at auctions, and to parents whose children played basketball in the driveway. 

Wrong. EBay and the auction houses wanted nothing to do with them. Sadly, they continued to sit, all 400 of them, in our three-car garage with expensive metal shelving we bought just for them. We practically begged, BEGGED people to buy these for even five bucks, to no avail. They have been sitting in our garage for over a year, and something has to be done.

Donating them for a tax writeoff seems like such an easy way "out," like I'm losing, and I do not like to lose. So I am approaching this conundrum from a different angle. 

If you know me, you know how much I love going to garage sales. This summer, I am going to attempt to trade these basketball rebounders for select garage sale items. Items I can use. Items I can give others. Items I can resell (this time for sure) on eBay or at auction houses. In turn, the people with whom I trade can use these for themselves (if they have a basketball goal), give as a gift to someone else with a basketball goal, or sell it at their garage sale. Let's see how profitable this bad investment could actually be....