Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Slow week and more FN "drama"

So, its been a bit of a slow week(s).  Not much activity as far as inquiries, just the usual people who email/call and are interested and I email the stuff to and never hear back.

Did sell two of the used cages though - some people got a lionhead rabbit and wanted two of the smaller rabbit cages so that was a nice easy $50.  I told them to come at 6 and I get a text at 5:30 that they're at the Meijer gas station (like 2 mins from my house).  Well... I had gotten off work late cause of a client, so I rushed home, got home by like 6:10... was texting them during, so they'd wait and they did, thankfully, so that was $50.

And it was a $50 already spent, because I hadn't heard back from the people that sold me the FN's about if they had ever gotten around to checking again if they had the parts I was missing.  Well, I called up Midwest today (manufacturer of the FN's).  They were really nice, I tried to explain what parts I was missing, eventually realized we weren't communicating well and the lady asked me to pull up an instruction manual and tell her what parts off of there.  Lot easier that way.  So then she told me she would have to call the warehouse and see if they had extras of those parts, because while they sell the casters and smaller stuff by itself, it's not everyday someone misplaces four 2x3 grids.  Oops.  Well, I didn't lose them, but anyway.  So she called back a while later, said they did have them that they could sell me (yay!).  So, the bottom grids were $8 each, the middle grids $10 each, the caster-holder-thingies $4 each.  Got two of everything cause that's what I was missing.  Came to a total of $44 --> $58.75 with shipping, and $62.87 with tax.  Holy shit.  It seems cheap when we're talking about $8 items, but it all ads up.  Well, they said I should have them in 7-10 days.  The nice part is that since I'm selling cages at the same time I'm working on fixing these and getting these up to snuff, the ones I'm selling are paying for the new ones.

Well, sorta.  In all reality, I almost could have had new cages, especially since I'm having to pay so much for new parts that I was missing.  I paid $200 for two used FN's with missing parts, and four rectangular bass pans.  Paid another $35-ish for casters and screws to use with the FN's.  Just paid another $63 for the pieces I'm missing to complete the FN's.  To complete all of this, I still need two cut-out pans from Bass (that will be tomorrow's lunch hour phone call), which are $32.75 each (and I'll need two) plus around $20 in shipping.  So that will come to a total of $383.50 for the cages and pans.  Makes it $191.75 each -- not nearly as a good a deal as $200 for two.  Like they say, if it's too good to be true.....usually is.  New, this would have cost me $580-ish ($440 for the FN's; $113 for the pans; $25ish for shipping) so it's not like $383 is horrible.  But in looking at this as "I get two FN's with the pans I need for $200!" not nearly quite that good of a deal.  But, can't do anything about it now.  If I didn't buy the missing parts the cages would be useless, so I was ultimately stuck coughing up the money to make the cages what they should have been.  At least I got the cages, I am happy about that, and they will be good cages once they're all fixed up and put together and all, so I am happy.  I just wish I was happier about the money part and I wish the chin account hadn't taken quite such a large hit from this.  $200 - one thing.  $383 for two cages?  Not such a positive.  But oh well.  In retrospect, I should be thrilled the people lowered the price from $250 for the two cages, cause then this'd be even more ridiculous.

But I have sold several used cages in the meantime.  Sold #2 for $90, #5 for $80, another cage that I lent out to someone -- I ultimately emailed the person and said they could buy the cage if they wanted (they originally asked about buying it awhile ago and I said no, because we didn't have another comparable cage, but now we have one that I would keep in substitute for that one) for $20; then today #6 for $25 and #9 for $25.  So so far sold a total of $240 in used cages sold.  Not too shabby and we still have plenty more to sell, and another few we can sell once we order new pans and get out the powerwasher and spray down a few.  So only $143 more to sell in used cages to pay for the two FN's.

But we can't forget about accessories!  The FN's won't be any good themselves without some things in them, so I need to get some wood.  Have some orders that need to be filled as well, so REALLY need to get some wood. I literally have like a foot of wood down there so I really need to get my butt out to the hardware store. Later today.  Or so I tell myself.  Anyway, so I ordered some fleece stuff from Fuzzies Kingdom, a bed and a tunnel I believe.  Need to order some fleece liners from Jean, I believe she has some that will match the Fuzzies Kingdoms stuff pretty well.  Need to see if I need anything else in the meantime (it's in the to-do list).  So then, asked someone on the forum about making fleece liners for the FN's.  Well, I said I wanted the zebra fabric and she (I think it's a she?) thought I meant the zebra print... well, I actually meant the literal zebra fabric -- like this:


So... she says she has some premade zebra stuff and it's a little different than the new zebra fabric (cause she had to order more for my order) and I realize... she meant literal zebra print, like zebra stripes.  But hey, the zebra stripes did look good so I told her I'd take that and asked her if she had some of the pink zebra left so she could make me a second set of everything in that pattern.  Hopefully she does, since that was my original choice, but if not, I do like the other zebra.  Hey, I will need to wash the liners eventually so I'll need spares, eh? 

Well, I just got home, just ran downstairs to grab those cages for those people, updated all the cage ads to remove those, and been sitting here typing this up.  So now it's time to change, check that all the pets are good to go for a little bit, and head out to the store to pick up some wood and other necessities.  Maybe some chin updates later.

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