Notes from the Garage Sale


This past Saturday, we had our first garage sale in our current house. We’ve lived there for four years and were surprised at how much stuff we had accumulated in that time. Here are a few musings from the day.

I had heard how bargain hunters move from sale to sale, meeting up, greeting each other by name. Well, it’s all true. The early birds work together in teams. They call each other up and plan out the day around sales in surrounding neighborhoods. I didn't know it was so organized.

We didn’t list an ad in the newspaper, but did hang many neon yellow flyers in our neighborhood. But I’d say that 40 percent of our sales came from folks who saw our posting on Craigslist.org.

Didn’t realize how early some people show up to these things. Officially, we started at 8 a.m. but those early birds were there at 7:30.

The first people who showed up spoke to my husband, Tim, about the junk we were putting out. They were looking for computer equipment even though we didn’t advertise PCs or PDAs. Tim says they were gypsies looking for hard drives to steal personal information.

While the sale went from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., it was “over” after 11:30. All of the bargain hunters were out in the early morning. After noon, it was a slow, painful trickle of people showing up.

It was hot on Saturday, so we kept the kids busy with crayons, and let then take a dip in the kiddy pool. Coloring turned out to be a great distraction for kids while their parents needed a few more minutes to look around.

All in all, we were very pleased with how much stuff we sold. And this week, one of our local charities will swing by the house to pick up what didn’t sell. So I guess that old adage is true—one man’s dusty, forgotten, outdated junk is another man’s treasure!

Comments

Goodnight, Mom said…
Jana,

We're doing this on the 28th. Can't wait to talk money! WAHOO!
January said…
Admittedly, part of our sales came from selling a snowblower, but we did pretty well.

One thing I did, for the people interested in baby clothes, I told them if they could fill a plastic grocery bag I'd sell the clothes for $5. So I got rid of batches of clothes with little effort.

We'll chat soon!

Popular Posts