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We mostly quit after the last one. A few years after my mom died, we decided to have a big garage sale to sell off the stuff no one wanted. We had it during our community wide garage sale event. We advertised it in Craigslist, on facebook and in our local paper. We put up signs all over the place.
We spent about two weeks getting ready. Sorting, looking up things, pricing, ect. We put up a giant tent top thing and just started putting things out several days before. All the families of my family added things they wanted to sell. It was EWWWWWUUUUUGE.
My wife and one daughter took Friday off so they could babysit the garage sale on Friday. I sat there all day Saturday and other family members came and went.
In the morning about a dozen people showed up primarily interested in Moms collection of sewing patterns from the 1920s through about the 1980s. We sold a few here and there, and then some guy offered us $150 for all the remaining ones. Sold.
We sold her better sewing machine for $100.
We sold an antique cast iron iron for $10.
We sold a chair for $20.
The rest of the time was a trickle, a dollar here $5 there. We come out with about $300. Basically, we made four sales that produced pretty much all of the money.
We ordered a pizza on Saturday so we could stay and watch the yard sale. It cost $33.00.
Then we had to sort again. What to donate, what people want to just take home or try to sell on E-bay. Take down the tent, clean up, etc. I estimate between all the family members, we put 150 hours into the whole thing.
That was the end of yard sales for us. Now we just donate anything we do not want. Selling on E-bay is a PIA and craigslist just brings a bunch of weirdos to your house (so did the yard sale).
Oh and we bought one of those markers that identify counterfeit money. One guy gave us a fake 20. When it turned color, he just grabbed it away and left. We called the police, but I do not think they caught him. We were too stunned to think to get his license plate number.
My daughter still does them once in a while because she thinks it is fun. but she puts no effort into it. Put up two signs and throw some stuff on the lawn. She usually sells 2-10 things and makes between $5 and $40 for sitting there half Saturday. However she does not do it for the money. She thinks it is fun.
I sell on craigslist but only meet people somewhere for the sale. Too many weirdos. I would never, ever give them my address or let them come to my house.
Oh and we bought one of those markers that identify counterfeit money. One guy gave us a fake 20. When it turned color, he just grabbed it away and left. We called the police, but I do not think they caught him. We were too stunned to think to get his license plate number.
Garage sales can be a big security risk. People from other parts of town come and see what you have in your garage, what kind of cars you have, what kind of house you live in, and then return later to break in.
People that attend yard sales are cheap and I hate cheap people.
They offer you pennies for things.
I had a lady offer me $3 for a pair of Waterford Crystal bookends which were marked $10. Uh, no.
It make me snarky when someone wants to negotiate something priced at a quarter. No i am not making change for a quarter. For that matter, I usually price everything at $1 or more, if something is not worth $1 put it with other things, or throw it out. Or make a free box. People like free boxes. I got a walking stick I would gladly pay $20 for out of a free box (Dog chewed it up yesterday, I would gladly pay $20 for another one of the same kind of wood - dumb dog). I was so happy about it, I bought something I did not really want, just to give them a sale. Now I am stuck with a big pirate ship kite that I have no opportunity to fly and no walking stick. Why couldn't the dumb dog chew up the pirate ship instead?
We used to have garage sales often when we lived in the city. With 5 kids, we had a steady supply of old toys clothes books and other unwanted things. Plus we matured to real furniture and sol off our IKEA equivalent junk Even though we lived in a rough neighborhood, we would leave piles of clothing on blankets on the front lawn with a sign This pile $1 each, this pile 2 for $1. Put the money through the mail slot. We left a pile of envelopes. We did not inventory, but there was always a pile of envelopes of money in the mail slot when we returned home. People are generally honest I think.
Long ago, when my wife and I were just married, I had a fancy racing bike I bought at a used bike store for $200 several years earlier. Just before we moved, her bike was stolen, and I no longer had the time or physique to make use of a high end racing bike. We were having a yard sale, so I decided to sell the bike and use the money to get a couple of lower end bikes so we could casually ride together. I put it in the yard sale for $300. the second day I reduced the price to $250. A guy came by, looked at it for a while, asked how much and I told him 250. He looked at it some more, then left.
Later he came back looked at it some more and asked if I would take 2. I said no. 250 was the lowest I can go. He said “but it has a flat tire” I asked him why he cared about a flat tire on a $250 bike, the tire would cost less than $30.
He looked at me in shock and said “two hundred fifty? No no. I mean two dollars, I thought you wanted two dollars and fifty cents - it has a flat tire.”
That night someone broke into our garage and stole the bike and some tools.
I took a picture of the bike to a bike store to get an appraisal for the insurance company. It appraised for $3800. The insurance company paid me $3300 after the deductible.
Another funny thing from that garage sale, I had a bunch of old ties that were either too loud/wild or too out of style (super wide or narrow) to wear to work. I put them in the garage sale for $1 each. No one looked at them. The second day, just for fun, I took the wildest ugliest tie of the bunch, hung it on a fancy hanger and put $350 on it. I took others and marked them $40, some $20, some $18, some 15, a few $5 and a few I left for $1. We sold almost all the ties in the middle price ranges. None of the $1 ones, very few $5 and the $350 and $40 ties remained to be donated to St Vincent De Paul down the Street (where they were sold for 50 cents). It was an interesting social experiment (and made us quite a lot of money).
Last edited by Coldjensens; 11-29-2016 at 01:42 PM..
I had one garage sale and was done. It's not fun to sell $5,000 worth of stuff for less than $500 but the hassle was more than I can take. It goes to salvation army now.
I noticed a few years ago that within a couple of weeks of community yard or garage sales near me, there were burglary clusters in those respective neighborhoods. Not sure if they were correlated, but it happened enough times to where we no longer participate, and neither do our neighbors in our cul de sac. Many people from outside our neighborhoods and area (lots of SC plates) attended the sales.
Garage sales can be a big security risk. People from other parts of town come and see what you have in your garage, what kind of cars you have, what kind of house you live in, and then return later to break in.
They attract all kinds of people, riff raff, that don't necessarily want to buy anything at a garage sale. I've had a group of men walk in and out of the garage all together, at the same time like they were casing the place. It was kind of scary. They spent 1 minute going around the garage then took off in their van. People look for things to steal. People look for stuff to sell on ebay. One person came around asking me if I have any gold or silver in my house.
The cheap people who want to buy stuff for nickels are a minor annoyance compared to these others. But like someone else said, I don't even want to bother with any sale under a dollar.
These sales attract riff raff into the neighborhood. It doesn't surprise me if some HOAs have rules against having G sales. Our town will only allow you to have 2 per calendar year.
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