You’ve taken the time to purge and declutter so now what??!! Have a garage sale, of course! Donation is always a good thing to do as well and can be done in conjunction with a garage sale. However, if making a little cash for stuff you no longer want or use sounds like a good idea, keep reading.
**my car packed up and ready to drive to my friend’s house for the garage sale**
TIPS
- put your items into categories; clothing, kitchen, bathroom, books, office supplies, tools, etc…
- for small items or items with little value have a .25 cent/.10 cent box
- have a “free” box for items that have either no value like one walkie-talkie, plain or sponsored note pads.
- if you’re doing the sale in conjunction with others, use colored circle stickers to indicate which item belongs to which person. For example, my circles were yellow, one friend had pink and another had green. We each priced our own items with our individual stickers. When a purchase was made, the sticker was removed, placed in a notebook and the amount credited to that seller.
- do the sale with other people. Not only will it just be more fun, there will be more items for people to choose from increasing the likelihood of exposure of your items. You also won’t need to have a ton of items to attempt to fill a space. I could have never had a successful sale with just the items I purged from my home. Another friend had just clothing items which would have not made for an exciting sale, either!
- have one (1) person act as the cashier. As the sale got busy and each person was writing down prices and stickers, it got a bit confusing. Stickers weren’t always being removed, prices were being written down but it seems in the end that it wasn’t accurate. I suspect that sometimes a sticker was removed but the price was also written down.
- Advertise! Craigslist, Facebook, Next Door, local newspaper, wherever you can. Put signs out on the main road leading to your sale so folks know where to find you.
- Combine with other neighbors if possible. The more, the merrier, the more shoppers!! Shoppers may be more willing to go to an area where there’s more than one sale.
- Have your sale at the right time. Our sale was scheduled for 9 AM-1 PM. We went out to set up at around 7:45 AM and 10 minutes later we had shoppers going through our items!! We didn’t even have everything set up and folks were rummaging through boxes looking for deals! There were lulls throughout the morning but for the most part the traffic was constant. We ultimately packed up for the day around 12:30 which was perfect. This was my first garage sale (as a seller) and I had no idea what to expect. I was prepared to be outside from 9-5 and was pleasantly surprised that we were down by 1!!! We then got to go inside have pizza watch the Golden State Warriors beat up on the San Antonio Spurs in the first playoff game!! Lots of fun all around!
- And the best tip of all is to HAVE FUN!
We held this as a two-day sale and I am glad we did. The timing was the same and the traffic was pretty good as well. It wasn’t as break neck busy as Saturday but the traffic was constant!! We were all pretty impressed with the amount of stuff we sold. It was so busy that I did not get a chance to take photos when we started. The driveway was full! This is a photo from the end of the day on Saturday.
I had already decided prior to the sale (and my friends did too) that whatever did not sell would NOT be brought back into my home!! You know how it is when you spend time purging and decluttering and then the donation bags and boxes just sit in your house until you make the time to bring them to your preferred donation location.
The items that did not sell were loaded back into my car and BEFORE I went home I drove to the mobile Goodwill donation center and unloaded the goodies.
I consider my very first garage sale to be an epic success! Everything went better than I could have anticipated and I look forward to participating in future sales. Since I live in a condo and then street I’m on is mostly condos and town houses, garage sales do not really happen here. My friend, Debbie lives in an area where garage sales are plentiful in the spring and fall. I’m hoping I can talk her into a fall event!! I really found it much easier to purge and declutter knowing that someone else could benefit from my items. I realize the same is true with donated items as well but earning a little cash was extra incentive!
Have you ever participated in a garage sale? What tips do have? Share in the comments!
