Be bold. Be cheap. Camp.
You’re young. You’re broke. You want to hug trees and sleep under the stars. Onward, five-borough-nature-loving-soldiers. This is RecessionGirl’s camping edition. Complete with campsites that are no more than 2 hours outside of Manhattan. There’s a good hodgepodge of campgrounds below from beachside to mountainside; Strong Island to the Catskills. All you need is a few dollars and a dream.
You also might want to do a pedestrian drive-by the newly opened Eastern Mountain Sports in SoHo on Broadway and Prince. I personally find most of their equipment overpriced, but if you’re in a rush or just need to experience your product first-hand then they are great. The quality is comparable to REI for all of you West Coast transplants. If you want a cheaper alternative, I highly recommend www.backcountry.com. Now, lets get our camp on:
http://blackbearcampground.com/
http://www.dutchesscountycampground.com/
http://nysparks.state.ny.us/parks/info.asp?parkID=52
http://nysparks.state.ny.us/parks/info.asp?parkID=57
http://nysparks.state.ny.us/parks/info.asp?parkID=153
http://nysparks.state.ny.us/parks/info.asp?parkID=48
(***Hither Hills is one of the busiest and most beautiful campgrounds in the United States of America and typically books 9 months in advance. You can call periodically to see if there are cancellations, but for peak season, mark your calendar in October for July reservations, or just try your luck and show up around 11:00am when folks are checking out sometimes miracles happen).
For more New York State camping options further away, check the link below. Consider the finger lakes for wine tasting and a chance meeting with the Amish who heavily populate several counties upstate:
http://nysparks.state.ny.us/
Be bold. Be cheap. Camp.
Be bold. Be cheap. Stoop it stupid.
One of the most fun ways to generate semi-passive income for yourself is to have a stoop-sale. It can put money in your pocket, introduce you to some neighborhood friends and best of all off-load all of the no longer useful things that have accumulated in your life. While a stoop-sale is pretty self explanatory, there are some details that shouldn’t be overlooked:
-Weed through the crap. Nobody wants your Aunt Matilda’s terrycloth bathrobe she gave you as a hand-me-down when you were twelve. Bag the stuff you know won’t sell and call City Opera Thrift Store for a pick up: 212-684-5344, http://www.yelp.com/biz/city-opera-thrift-shop-new-york. They will come to your door and haul the stuff away. Take the itemized form they give you and use it to deduct $500 in charitable donations on your next tax return. You will not red flag the IRS for donations $500 and under. If you claim more, it’s at your own risk.
-Use price stickers. You can get a package of yellow circle stickers at Right Aid for $2.49. After several (mostly unsuccessful) stoop sales, I’ve learned a bit about stoop-sale customers. They don’t necessarily want to talk to you. They just want to get a good deal. The sticker lets them know upfront if they should drop cash or where they can start negotiating from.
-Be sorta organized. The best sale I ever had included a garment rack, a $5 bin, $3 bin and $1 bin. The jewelry was all $1 and in its own container. The books and DVD’s were uniformly priced.
-Don’t get greedy. This is a stoop sale, not a vintage flea market. This is an alternative to throwing things away or donating them to charity. Consider almost any monetary offer a miracle that someone is actually interested in your old stuff. Unless you’ve got some fancy things that you know will get a hot dollar on eBay, reduce your expectations for funding your new laptop with the profits of your stoop-sale.
-Coordinate pricing with time of day. You can try your luck by pricing items according to how much time is left to your sale. For example, if you start your sale at 9:00am and are selling your blue jeans at $11, drop the price by half at 1:00pm if they haven’t sold. You’ll find that people tend to buy multiple items if they think stuff is ‘sooo cheap’. They sorta get ‘the fever’ for your $5 dollar jeans and then get a book and DVD to boot. The fun never stops.
Be bold. Be cheap. Stoop it Stupid.
