Keurig B30

My eBay Experience

/ Shane / 4 Comments

Recently we have been trying to de-clutter our house as much as possible. Most things we’re saving in a pile to take to the enormous annual family rummage sale. However, there were a few things that seemed a little more valuable than what we were likely to get at the rummage sale.

The first of these things was our Keurig B-30 single cup coffee maker. We liked it (you can read all about it here), but we actually liked it a little too much. The problem is that we turned into degenerate coffee addicts, and we needed something that could make more coffee at a time. We progressed past needing a single cup at a time.

This particular coffee maker retails for $100, and we were also including another adapter that retails for an additional $13.50, so this was a decently expensive setup and we thought we could get some money out of it. We looked around on eBay and saw that most of the similar things were going for about $50, with at least $10 for shipping, so we were assuming we could get at least that, especially if we were including the extra adapter. However, we decided if we got at least $30 for it, we would be happy, so we set the bid at $20 and did the listing.

Sara's Beautiful Photography

Now the first thing I noticed was that everybody and their mother immediately contacted me saying, “Oh hey, you’re getting rid of that? I’ll take it!” Well, if I wanted to give away this expensive device for free, I would have just said, “Who wants this?” instead of paying to list it in eBay! Or at least tried to sell it for $0.50 at the rummage sale. I wanted money folks, I wasn’t in it for the charity!

So we put our listing up on eBay and watched it closely for a few days. Absolutely nothing. A few views and that was it, no bids.

I think part of it was just that nobody likes to bid on an auction that has a lot of time left to go on it. So conceivably the bids would pick up as time went on. The other problem is that we created a totally new account for this, with no eBay history. I think people are distrustful of this, because they think I’m a scammer or something. Now everybody had to start with no history at some point, but I have a feeling that auctions by people with little or no history probably go for less money, due to this suspicion.

So we weren’t getting much action, but I felt like we would eventually. However, our first bid finally came in…from our friend Dabu!

She was the lone bidder at $20 for a few days, until we just decided to sell it to her if she wanted it. She was, after all, the only person who actually put their money where their mouth was.

Me: “If you still want it, we’ll give it to you for $30.”
Dabu: “I’ll give you $40!”

In other words, Dabu is about the worst haggler in the history of the world.

We found a way to take down the listing, so we’re only out the minimal cost of listing it in the first place. So we didn’t exactly have the full eBay experience (we don’t have to ship it or deal with the feedback system, two of the main components), but overall I would say it was fairly positive. It was easy to set up, and seemed to be working okay. I don’t know for sure if we would have gotten any bids if Dabu hadn’t bid on it, but I think we probably would have. However, I think it might not have gone for as much as some of the other ones did.

So overall, generally positive, and we might try selling some more stuff in the future!

Coffee Addict

/ Shane / 7 Comments

When we went to Philly, we stayed at a hotel that had an awesome coffee maker. It was so cool that Sara made anybody who came to visit make a cup of coffee just to try it out. Neither of us were coffee drinkers, but we each had several cups while we were there, if for no other reason than to use the coffee maker. She was so excited about the coffee maker that I wrote down the brand and model number on a napkin when she was in the bathroom and decided to buy her one for Christmas. It turns out that the model was only available for hotels and the like, but the company did make a nearly identical model for regular consumer usage.  I give you the Keurig B30:

Now, there are several advantages to this machine.  First off, since we are not coffee drinkers, we don’t need to make an entire pot of coffee. We just need one cup here or there, as we want it.  Since this makes one cup at a time, it is perfect. Second, it uses these little coffee cup things that have a pre-measured portion in them already.  When your coffee is done, you just throw them away: no muss, no fuss. Third, it is so cool! Even if you’ve never used it before, you can’t mess it up. The first thing you see is a giant “Press Here” staring at you on the front. When you hit that the thing folds open revealing a place for the coffee portion. When you put the little cup in there and close it, another door opens in the back with a blue water drop on it. Logically you add your water there.  When you close that door, a light comes on next to a picture of a cup. When you set your cup in, the Brew button starts flashing in bright blue. After you hit the button it takes a couple of minutes for your cup to be completely heated and brewed, and then the machine shuts itself off. There is nothing to take care of since it uses all of the water every time and the k-cup will be thrown away next time you use it. It is a miracle of modern engineering and it does it all simply without some digital display or screen.

So I was fairly excited to give this gift to Sara for Christmas but, unfortunately, she decided she didn’t want it. “I did love it…at the hotel. But not for our house!” she said. This is why guys have trouble buying presents for girls. I thought this was a sure fire thing. And what kind of logic is that anyway? It reminds me of when I was begging for a TiVo (greatest invention ever by the way) and she argued that we shouldn’t get it because she “would like it too much.”  I knew that if she kept it she would like it, although it is kind of weird to have to convince someone to keep their present if they don’t want it. Still, I think if someone else bought her that she would have been happy with it. I think I am held to a higher standard.

Anyway, she had two main objections: 1) it is more expensive to buy the little prepackaged coffee cups than to buy just regular coffee and 2) those little cups are not recyclable, so you are creating unnecessary waste. Now, in anticipation of those concerns, I also bought a re-useable filter thing in which you can use regular coffee. It is much more of a hassle to use, but does take care of some of those concerns and makes a pretty good cup of coffee. The pre-measured cup themselves cost about $0.50 apiece, but we quickly learned that you can use each k-cup twice, halving the price. Also, we bought them on sale for even cheaper. So they really aren’t so expensive.  

But now the real downside is becoming evident: I am turning into a coffee addict! It is just right there and so available and sooo delicious, I’m drinking like 2 or 3 cups a day. I certainly thought that could never happen to me. Now, when I say coffee, of course I mean “coffee”.  We’re talking two teaspoons of sugar and like an inch of half and half. I’m sure coffee aficionados will be all over me for this. But how long until I turn into one of those people? The other day I was drinking one that Sara made and I had to ask her if anything was up because it tasted weak to me! Next thing you know, I’ll require coffee that has been regurgitated by weasels! I started to get a little worried about my caffeine intake, so we got some decaf, but I’m still a little nervous. Especially since I find myself thinking of coffee during the day and whenever I smell coffee now the first thing I think is, man that sounds good about now!

Well anyway, this was all just an elaborate setup to link to commentor, friend of 25 years, best man and sister dater Hrokay’s new blog “No Cream, No Sugar”.  Of course I hope he knows that linking form here is a big honor and it comes with great responsibilty for quality and quantity of posts.  Of course this disclaimer hasn’t worked for some people I could name…