THE FRUGAL VENDOR

Or how I learned to cut living and show expenses and began to show a better profit.

 definition:  frugal - 1.  economical in use or expenditure, prudently saving or sparing; not wasteful, a frugal manager.  2.  entailing little expense; requiring few resources; meager, scanty, a frugal meal
 
So, there you have the definition of 'frugal' which is the polite term for 'cheap'.  I have dedicated this part of the website to reviewing cost-cutting measures.

The higher gas prices have been murdering us and has hurt the economy dramatically in many ways.  Vendors have been traveling great distances each week to partake in what they assumed were good money-making events.  We have been continuing doing many of our events in hopes that the economy would turn around.  No hope for that.

Gas expenses have cut deeply into our profits, especially for our trips to Arizona and Oregon.  Gassing up the motor home is a wallet-emptying nightmare.

We are really facing the reality now and must find ways to be 'frugal' with anything connected to our events. 

                                 ELIMINATING OVERNIGHT TRIPS

A good indication that vendors are eliminating the travel portion of their events was the Hayward Zucchini Festival.  We were missing dozens upon dozens of booths last weekend and most of these people had traveled a ways to participate.  This event is not a good money maker for a lot of people, including us and I think that several booths around us didn't even come close to catching the fee.  I know several vendors who did pretty decent and I will seal my lips and keep that knowledge to myself

Quite frankly, if I had to drive more than 120 miles for this, I would not do that show.  I would not want the added expense of spending two nights in a motel nearby.  We only live 2 miles down the road, so our gas expenses were abut $3.00.  And that is why we will be doing area flea markets in the future.

               CAN'T MAKE ANY MONEY DOING SHOWS IN CLOVIS!

For many years, we have been doing the shows in Clovis...Big Hat Days in April and Clovisfest in September.  However, both of these events require a two-night motel stay and that really adds to the cost of doing the event.  Booth fees for these shows are expensive and we have to use around $80 worth of gas.  Sales over the past couple years have been dwindling for all of us.

We have decided to eliminate both these shows from our schedule.  In September, we will do the Chabot College Flea Market, which costs only $30.00 and is just around the corner from us.  The way sales have been going this year, I was fearful of actually losing money in Clovis if we went there. 

MAYBE TO-MORRO-W BAY NEXT YEAR,
BUT NOT NOW

Morro Bay is such a lovely place to do an event.  We have been doing the Harbor Festival in October for many years, but sales have also been going down and there are very high expenses associated with the event.  We will not be doing it this year, but will instead head on over to the DeAnza Flea Market in Cupertino that Saturday and just might show a better Net Profit than driving 230 miles south.

COMBINING OUR JAN-FEB ARIZONA SHOWS

We have been doing quite a number of shows in Arizona over the years...Yuma, Chandler, Lake Havasu, Tucson, Tyson Wells... and with the price of gas, etc., these events can get expensive.

Each year, we do the Tyson Wells Sell-a-Rama and have an excellent location there (X-19) which I would never want to give up.  We have been making several trips during the early part of the year to these events and it is best to be able to combine several of these into one trip.  Gosh, we'd do the early January Yuma show, go back home and come out to Tyson a couple weeks later in the motor home.  We'd then go back home and drive back to Lake Havasu a couple weeks after that. Back home again and then we'd do Kernville later in the month.

I was looking at show possbilities and had originally decided to eliminate Yuma.  However, I saw that it was to be held on January 9-11 and Tyson Wells was the following weekend (10 day event).  I then checked and saw that the Tyson Wells A&C Show started after that, so we decided to do those events.  I then saw that the event in Kernville was the following weekend, so we decided to do all 4 events in one 5-week trip next January.  Additionally, between the events in Tyson, we will be allowed to set up alongside the road and sell our things there for 4-5 days.  We would be dumping the Lake Havasu Winterfest in the meantime and that is fine with me.... people just walk around like zombies there anyway.  We had perfect weather there this past February...sun..temps in the 70's...no wind.  Something wrong with THAT PICTURE?  Hardly anybody was buying from the vendors.  What a shame.