This last weekend I was very busy with hosting my own garage sale!
I’d say I put in hours of work but really, I just realized if I had 5 bags of stuff to donate I should at least try to sell it first!
I printed off some simple signs and taped them to some boxes I was going to throw out. The night before the sale I drove to the 4 corners near our house and dropped the signs off with a log in each box to keep them from flying away.
I had decided to start Thursday morning. I woke up and, being a spare table-less family, I dragged blankets out to set up stuff on. I just put things by price. 50 cents here, $1 over there. You sell things for wayyyy cheaper when you were just planning on donating it!
Well, I made $50 and that first hour and when things slowed down I decided not to push my luck. I left my signs up since they said Thurs-Sat and I would have had to wake my kids up from their naps to go haul the boxes in. I guess it was a bad idea because I quickly got a doorbell ring by someone interested in my sale and wondering why I wasn’t out there. Yep, that’s gutsy. So I opened back up and probably sold about $2 worth of stuff in the next two hours.
Meanwhile I invited friends to bring their stuff by and so on Thursday evening I had even more stuff to sell, but for other people. I opened shop excitedly on Friday morning at 8am and sat out there ‘til noon all to make a whopping—$7.
I was not happy. So Saturday I prayed over my sale. I didn’t want to have to give my friend all her stuff back! It started out slow but in one blow one lady came and bought 3 large items totaling $46! That helped get rid of many of the larger items. A neighbor brought out his leather chair he wanted to sell and asked $60 for it. I wasn’t too hopeful, maybe because I rarely shop for furniture but I stuck it out there. Just as I was getting ready to close up a man pulled up and plopped in the chair. Within minutes it was sold!
I think the only things I have left to sell are a Bumbo & tray and a new changing pad from my friend. Both will do nicely on Craigslist so I shouldn’t have a problem getting them sold!
All in all I sold $200 worth of stuff! $69 of that is mine and I am very happy. Making almost $70 from items I was ready to toss is pretty good in my book!
Meanwhile I’m looking for better ideas for putting garage sale signs up. I might try stakes instead of boxes next time!
I was pleased with how little work went into this sell and how easy it was to do vs the money that came in. Even if it wasn’t all my stuff!
I think the idea of a garage sale is put in as little time as you can (and still make it workable) and sell as much as you can, rather than for as high as you can!
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