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Garage Sale Time

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With my job, part time job, school starting, part time foster kids and getting ready to move…not to mention regularly scheduled kids’ activities our lives are humming right along.  And before I know it we will be packing up a truck to move just a few miles away.

That being said, I’ve scheduled our IT’s DONE DAY otherwise known as Garage Sale day.  My goal with this is to inspire us to continue working through things a steady if not rushed pace.  We are making every other day trips to local thrift stores to drop things off, the garage is full of things listed for sale or being held for the garage sale and our home is getting more organized by the day.  I’m loving it!

So my IT’s DONE DAY is to be the final day of our purge.  By that time, we should have gone through every room, every cupboard, every box, every closet and divided things into four groups…1) goes to the apartment, 2) goes to the trash, 3) goes to donation (and is in the back of the car) and finally 4) for the garage sale.    At the end of IT’s DONE DAY, we will have had our garage sale, and had a donation truck come pick up everything that did not sale.  The only items remaining in our home will be 1) the things going to the apartment and 2) the appliances that we need to continue to use until we move ie: refrigerator, washer, dryer, lawn equipment.

I’m pretty proud of my plan…here’s the schedule for the remainder of these two weeks (I’m typing this up on Sunday so I’ll have already gotten through some of this:)

Sunday/Monday*Kitchen
TuesdayGymnast' Room including closet
WednesdayPrincess' Room
ThursdayCoat, Game and Linen Closets
Friday*/Saturday/SundayMy Room
MondayPrincess' Closet
TuesdayBathrooms and Misc
WednesdayGarage
ThursdayWalk thru house, check all cabinets, closets and cupboards
FridayGet ready for sale tomorrow!

*The asterisks represent a goal to get to the thrift store that day for donations.  Because I have so much else going on, it’s important I put these on my calendar so I make sure they happen, otherwise our car will be full of donations and nowhere to sit!

I have to admit I HATE garage sales, I never feel like they are worth the effort.  And when I mean hate, I mean, like on my top 10 things I do not want to do.  But I am hoping since we have so much furniture that must go we can actually see some benefits from this one.  I know this has been written about before, but if you have any hints for easy garage set up or making your garage sale a success I’ll take it!  The little ones have already started working on their sigh for a lemonade stand and the twins are setting their stuff aside that they think they can make some money off of…this is a family affair!


12 Comments

  • Reply Christa |

    Good for you doing the kitchen early. It always takes the longest I feel. For your garage sale, advertise, be willing to take less and have a free pile. People love free!!

    • Reply Hope |

      The kitchen is the worst! And the easiest place to “hide” clutter so it was very motivating to really get it purged so that one I knew our dishes would fit into our new apartment and also know exactly what food we have so we can focus on eating it rather than buying more so there is less to move.

      Love the Free pile idea, definitely will use that one!

  • Reply Den |

    Price everything!! Maybe go a little bit higher in price on the furniture as most people will ask for a discount. Promote the sale on facebook and craigslist. Promote the last 2 hours of your sale as 50% off anything left to bring people back for final bargains.

    Keep your money on you at all times (fanny pack?), have lots of ones and change, put on some music and have fun with it! Good luck!

    • Reply Hope |

      Fabulous suggestion! I do need to remember to get change…and the Free table and 50% off everything is a great idea. Thanks for sharing.

  • Reply Kari |

    I’m getting ready to move too and I have had good luck selling stuff on my local facebook page. Even stuff my husband didn’t want to be bothered with and wanted to just throw out! So far I’ve sold two things and made $90. I have two more things pending pickup and I really haven’t done anything but post photos of all of it. Good luck with your move 🙂

    • Reply Hope |

      Yes, Kari, that’s what I’ve been doing too, and had quite a bit of luck selling some of my nicer pieces. But it is getting pretty tedious so I’m ready to wrap up the purge process so we can focus on everything else that must get done.

  • Reply Deeanna |

    Take the time to document what you end up donating and then be sure to use the donations on your taxes. Every little bit helps.

  • Reply Mary |

    I hear you about hating garage sales. They are a lot of work for not a lot of money. They are good however sometimes and I’ve done three and never again after that.

    A few tips:
    -Advertise
    -Have everything priced a few days ahead of time. I like to use those little colored dots (I think they call them garage sale dots) for pricing. You can find them at Walmart or anywhere in the office supply section.
    -I run my sale from 8 a.m. to noon. Have everything out and ready to go by 7 or 7:30 a.m. at the latest because your early birds are good buyers.
    -If people look at an item 3 times and don’t purchase it, I know I am too high and I lower the price.
    -Clothes as a general rule don’t sell well so donate them to Goodwill and save your time.
    -Furniture, games, electronics and clutter type stuff (lol) sell well.
    -On my garage sales, I made $500 on two of them and less on the third one. I vowed never to do them again.
    -As a general rule, you’ll get more for your stuff on Craigslist, at least in terms of furniture but when you have a lot of stuff, you may not have time to go that route so your garage sale is probably a good idea.
    -I like to set up my garage sale like a store, lol. I had all of the baby clothes on hangers and ironed, Insane. I know.
    -Get lots of singles, change and plastic bags for people to carry out their purchases.
    -Talk to a friend who does a lot of garage sales ahead of time to get a feel as how to price your items. You want things to be priced right at the beginning since that’s where the bulk of your buyers will be.

    Good luck.

    • Reply Hope |

      Thank you, Mary, for the very detailed suggestions, I will definitely make use of them!

      I’m a bit an organizer too, so although I wouldn’t have ironed the clothes, I will definitely have sections for things.

  • Reply ECD |

    As someone that likes to go to garage sales, I’ll tell you how I select which ones I go to.
    – Craigslist is the only place I go to to find garage sales
    – Since there are a lot of different listings all over the metro area, I narrow down the listings two ways: 1) Map view that shows the location of the sales for the people that included it in their listing and 2) Neighborhood/area name. The 2nd one is important because some people only put their address as the location – but no one knows what part of town that is in and I do not spend the time to look it up
    – Of the listings that made it through the previous step, I look at the listing to see if it’s worth my time to go. I’m looking for a detailed, yet concise listing that provides what kind of items they have for sale (i.e. furniture – sofa, table, clothing – women’s, home decor, exercise equip, etc). I also love listings that have included pictures. Just make sure they are good pictures – if all I see is a cluttered table with lots of misc items in no sort of order, I probably won’t go.
    – I love it when they publicize that all items are deeply discounted after a certain time. I’ll almost always make time to come by during the discount period at least.

    Hope this helps from the perspective of a buyer!

    • Reply Hope |

      These are great tips, ECD, especially the details on advertising. We didn’t get alot of traffic the last time we tried this, probably because we were at the back of the neighborhood, so I know I need to focus on this!
      Thank you!

  • Reply hannah |

    We’ve had two huge estate sales, and let me add thoughts that hopefully haven’t been repeated above:

    – We didn’t think it was safe to keep ALL that cash on us the entire time, so a couple times we took all the large bills and hid them in the house. Somewhere someone would have to dig hard to find them! This may be something you will need to do.

    – VERY IMPORTANT. Keep your house LOCKED. Windows included. Don’t let your kids run in and out and NO ONE EVER is allowed to use the bathroom, ever! It doesn’t matter how sweet they are, this is the most dangerous thing to allow – don’t do it!

    – You have young children, you’ll need a way to keep your kids under supervision at all times. With many people coming and going, the kids should never be left unwatched. You don’t know what past some of your customers could come from.

    I think the other commenters have hit all the other important points, so that is my 0.02. Garage sales are an awful lot of work, so I hope you make some good $$ to make the effort a success!

So, what do you think ?