I keep feeling the weight of all the accumulated CRAP we have in our house. It lives mainly in the basement, and it’s pulling at me. It’s very heavy.
Some days, I think about donating it all… and probably I will end up going that route because I am lazy efficient and charitable.
But other days, I think about throwing a garage sale. Making a few cents off all the much-loved stuff that’s no longer useful for anything except jamming up our basement.
We have books, artwork, stereo speakers, shoes, clothing… and tons and tons of baby stuff. (Will I actually be able to give it away? UNKNOWN.)
The thing is, I have virtually no experience with garage sales. So I have no idea if it’s worthwhile. I am aware that garage sales are a lot of work. Even perusing a couple of sites with tips for a successful garage/yard sale are making me weary.
But it also maybe sounds a little fun?
If memory serves, I think one of our neighbors has a garage sale every couple of years… I wonder if I could team up with her? That would be good for multiple reasons, not the least of which she could just tell me how she does things. But I wouldn’t even know how to broach the subject… do I call her? Go knock on her door? (We see each other maybe three times a year in the wild.)
Do you think my husband would be up for it? (My guess is no.)
How do I know if I have enough stuff? Or the right kind of stuff? We have a lot of random stuff: like an unopened box of Brita water filters, some old sippy cups that Carla no longer uses, some ancient roller skates, my husband’s childhood collection of Ghostbusters action figures. That’s just a sampling.
And how do I make sure that I’m Well Prepared – with tables and labels and signage and stuff – without spending more on Preparations than I’d make from the sale?
And what in the WORLD am I going to do with Carla during this thing? I can envision her a) disappearing down the street after someone’s dog or b) crying about some old toy she hasn’t played with in years that she doesn’t want me to sell or c) going on a mad tear and knocking things over.
I wonder if any of my friends would be interested in joining forces.
I also wonder if I’m crazy to even contemplate this nonsense.
Help…?
Teaming up would be a good idea if it is with a very (VERY) near neighbour, otherwise what angst you save on some things is outweighed by the shlepping o’stuff. Other than that, I would view it as a very low-key thing that I was doing to save me having to physically take all the stuff to a charity shop or the equivalent myself rather than as something to make money (although any, possibly small, amount made would also be fun).
All to say that a few simple signs and a streamlined sales system rather than the multi-layered extravaganzas that some people seem to enjoy would be the way to go and you MUST stick to the Golden Rule that anything that makes it out of the house for sales purposes is categorically not allowed to go back inside and must be taken for donation on the day of the sale as soon as it has finished.
So! I know lots of people who make hundreds and hundreds of dollars on yard sales. But when we had one (and we had TONS of stuff, plus we have an EXCELLENT location for a yard sale, very visible from a main road but off to the side with tons of parking), we made $50 and we were out there ALL DAY, not to mention the MILLIONS OF HOURS spent gathering and pricing and so forth, not to mention all the INTERACTION WITH HUMANITY (“Will you take 50 cents for this item marked $10, when it is six minutes since the yard sale started and there is someone standing behind me itching to get their hands on it?”). Plus then we had to take everything that didn’t sell to Goodwill anyway.
So the next time, I put everything out on the lawn with a giant “FREE” sign, and almost all of it got cleared away for us. We didn’t make $50, but nor did I have to sort, price, sit outside all day, or deal with people.
I’ve had plenty of garage sales in the past years. Yes, it is a huge undertaking but you can make some money. Be prepared to feel insulted when people make remarks about your prized possessions though. As for the action figures, you could probably sell them on EBay or put an ad in your local or neighborhood paper. If you have Craig’s list, try listing there as well. I would suggest Carla having a play date some where that day. And don’t take any checks!!!!!
We’ve made around $200 both times we’ve done them, and I don’t feel like we put a TON of work into them, except the day of/night before. I remember my husband, both times, borrowed a long folding table from a coworker, and the second time I think we also bought a long-ish card table. Things sell better when they’re off the ground.Pricing things is somewhat time-consuming and trips people up, but my goal was always just to GET RID of stuff. So if I sold it for $6 but someone offered me $2? FINE, take it out of my house. Another tip I learned was to close the garage door just slightly (the big electric door), and hang clothes on hangers, on the little metal “lip” that’s now approximately standing-height. They sell better if they’re hanging.
The first one we did, our kids were around 8 and 3. If I remember correctly, since it was so darn early in the morning, they just stayed inside eating breakfast and watching cartoons. Maybe husband and I took turns managing the sale/watching kids?
Sell the stuff with obvious value (unopened Brita filters) on a local buy-sell-trade site. Do you itemize your taxes? If so, carefully list each item and it’s value, then take it to Goodwill and deduct it from your taxes as a charitable donation. Waaaaaaay easier than garage sales. (I use turbo tax and it will price the value of the items for you, if you want. I’m not sure it can do Ghostbusters action figures, but it’s got clothes/household items/toys/games/etc. My husband donated a set of golf clubs last year and that value was in there.)
We participated in a multi-family garage sale for the past couple years while we were living out of the country. It was quite a bit of work to prepare and we never made much money (maybe $80, maybe). We mostly did it for the social aspect (it was a group of friends and we got the kids altogether in the yard/house to play during) and because we were out of the country and therefore unable to deduct donations on our taxes. Also an issue of everyone else’s old toys looking fabulous and enticing to our kids, so it’s impossible not to pick up some additional junk.
I won’t be doing another one anytime soon for a few reasons: 1) they’re not allowed in our US neighborhood, 2) we can deduct donations now and our local women’s shelter will send a truck to pick up from my garage (so fantastic), and 3) social interaction early on Saturday morning is not my thing.
Not to pile on, but also think about if you and your husband agree on the values of things generally, or if you’re both committed to just getting the stuff sold. It can be exasperating when one of you insists on getting a certain value for an item (that is ridiculous and not going to happen! Ahem) and the other just wants said item gone and out of her house.
I don’t understand one thing. So, in America, you can drive your stuff to a charity store and they give you a receipt for its “value” and you can deduct that on your taxes – as if it was a real benefit. Yes?
And then poor people would come and buy your things. (At the price you got the receipt for or with a bit of a mark up?)
Is that how it works?
Is that in every state or just some of them? Are the charity shops profit-making businesses or are they run by proper charities?
What happens if no-one buys your things from the charity stores?
I’m sorry. I just don’t get it. It sounds like a horrible consumeristic cycle of greed and waste. Like something rich white people invented for their own convenience.
But if I’m summarising it even closely, you would have to be COMPLETELY INSANE to even think of doing a garage sale!! Garage sales are hell on earth.
Do thing suggested above where you put it out the front with “FREE” on it.
I can’t speak for all charity shops, but I donate at my local animal shelter. I take them clothes and other household items and they give me a reciept so i can deduct the donation from my taxes. They put the items in their shop and sell them. The profit they make helps pay the bills at the animal shelter.
We had a garage sale once. We did it with neighbors who weren’t long-time garage sale people but they are efficient people and they happened to have a lot of key stuff like a tent and some table and a driveway ideally suited for the event. They did most of the set up voluntarily. We contributed some tables, my husband helped set up and I advertised and we all worked the sale and priced our own stuff. We had our kids bake some stuff and make lemonade and sell that. The kids ran around and helped (we had two then and they had three and I think everyone was 6 and under at the time). We started drinking mimosas and bloody Mary’s almost immediately and it was a fun morning/afternoon. I remember ordering pizza and throwing it at children midday and when it was done I took a nap with the youngest child. We definitely bonded with our neighbors that day and now they are great friends. We made about 350 (which I used to buy a second generation kindle so that tells you how long ago this was). Our neighbors made maybe a little more. We still had a ton of stuff left over that I donated. It was a lot of work. I am not sorry we had the sale at all because it established our friendship with several neighbors and kindle. But since then I have donated everything and valued everything in a donation tracking app for tax purposes and have made as much or more money, felt better about the process and have saved a ton of time. Our neighbors have felt/done similarly.