Quiltah Mama

I am having a yard sale this weekend..... how exciting, we all know the saying, one man's junk is another man's treasure. But wow, what a lot of work. I thought this would be fun, a great way to make a little extra money and clean out some clutter. But after a day of work, I would call it, setting it up, I am now realizing it's a lot of work.
it will be nice to see people l know, and meet new people the next few days, it will also be absolutely great to know l am passing on usable stuff. But, I have to admit, I don't think I can do this again, wowsers.

Anyone else host a yard sale before? I must admit, when I go to my next yard sale, I will have a whole new view of it, and appreciation.

Mkotch

Always an exhausting experience, but very nice to see things go to good homes. Our neighborhood has one just about every year, and different people participate. It's fun to go around and socialize!

KalamaQuilts

I've done three, real blow-outs, over 50 years, the last 10 years ago. I always rope in neighbors to have one too, or friends to join me, more stuff, keeps people looking longer.
takes a week or two to price and set out, I guess that's the part I don't like, but I don't stay at sales that aren't priced.

Kalama has a city wide sale in July which is what I'd probably do now, since there aren't any papers to advertise in anymore.
Good luck!!!
While we were on vacation we talked seriously about full timing in the RV, which would require a whole new scale of downsizing I've been working on it since 2001 when I embraced FlyLady methods and have probably downsized by 2/3's and could easily pick up and move to a house 1/3 this size. But an RV? Ummm, what about my cabinet of quilts? Where do you put the printer? Not ready for that, because I'll never pay for storage.

Snooze2978

I remember when I decided to go from VHS to DVD and I have over 1,000 back then. To make it easier for me, we just moved the bookcases out onto the front porch and let them pick and choose. At night we'd just move them back inside until the next day. Because of the prices, I got rid of most all of the movies in 2 days time. I gave all my John Wayne movies to my boyfriend and sold all my 125 Disney movies to a co-worker as a set so that took care of a couple hundred of them. Now I've got over 2,000 DVD movies and yes, I've run out of room and in the process of having an entertainment center built around the flat screen TV in the living room.

When I first moved here, I had a garage sale and it must have been the wrong time of the season (May) as I couldn't move much of it. The catholic church had some new nuns moving into the old house next to their church and it was totally empty of the necessities so I met up with them and told them to come on over and pick out anything they could use for the house. The rest I stuffed in my mother's van and took up to a non-profit thrift shop in a little town 25 miles away.

Now I don't bother having garage sales but I still go to them. My sister and I both donate to our local non-profit thrift shop for the disabled where most of the employees are volunteers. Our rule is if we buy a top or pants, we have to give one or each back so the number of clothing stays the same in our closets. Also anything else that still has some worth to it, we give to them. Trash we put in the trash can, not to the thrift shop where some folks think they'll take anything.

sewingpup

My sister and I have had several. They are a lot of work. They get rid of a lot of stuff. We set up in my sister's garage so we can work on pricing for a few days before. Everything is out on tables. Day of the sale, we open the door and start pulling the tables out along the sides of the driveway. One person mans the money table, the other helps out as needed and tidy's up the tables as some people will just pull things out and toss them back anywhere. We always have a "free" box at the end of the driveway and it always gets rid of a lot of "stuff". As the day goes on and this box gets emptied, we pull stuff off the tables, remove the tags and it is now "free". At the end we divide the remains into three categories. Good stuff we will take back in for the next sale. I have limited my boxes for that to 2-3 boxes, then we have the boxes of stuff that we will take to one of the donation stores, and finally, there may be some stuff we just trash. The would-be things like an old chair that needs a seat replacement. Sometimes crafters like to take things like that and fix them up. We usually do have a couple of antique dealers that stop by and anything we think they might buy we really do put a higher price on. They will try and bring the price down but sometimes we hold pretty firm on it and they sometimes pay that price. Sometimes they don't want to pay that price so we tell them if they want to check back at the end of the sale, they can have it for that price if nobody else has offered more. I can't say we make a ton of money but hey, we get rid of a lot of stuff without having to haul it ourselves and it keeps a lot out of the landfill.

Chasing Hawk

When my youngest daughter was just an infant. I would help my Aunt Georgie and Uncle Harold with their garage sales. We always had a good time, my Aunt would always cook something really yummy for lunch and some extra for me to take home. As I was helping set things up. My Uncle would pull me aside and insist I pick out things I wanted for the kids (had 3 at the time) clothes, toys etc. My Aunt would do the same when Uncle Harold was out of earshot...lol They both would say, "Go pick out a few things and put them in your car (before the other one sees)....lol
I would mainly pick up some clothes for the kids.

Also I was the unofficial chauffeur driving them to doctor appointments, to the grocery store and other errands. Since Uncle Harold had throat cancer and could not drive anymore due to all the side effects of the meds he took and chemo. Aunt Georgie never drove a day in her life. I never asked for money even though it was offered, so Aunt Georgie would buy some groceries for us (very sneaky I might add) she and Mom would go shopping and drop the stuff off at my house.

quiltingcandy

We had a couple of yard sales when the kids out grew their toys and clothes. It was great to get rid of the items we no longer used and still had some value. Since they have left home and we don't want to go to the trouble it goes to the local thrift stores. With the Craig's List and internet sites to sell or trade things on line that seems easier than an actual yard sale.

cashs_mom

I used to do yard sales a lot. I haven't done one in years just because it was too much work for the small amount of money I made. When my husband was cleaning out his dad and stepmom's house, he mentioned having one, I told him to have fun. Not doing that again.

cindyb

Last year we had a Village wide sale and decided to participate. Gosh, we were so disappointed - not worth the money we made considering the weeks of organizing and pricing.
On the other hand I helped my friend with a rummage of all her deceased mothers things. It was in mid-Sept. - not popular month for rummage sales in our area. We only hauled the stuff out on tables in the driveway NO prices. We had a box that asked for donations to St. Jude's Children's Hospital. We ran it for 3 days, the overflowing tables were reduced to one large box and we made $1,500.00 for our charity close to our heart (I have a granddaughter with Osteosarcoma) . We accomplished exactly what we wanted to do - pay it forward and know her mom would be proud of us.

Quiltah Mama

The sale went great. Once all the work of setting up and pricing was done, it was socializing time. The yard sale was to pass along good usable items from my DFIL's 3 bedroom house after he passed in July. We had excellent prices, negotiated well, and reminisced with a lot of people about my inlaws. My DFIL was in business in the community for 45 years, and my husband was his partner, who is continuing it.
We priced by table, $1,$2, $5 tables, then a free table, then priced individually the higher priced items. Sold ALOT, then boxed up and donated to a local Masonic group the remainder. My DFIL was a Mason, so we knew he would appreciate that.
All in all, it was a lot of work, but happy it's gone, and will still be used and not in our landfills.
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