Garage Sale Tales

So without getting into any long back story, if you followed my blog you know last year my husband and I separated. Now, we are attempting to work things out and a lot has changed. We have plans to move next summer. We have wanted to move for years and are finally starting the process and pulling the pin. It's exciting, but we have a lot to do before then, not least of which is saving money and selling our home. We are trying to sock away as much money as possible and it is going well so far since beginning on this plan about a month ago. My husband sold his vehicle, and some of his large items from when he was living alone. I started lowering any possible bills I could and paying down debts. Now our next big goal is getting rid of random “stuff” so we can sell our home. We decided to have a garage sale. I was in a major time crunch and had a week to prepare.

I’ve never had a garage sale before, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I have been to a few, but not many. Not to mention, holding a sale is different from shopping at one! I of course wanted to be successful and to make money while getting rid of as much stuff as possible since most won’t be moving with me.

Well the whole thing was definitely an experience. With my husband not around to help most of the week, I had to drag stuff from our crawlspace alone and there was A LOT. My back was killing me for days!!! Nothing had been sorted and of course I had to price it all. Every day when my son was napping and at night when kids were in bed all I did was garage sale stuff. I was so burned out by the time Friday came! I learned a lesson not to wait til the last minute to do all that at once. I tend to underestimate the amount of time it takes to do stuff. Yikes.

So my husband helped make tables and get the big stuff out. I was so afraid my sale would flop and I would have killed myself for nothing. I didn’t want to price too high but also not too low. I was completely stressing! Not to mention sorting through stuff I got all sentimental and that was hard on its own. One night I just about had a breakdown! I realized, it’s ok to save some things, and also that not everything was going to sell anyway. So I held back the things that really had sentimental value to me (but not much monetary value) and put the rest out.

I’m not good counting cash and was paranoid about mishandling the money when people paid. In fact at first I told my husband he would be running the sale since I did most of the work all week!!! Didn’t work out that way though :P I wasn’t sure how much money I even needed to start with or how much change to have. It was a lot to figure out. I had to advertise and wanted as many people to come as possible. Being later in the year and chilly weather I didn’t know if people would even want to be out and about. However when I went to post my ads, I saw a whole bunch of other people doing garage sales the same days and so I figured, that was a good sign.

In the end, how did it go? It was a smashing success!!! I made even more money than I intended. We were shooting for $500 and I made $730. Yeah!!! Money to put away for our move!!!

So here are the things I learned when throwing my first garage sale…

1)     PLAN WAAAAAY IN ADVANCE!!! Do not wait until the week before. Start months before gathering items, sorting and storing them. This will save time and body aches in the end when you go to price your items. I had so many piles going when I was sorting (stuff to sell, stuff to donate, stuff that was trash, etc.) it became really confusing and my house looked like a tornado hit it for the whole week (still does because I just started cleaning up!)

2)     BE PREPARED COMPLETELY THE NIGHT BEFORE. My husband had done garage sales with his parents and had said “People will slowly trickle in, we can finish up the last stuff in the morning.” WRONG!!! There were people practically knocking down my door at 9 AM when we opened, which left us rushing around like chickens with our heads cut off for an hour or more.

3)     HAVE SOMEONE TO HELP YOU. We intended on one of us working the sale while the other watched kids, and taking turns. NOPE. Didn’t work out that way most of the time! I figured there would be people coming and going but not crowded or very busy. There were a few times there were probably 10 people walking around my garage at once! And inevitably, the people who were buying bags and bags worth of stuff tended to somehow all show up at the same time. It was definitely more than 1 person could handle alone and often we both wound up out there working together.

4)     ADVERTISE. I knew this was important. I advertised on Craigslist and several other places locally, as well as numerous signs around our neighborhood directing people to our sale. In my ads, I made it seem as inviting as possible, and offered homemade cookies for free to patrons (which I did bake!) I listed several of the things I had for sale and posted a couple general pictures so people could see it was well stocked and organized to entice them to come check it out.

5)     PRICE STUFF WELL. I didn’t want to deal with a bunch of change and so I only had a few things priced at 50 cents and nothing at 25 cents. I figured if it was only selling for 25 cents I would just donate it and save myself the trouble. So most of my stuff was $1 or higher, I tended to price items at $1, $2, $3, $5, $10, $20 etc. Pricing everything at 25 cents will surely sell it but you won’t make much. Then again pricing stuff at almost new prices won’t sell it either. Do a little research and find out what some stuff is worth and price it at 1/3 to 1/4 of the new cost (unless it is something you KNOW will sell in your area for higher. For example I sold 2 new ATV helmets for half the new price, and a couple other new items for half the retail price.)

6)     MANY PEOPLE WILL HAGGLE. I didn’t really intend on that since my prices were all clearly marked. Some people simply paid but about half of them haggled. I generally gave them a good deal and marked the items down a bit just because I wanted them gone. However there was one thing that really noticed that struck me. It seemed that the people who haggled the most were those who you could tell had the most money (e.g. pull up in expensive cars, looking at high ticket items). Generally the people who had less money haggled less, which is the opposite of what I expected. My only explanation for this is that people with less income are at garage sales to get things they need and know they are getting a good deal on those items. People with money show up because they want to get new or expensive stuff for $1. 

7)     YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT PEOPLE WILL BUY. I had a feeling that people would buy all kinds of stuff, because I ama thrift store shopper and have seen some strange things people buy. So I put all kinds of stuff out there, both quality and “junk”. One person’s junk is another’s treasure. You never know what purpose someone needs something for. We put out some old stained rugs for $2, because I figured someone may need them for a garage or shop or something. Sure enough someone bought one. I put out half burned candles and makeup and nail polish, a somewhat chewed dog bone, stained snow pants, stuffed animals, old ceiling fans we had removed from our house and replaced. All sold! Then some of the stuff I was SURE people would want (a full dish set, nice, new clothing, linens, random collectibles) barely sold or not at all. Point is, set it out because you never know what someone may want or need.

8)     BE FRIENDLY BUT NOT TOO FRIENDLY. It’s awkward as heck to walk around some stranger’s garage without them even saying hi. I greeted people as they came in but then left them to browse until they had questions or if they just wanted to talk. I think the people who wish to talk to you will make it known, but no one likes people being pushy. Also, don’t just sit at a table and stare down customers (especially if there is only 1 person walking around). It is uncomfortable for everyone. I tried to busy myself with something while people were shopping so they didn’t feel the pressure of my stare on them!

9)     SECOND DAYS ARE NOT NEARLY AS PROFITABLE. Our Saturday sale was crazy busy, almost no one left without buying and we made $570 that day alone. Then Sunday was very slow and half the people left without buying despite the fact that items were half off. We still made another $150 but it wasn’t really worth it at the end of the day to have sat there to sell a few things for peanuts. When we calculated a couple hour period where only 2 people came and one lady bought $1 pair of shoes and that is all, we laughed. As Napoleon Dynamite says “That’s like a dollar an hour!”

Now, I know everyone wants a deal (I love getting good deals!) and overall I had a fun time and good experience (although very exhausting!) Here are the things I found fun and then the things I found slightly irritating at my garage sale.

The fun stuff: Hearing people’s stories, seeing people get happy when they found something they really liked or needed, someone showing gratitude (one lady told me I made delicious cookies, and that was really nice. Out of about 50 cookies I made that disappeared she was the only one to comment to me, so that made me feel good.) Another lady bought bags full of baby items for an upcoming adoption. She was so excited and talking about the baby and it made me happy to hear her excitement and see how glad she was to find all the stuff she needed at our sale. In the end I also had a huge box of free blankets she took with her and I was glad to give her some things free for being so cheerful and nice.

Now, the crappy stuff: When people scoffed at certain prices (one of my first customers balked loudly at my price on board games while buying 2 pairs of $1 pajamas, then about an hour later, a couple people came in and bought some of the games…go figure), when people were completely ungrateful or even rude after bargaining with us (one guy picked out $120 worth of high ticket items which were half off, so $60. He then informed me he only had $37. After my husband and I exchanged glances we decided to give the items to him for his $37 and be good Samaritans about it, thinking he’d be excited. He didn’t seem at all happy as he carted away some of his essentially free high priced items and sort of acted like he was entitled to them all. It was extremely off putting and offensive to us. So the lesson – don’t act like a jerk when someone gives you a good deal. Oh, and don’t pick out really expensive stuff when you have no money to pay for it!) Oh, I also didn't like when people acted as if we owed them something (one lady haggled on everything from 50 cent items to $40 items. She bought them all but afterward, she told my husband, “you can take those out to my car.” WOW, no asking, no please, just “bring them to me.” Manners, anyone? And perhaps the worst (this happened to my husband, thankfully) I had some books on various mental health issues in a box with other books. Apparently a women looked at a book entitled "Surviving Schizophrenia" and turned to my husband and said "So, who here has schizophrenia????" Woah!!! What on earth did she expect for an answer??? "Oh, me! What do you want to know about it?" I have to really question the common sense (or lack of) that some people possess!!!

So now it is done and I am a bit richer. I am patting myself on the back for all my hard work that paid off!