Yard sale time!
 

My daughter and son in law want to have a yard sale but about all they have is DVDs. Well you can't expect anyone to stop at your house if that's all they see. I haven't had one on about 4 years so there is quite an accumulation! So I am going through everything again. I guess the biggest thing I'm selling (but the cheapest price) is my entire Christmas village. I don't have anywhere to put it anymore now do I have the energy or even the desire to do it. None of them are Dept 51, just the things you buy at Target or JoAnne fabric for about $10. Well 10 years ago I paid that!!!! So I'm not sure what kind of price. I just wish someone would come up to me and say'I'll buy your whole village for XXXXX" I also have a lot of quilting material that I don't have any aspiration to do anything with anymore.

When we moved in 2002, we had a garage sale at my aunt's house. My mom had a Christmas village that she'd been collecting for a few years...she'd been buying them from Dillards. I think we had maybe 30 or 40 houses, and bits and pieces of the village.

So, my aunt, who doesnt really have much experience with garage sales put them out on a table, and then trusted that people would actually come up and pay for them. Nope. Just about the entire village wandered away from the garage sale, along with my sister's guitar (aunt put it out on the lawn, away from where she could see it from where she sat in the garage)

I took over watching the garage sale for awhile, and I saw the lady who was stealing the village. I pretty much let her do it, because we wanted to get rid of the stuff, but I made that lady work for it. I followed her around, talking to her, and pretty much irritated the heck out of her. I figured if she was going to steal from us, she had to make a bigger effort.

By the end of the day, we were giving things away. When we were cleaning up and starting to put stuff away, a truck drove by and asked if the garage sale was still on. We ended up helping to load all of our stuff into their truck. Just gave it away. I'm sure those people thought we were nuts, but we were about to move and just wanted to get rid of things. So we gave things away.

I havent had a tag/yard sale in years! it alot of work, but oh what fun. :cool:


We just went through this house and donated alot of stuff to the salvation army in the winter months. We expected to have this house on the market by now, but havent gotten there yet.

The last sale I had, I sold a PS1 (game player) and some games. A man and his 7 or 8 year old boy came up and tried to bully me into half price. I told him the price was more than fair, and would lower it by ONE dollar, not by half. He was really pushy, and DEMANDING that I lower the price to HIS wallet. I called over my husband who was dressed for work as a prison cop. I said "honey, this man has been told the price of this, and is DEMANDING that I let him have it for half. I have said NO several times now, and he isnt taking no for an answer." the man got all nervous and figetty. I said again "its X amount. If you want it, that is what you will have to pay." He pulled out a WAD OF $20s and paid me what I asked! He gave me Full price for all the games that went with it. It was a great price, and i wasnt trying to rip him off, but he was trying to rip me off. HA! I bet he wont stop at my yard sale again.

Btw, the DVD and VHS tapes were the first to go. You can also sell them to Half.com or there are some swap sites on the internet that you can swap your DVDs or Games for someone elses. I think its called SwapTree.com

Have fun. :cool:

I had a yard sale once. To much work for no $$$$. My partner wanted to much for the items, even rhough I told her things had better be cheap or nobody will buy. Well that is exactly what happened. I swore I would never do it again.
I wish you luck with the sale.

we are having our annual neighborhood one in two weeks. I don't have that much to get rid of but 4 houses on my street do it at the same time.

My big way to make money is going to Costco and buying 2 or 3 cases of bottled water for about $4.00 each case, and selling them for $1.00 a bottle. The shoppers in my area always are thirsty. I sell out every time we do it. Since they are driving from house to house, and it the heat here, I just put a sign up with a cooler of ice and H2O and it's always a hit.

My neighbor goes to the local supermarket and buys a couple of dozen donuts and sells them for $.50 cents each, she pays about 10 for them. She cleans up also.

Ooooooooo, price gauging on Earl's street...tsk tsk..:eek:

Last year we decluttered our house from top to bottom. We cleaned out anything and everything and had a garage sale. It was a huge success and we made a lot of money. Since it was such a huge success and we got rid of so much, it may very well be our last garage sale!

One year we had a yard sale in the heat of the summer and one of best sales was soft drinks and bottled water for 50 cents! I'm sure finding a lot of things I didn't even remember I had. And when you can't even remember you had something, it's time to sell it.

I think yard sales are fun to have just cause of the people you meet, the stories they tell you, the fun you have with the people you are having it with. The least I got was $13 one year and the most was $400.

you have to be in the right spirit, and realize that folks want a bargain. Be willing to slash prices once 11am hits. Get that stuff that didnt go with the early birds out the door!

I had a great tag sale with some neighbors a few years ago, we sold everything but the kitchen sink. We didnt make truck loads of money, but we made some AND we got a cleared out basement, and storage bin. I was able to buy that new couch I had been wanting so badly.

Its great to team up with neighbors or use the church parking lot and have great exposure and be seen. Maybe others at church will want to join in. Make sure each family uses a different color for their price stickers, and you keep green money apart from red money apart from blue money stickers so you can keep track.

it can be great fun.

My son in law is really set on having this yard sale the weekend after this. I don't think he has any idea what all goes into getting ready for one. I had one with my sister one year and she just put all her kids stuff out, not by size, dirty kids furniture and all. I even put entire Barbie wardrobe into little baggies, everything was spick and span. Guess who sold the most!!!!!!