Beyond the Garage Sale

I am currently in day 2 of my 4 day garage Sale.  I am running it Wednesday thru Saturday.  I just want rid of all the extra crap around my house.  Not Crap.  I use that word entirely too much.  Its just stuff I don’t want that is still in good condition that I feel would have some value to someone else, but not to me.  I have either had these items and not used them , or we have out grown them.   The big item this week for mew is Girls Clothes.  Size 3t to 6t.  And only Girls clothes.  I have an abundance of clothes.  Because I love the hand me downs, but not only that, it’s not as if my youngest only wears hand me downs, she gets new stuff too.

My goal is to get rid of the stuff.  I just want rid of it so, what doesn’t sell, is going to VVA.  They will pick up at my house.  Now none of these items are big ticket items.  A princess bike, a princess scooter, a Little Tikes Fire truck.  I am not asking for crazy prices, and I am negotiable.

In my adult life this is only the 2nd time I have done a garage sale.  Sure, I have helped friends neighbors and family with theirs but to have my own to be responsible for this is only my second.  It feels like a big deal to have all this responsibility.  To set up every morning and pack up every night. But my basement was packed with discarded items we no longer used or wanted. It was spilling out into the garage. I had so much stuff that I couldn’t park in the garage any more.

Action had to take place. I was out of space. My husband was at his wits end. If he had to tell me one more time that if anything else touched his motorcycle  he was going to throw out all this junk.

I have a fear of commitment.  I am honestly afraid that I will do something wrong or somehow fail someone I love. So after checking my calendar 3 times and reviewing Farmers Almanac.  I scheduled it. I put out in my city website, Facebook,  and Craigslist.  I informed my neighbors and family so if they wanted to throw anything in they could.

My mother in law was kind enough to help me set up for 2 days in advance.  The pricing and sorting. Looking up items on Craigslist and eBay to make sure I am not over priced. It was a lot of  work.  Not hard work but a lot of it. Not only that but I’m trying to do all this around my regular stay at home mom duties.

So the point of this post is to help you prepare for your own yard sale

Plan ahead of time.

Clean rooms and purge.  I went room by room, because I get easily distracted.

Pick a date.

A date where you have free time. No niece or nephew birthday parties.  Look for good weather.

Advertise. Advertise. Advertise.

Tell your neighbors, friends, family.  Facebook,  local website, Craigslist

Lead them to you

Post signage at major cross streets. Then lead them into your neighborhood with streamers or balloons.

Enlist help.

Although it is not hard to run a garage sale you still need bathroom breaks and lunch.  At One point in time I had my 9 year old manning the stand so I could use the facilities.

Call the pick up service ahead of time.

I wanted to make sure that I did not have to store any of this tuff ever again.  I schedualed VVA to pick up on Monday after the sale was through.

Since starting this Article.  I have finished my sale.  Now I just need to fold up the tables so I can park in the garage again.  I made some money which I promptly spent on back to school supplies and shoes for the kids.  It was earned the hard way!  Well, not so much hard as time consuming.  But I made some money I would of otherwise not had.