Garage Sale-ing, Donating, and a Big Change for Me

For those of you wondering where I've been for the last couple of days, I've been clearing out some of our storage spaces.  I've mentioned our "scary" garage on numerous occasions and it was time to clear some of that stuff away.  In addition to that our guest room closet was chock full of stuff, too.  So I spent all week with my trusty sidekick Whirling Dervish cleaning, sorting, organizing, and pricing items to go into a great big yard sale.  And then I spent the last 2 days sitting outside selling the stuff.  With my youngest child entering 1st grade, why the heck do I still have this stuff?

I priced things to move, because the goal was to clear out space, not make tons of money, but I still managed to make a tidy sum.

How great is this money box that CG made in shop class ages ago?

Early on day 2, a woman came buy with a card from The Friendship Tree, and asked me to give her a call when the sale was over for possible donations.  The Friendship Tree is a terrific outreach organization that helps families who find themselves in difficult situations.  Since my goal wasn't to make a mint, and it's such an amazing organization, I loaded up her car then and there.  I hope that I was able to help several families with my donations of a couple of car seats, a high chair, bouncy seat, and set of dishes. 

She was overwhelmed and gave me a hug.  The boys asked why that lady was hugging me, and I explained that we were donating some things for people who needed them.  This ties into my summertime goal of teaching the boys more about service and how we can do both big and little things to serve.

At the end of the day, we had made tons more room in the garage and the guest room closet is just about empty.  I have big plans for that closet that I hope to share with you soon.  But that's not the big change in my title.  What's the Big Change?  I'm no longer a luddite.  This is the phone I'd been using for the past several years.  A basic flip phone with no camera, even.

And this is my new toy tool.  An LG Optimus V smartphone with a touchscreen, and 3.2mp camera.

It was so nice to be able to check the weather radar, edit my Craigslist ad, and answer e-mails from my front lawn between garage sale customers.  I even took that money box pic with my phone.  I had every intention to write a post from the front lawn, but I wasn't sure how to use the pic from the phone in a post(I'm still learning.)  But the biggest change?  My phone bill. 

The do nothing phone with no broadband plan was costing $130 a month between our 3 phones, which breaks down to about $45 / month for the one phone on Verizon.  My new smartphone with unlimited texting and broadband is $25 / month through Virgin Mobile.  When we did an analysis of our phone usage, it turned out that CG didn't even use his phone, so we really only need 2 phones.  Saving $80 / month translates into nearly $1000 savings for the year.

Thanks for popping in and saving with me.  This is not your typical metamorphosis post, but still a big change so I'm linking up to Between Naps on the Porch's Metamorphosis Monday and Home Stories A to Z's Tips and Tutorials Party.

*Virgin Mobile did not in any way, shape, or form pay or perk me for this post(although wouldn't it be great if they did.)  I'm just in love with my new phone and service.