Jesus mate, your attitude and assumptions are toxic. I really don't appreciate your unfounded claim of being "full of shit", without even knowing me.
Earthbound CIB was from a garage sale 15 years ago, for $15 or $20 (my mom bought it for me). Never once, on Reddit or elsewhere, have I ever claimed the origin of my CIB Earthbound as anything different.
The free SNES (as well as an atari, some games, and other stuff) was from a friend who was moving to the west coast and knows I collect video games. I offered him cash, he wouldn't take a cent from me.
All of the CIB SNES games I listed in my most recent post regarding them were purchased for FMV. The wording of the post is ambiguous now that I look at it (for the purpose of brevity), what I meant was that I made such a bundle flipping various finds all summer at yard sales that I was able to purchase all/most of those titles for FMV on Ebay.
Classifieds and Goodwill are crap NO MATTER where you live, so even mentioning them is silly. Not sure why anyone checks either of these places.
Where do I get my luck? I wake my ass up at 6AM every Saturday morning in the spring and summer and bust my ass around town. I spend about 5 hours per Saturday cruising, and most days I find something I am happy with (some days, I find things I am ECSTATIC with).
I don't live in a fairytale world. I live in an area that has INCREDIBLY high competition, but everyone gets lucky once in a while. Most Saturdays I either break even in terms of time and fuel, but sometimes I come across a few hundred dollars worth of product for a mere pittance. That's how luck / averages work.
Clearly you have no interest in advice, but if I were to offer any, it would be to tell you to take a step back from the competitive, hopelessness-filled outlook you have on the hobby now, and just enjoy a few Saturday mornings on the sidestreets. You'd be amazed at what you find by striking up a polite conversation.
Yeesh.