The Garage Sale Bug Bit Me

My son and I went out and about on Saturday and there it was. A huge neon pink sign with two lovely words…Garage Sale.

We pulled up to the house and my son led the way to the garage. He was pretty excited. I started looking around at everything and it became obvious that someone was selling many of their belongings. Glancing at the pay table, I see that it was a couple in their 70s.

We were there after noon, so many things were probably already sold. There were still older things left like a really neat camera that probably could be collectible but I passed it by. My new garage sale rule is to not buy anything unless it is useful. Last year we had three garage sales to get rid of our clutter so I can’t bring any more into the house!

I have to admit, I look at garage sales a lot differently now. Before, I used to think of the deals I was getting on things we really didn’t need (a nutcracker bowl comes to mind – when do we ever have nuts in the house???). Now I think about how much money the people originally spent on the items and how little they are getting back by selling them.

This particular garage sale had a very large collection of VCR tapes selling for $1.00 each. If they originally cost $10 each new, they easily spent over $1,000 on all of those tapes. Maybe they bought them used for a deal. I’m not sure. But I think about that now.

No matter the price, it helps me a lot to really think about what I am buying. Will I find myself trying to sell it in a few years? If so, even if it’s $1.00 perhaps it isn’t worth buying at all.

Posted by Tricia on May 12, 2008 at 11:04 PM in Spending Money | 13 Comments »
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Will responded:
Posted: May 12th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Well I don’t mind people buying stuff they don’t need and/or don’t know what to do with. I bought “The Millionaire Next Door”, “Rich Dad Poor Dad”, and “Personal Finance for Dummies” at a garage sale as a bundle. The guy wanted $2 apiece. I offered $5 and we had a deal.

This purchase is still paying dividends as we speak
Tricia responded:
Posted: May 13th, 2008 at 12:30 am
When you look at it that way, then I guess their loss is your gain.

If anyone can figure out how to get my nutcracker bowl to pay dividends – let me know LOL
Beth responded:
Posted: May 13th, 2008 at 8:19 am
What I think is VERY cool is that your attitudes and values and priorities have truly changed. Your transformation towards freedom from being a slave to debt and “stuff” is happening from the inside out. And that is the kind of transformation that is lasting. What you are changing is not just your outward behavior but the attitudes and values that determine your behavior. That is why I KNOW you will reach your debt-free goal and why I have confidence that you will not go back in debt again. Way to go, Tricia!
Jim ~ mydebtblog.com responded:
Posted: May 13th, 2008 at 9:36 am
When older people sell their things, sometimes you can find antique items they’re selling for near nothing. Old stuff can be worth a good deal of money if you know what you’re looking for. Most people just sell their junk cheap though to get rid of it. One’s trash is another’s treasure. For me I have found it is easier to just give things to charity and claim the value of the things as a tax deduction.
Matt responded:
Posted: May 13th, 2008 at 10:42 am
I find that I question pretty much every purchase I make now that isn’t directly related to my staying a live (aka food). Getting rid of clutter takes a great deal of effort so unless you really need an item there is no point in bringing it into the house.

Did you end up buying anything?

By the way congrats on hitting 2000 rss readers!
Brianne responded:
Posted: May 13th, 2008 at 11:18 am
I think an item’s cost should require more thought than just its resale value. Who knows how many times they watched each of those videos?
jay responded:
Posted: May 13th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
I learned a quick lesson with our first yardsale when very early on a guy offered a flat rate for all our books. We took the offer, but later processed that the books were probably going to end up at a flea market the same day, going for much more than WE were paid.
Always remember that when buying at a yardsale, its frequently not that someone never used an item, but that they no longer want/need it and are moving it on. So, those VHS tapes probably brought many hours of enjoyment before they ended up on the sale table, and even watching them just once or twice your couple recouped the cost compared to going to the movie theater! It’s usually a win-win situation at garage sales.
Tricia responded:
Posted: May 13th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Matt – we didn’t end up buying anything. I admit, the camera I saw was really cool and tempting but I passed on it (it was $5).

Jim – this sale did have quite a few antique-ish things. They could be worth money down the road but I think about the opportunity cost. Could that money be spent someplace better right now and perhaps provide a better dividend down the road. My terminology may be incorrect, so I hope everyone understands where I was going with that.

It’s very true that they VCR tapes might have brought hours of enjoyment to the couple here. I related those tapes to our situation. We have bought tapes in the past to only watch them once. Then they sat on a shelf collecting dust. For us, that is not a wise choice for entertainment. It’s much better for us to rent a 99 cent movie.

But everyone’s situation is different. Like Beth said above, my values are changing. Stuff isn’t as important to me know. I’m slowly changing back to the values I had while growing up…where you make do with what you have and not go out and buy things you can’t afford on plastic. For me, I guess it took getting buried in debt to realize that.
jay responded:
Posted: May 13th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Yes, you’re right of course!
There’s stuff that was always just stuff, then there’s stuff that once had value, but now IS just stuff!
Tricia responded:
Posted: May 13th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Say that 10 times fast! LOL
Family Man responded:
Posted: May 13th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
It appears you have finally turned that corner. Congratulations. Now you know that onece you are debt free you have the mind set to stay that way!

Way to Go!
CanadianKate responded:
Posted: May 13th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Tricia: Fill that nutbowl with homemade candies and nuts and give it as a hostess gift this winter.

As for the VCR tapes. I had the same realization. We only really bought children’s ones (or more accurately, asked for them as gifts) and a selection of our favourite movies.

I’m ADD and I find that popping a movie on keeps me in the room thus I have a better chance of staying on task (i.e. polishing silver, filing papers, cleaning the kitchen, switching over my summer and winter wardrobes). We have about 2 dozen real favourites that I have watched at least 8 times each but even with those, we are just approaching break even on the ones we bought new.

With DVDs I resolved to be stricter and we belonged to the Canadian Netflix equivalent. That works out to be the equivalent of buying between 1 & 1.5 videos per month, but I can get up to 15 a month.

Because you can have several at a time and can keep them indefinitely, it is a nice compromise between owning (can watch when you get time) and renting (cheap cost per unit.) It works especially well for tv series and as a result, we don’t have cable; we just wait for the quality series to come out on dvd. We are never current, but we do get to see all the good stuff.
Manders responded:
Posted: May 22nd, 2008 at 1:43 pm
I just did the garage sale thing. I admit that I didn’t do as well as you.

We just bought our first house. The 30 gallon water heater knocks. I’m told this is due to rust build up and will eventually need to be replaced. It will only fill up our jetted tub about halfway and then run out of hot water. We can’t use the jets then.

My husband also brought home two beagle pups to go with our 4 year old beagle dog. For breeding and for hunting. Both will provide for us, so it is a good thing to have the pups.

After purchasing our first home we soon realized that mowing and raking is a full time job on almost two acres. We had a tractor from hubbys dad but the raking was near impossible.

Back to the garage sales.

I found a 40 gallon water heater that goes in the basement (not my bedroom closet) that had only been used for 2 years and was only 5 years old. I feel it was a steal for $45.00. This is something that we would have been purchasing later for up to $300.00.

I found a dog crate for the puppies for only $5.00. I can put the pups in the kennel when I am not home or at night to avoid puppy potties around my home.

Finally I found a yard rake for $30.00. It attaches to the back of the tractor and rakes as you mow.

They mostly were splurge purchases but we were eventually going to get them. So I feel as if I did well. I know there were many other things that I could have purchased but only got the things we have talked about.