I jumped in and dove head first into making our adventure known. (FYI – We’re in the midst of round 13 out of 20! We’re over halfway! Yay, us!) I’m the blogger, the tweeter, and the Facebook poster. I love what my husband started and am finding a way to use my knowledge as a writer to chronicle our family’s journey from $1 to a million!
I guess you could say they fully they had me at the chandelier. When Jamie pitched The Doubling Project as part of our homeschooling journey, I said, “Sure, go ahead, but I really don’t have the time.” (Authoring and homeschooling can take a lot out of a momma.)
As the whole thing was his brainchild, he happily dove right in, taking the kiddos with him. I sat back and watched, cheered them on, sat in the garage to keep him company, and even tagged along on a few of their “picking” adventures.
Somewhere between rounds 10 and 11, Jamie stumbled upon the world of online auctions. I had seen the items come in–beautiful sisal rugs, grills, furniture, automobile parts. The bigger finds were turning a bigger profit. Curious, I sat with him one evening as he scrolled through possible investment items. He pointed out how to spot a good item and when to be wary of damaged boxes and items marked package 1 of 2. It was all a risk; every item had the potential to be dented, broken, or even without parts, but if the items would resell, the purchase was worth it. That night we ran across a curious item–a small business card holder with a chandelier on the front. The retail value of the case was $100. If we could snag it for a low cost, we could easily double our money.
Jamie carefully researched the item (as he always does) checking it against similar items sold and then clicked on the image to inspect the picture of the packaging–this is usually where we can see the potential for damaging or mislabeling. Unless the card case was the size of a collapsed folding chair, the item had been incorrectly listed.
Giddy to see what was in the mystery box, and just for fun, we agreed to bid no more than $10 on the mysterious item. Our final bid: $8.
That weekend, Jamie and I took a moment to get away, just the two of us. (Yes, sometimes a date is a trip to the auction house!) The crew at the warehouse gathered our items. Jamie passed the mystery box on to me to load. It was heavy and marked fragile.
I set to work (I should have been helping to load) researching item numbers on the side of the box. When the image of the above chandelier popped up, I literally squealed! We had just paid $8 for a $350 Warehouse of Tiffany chandelier! I must have seen and drooled over simi
lar chandeliers in the Restoration Hardware catalogs dozens of times. It was out of my price range, and I would never have dreamed of ever owning one . . . okay, maybe dreamed.
I brought it home, and over three days without instructions began to assemble the ginormous light fixture. With the exception of one broken crystal plate (I just decided to leave off the other five. Trust me, this thing has plenty of sparkle!) It was in perfect condition.
We could have double our money and then some, but Jamie let me keep it. It hangs in our reading room–I call it a God snuggle . . . a little (or huge) thing I would never, ever ask for, but crossed my path in an extraordinary way.
I keep my personal acquisitions to a minimal, but still love to see what surprises The Doubling Project has in store for us. (If you have been following our journey for any amount of time then you will probably remember the pool noodle incident of round 10 . . . This still makes me laugh out loud!)
I’m glad I’ve found my niche in The Doubling Project. It’ll be my job to keep you posted . . . there is so much fun to share! Sign-up and be the first to know when we complete round 20, and follow along on social media! – Lauren
