This is a guest post from Katy Wolk-Stanley of The Non-Consumer Advocate, a blog about frugality, food waste, environmentalism, simple living and finding thrift-store bargains. When not blogging (or napping) Katy works as a high-risk labor and delivery nurse.
Garage sales, yard sales, tag sales, boot sales. Whatever you call them, they’re a great way to make extra money while ridding your home of unwanted Stuff. A well-organized and well-stocked garage sale can bring in hundreds of dollars, so it’s important to plan them out properly.
I consider myself a bit of an expert on pulling together a kick-ass and profitable garage sale — I held another one just last weekend — so I thought I’d share my wisdom with The Non-Consumer Advocate and Get Rich Slowly communities at large.
Here are my top tips for running a profitable garage sale:
- Make sure you have enough stuff to warrant a garage sale. This may seem like a no-brainer, but having enough Stuff to make people get out of their cars is key. Start a garage sale pile as far ahead in advance as possible. I’m not suggesting that you bring Stuff into your home in order to later sell at a garage sale. (Garage sale prices rarely warrant a resale mentality; for that use Craigslist or eBay.)
- Get help. Recruit a friend or family member to act as your backup. This will be important for potty breaks, busy times, safety, setup and entertainment. Otherwise, no one will believe it when you tell your story about the distinguished looking woman who specifically asked if you had any “1970s vintage porn.”
- Keep it short. Friday, Saturday, Sunday sales are exhausting. I’ve been known to have one -ay sales, put everything back into the garage (still on their tables), and then do another sale months later. Believe me: You’ll be zonked after one day, so know and respect your endurance.
- Move your car from in front of your house. If shoppers can’t find an easy parking spot, they’re likely keep driving along. And while you’re at it, see if you can convince your neighbors to move their cars as well.
- Talk to your neighbors about organizing a group sale. Neighborhood garage sales attract tons more customers, so spread the word ahead of time to arrange multiple sales. Or, better yet, hold your garage sale during an established entire neighborhood garage sale day. Talk to your neighborhood association.
- Look beyond household Stuff as your merchandise. I have dozens of small euphorbia plant starts that have volunteered in my front yard, as well as uninvited Lady’s Mantle. I will pot these up and sell them for 50¢ to $1 apiece. I also have some landscaping stone leftover from our stone wall project and will put that out as well.
- Place individual Craigslist ads for your more desirable or bigger ticket items. I did this with our last garage sale two years ago and every single one of these items sold. I placed them as regular listings, but then wrote that they could be seen at my garage sale, with all the pertinent info. I also made sure to delete each of these listings as soon as they left the property. This may sound like a pain in the tuchus, but you can assemble the listing ahead of time, and then wait to approve them until the evening before.
- Have a box of free stuff. Nothing is more fun than finding something for nothing, so I’ll be placing a large, well marked “FREE” box close to the curb. I’ll also mention the free box on the main Craigslist ad and place an individual Craigslist listing in the Free category.
- Don’t price your stuff too low. People like to bargain, so allow some wiggle room. Also, you want to make money. You can always have a 50%-off sale over the last couple hours.
- Price every item. If there’s no price on something, customers have no idea what a bargain it is.
- Offer free lemonade or even just ice water. Most garage sales are held on hot days (except here in Portland, where everything is done in the rain), so a jug of watery lemonade or refreshing ice water is a nice gift to your customers.
- Price items like a store would. I drink a lot of Red Rose tea, which comes with a tiny ceramic doo-dad in every box. I put these out at my last garage sale at “50¢ apiece or three-for-a-dollar,” and everyone, adults and children alike went nuts for them. And no one bought less than three.
- Be friendly — but not too friendly. This may sound like odd advice, but I know that I mostly just want to be left to myself when I’m shopping, and doubt that I’m alone in this preference. I hate it when store clerks are too pushy, and garage sales are no different. Greet the person and then allow them to quietly peruse your crap.
- Don’t base what you put out on what you would buy. I’ve been extremely surprised by what sells and what doesn’t at my garage sales. You never know if someone likes to fix broken things or is looking for materials for an art project. If it’s something you don’t want and it’s safe, put it in your garage sale.
- Put up easy to read garage sale signs. Keep in mind that many of your potential customers are passing your sign at 35 miles per hour. Make the address and hours big and legible. You can always write some of the more juicy details in small script, but no one will come if they don’t know where you’re located. And when your garage sale is over, take your signs down! Otherwise it’s just graffiti and disrespectful to your neighborhood. It goes without saying, the best places for your signs are at intersections where cars have to stop anyway.
- Place more exciting items closer to the curb. Got a ton of old magazines? Great, but don’t have that be what passerby see first. Put the awesome cool stuff out front and you’ll have more people stop by.
- Make sure to have lots of small bills and change. Also bags. Nothing is more frustrating for customers than trying to pay and having it be a problem.
- Keep the money somewhere safe. A lock box is great, but if you’re unable to constantly guard it, it’s worthless. I wear an apron with a big front pocket. Not only can I keep the money right on me, but it helps clarify who the seller is.
- If you have the original box, keep it. Even if an item has been used, it’s somehow more appealing in the box.
- Make yourself comfortable. You are going to have both busy and slow times, so put out a chair for yourself, slather on the sunscreen and wear a hat. Plan what you’re going to eat that day, and keep a bottle of tap water by your side.
- Have a plan for what you’ll do with your unsold merchandise. Some non-profits will come pick up unsold garage sale Stuff, so research this ahead of time.
I ended up making $450 from my one-day garage sale last weekend. With the exception of a bicycle, this was all from low-priced items. The money now sits in a “Vacation Fund” savings account. Money in, crap out — what’s not to love?!
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Great tips on hosting a yard sale! We’re actually on the opposite side right now – we’re shopping for some baby gear at yard sales.
I’ve noticed that many sellers put signs up to get you into the neighborhood, but then don’t have clearly marked signs to get to their homes. With some of them in big neighborhoods, it’s frustrating and I’ve quit a few times.
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yes, signs need to be big, good, and consistent. what worked well for my family was to only write “garage sale” on the sign with a huge arrow — no other details. We did the signs on neon colored paper and made them huge. We made sure there was a sign within sight distance from the last sign you just passed (so, every few blocks) and at every turn.
No address, no hours, no nothing extra. Just the huge garage sale sign with the big arrow. And we would take the signs down before the sale ended — my dad would leave us there to finish up the end of the sale while he went to collect signs.
We always got tons of traffic. We used the same signs each time, so people got to know our signs (we had A LOT of crap and would typically host several one-day sales a summer).
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i think thats a very good summary on what a grage sale would look like , be like and sell like. i also put homeade brownies out with my lemonade and price them for 25 cents a peice with free lemonade.
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thanks. i appreciate your sharing these tips.
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We do a big neighborhood garage sale once a year as a fundraiser for our neighborhood association. Everyone in the neighborhood donates and then people take shifts, help set up night before, help set up day of, work early sale, work late sale, work clean up.
A couple of things I’ve learned over the years I’ve been helping, people always show up early and you need a plan to deal with them. Some years, depending on who is running the show, they can shop while we set up, sometimes they are told to wait.
Prices change over the course of the sale, which means that most of the time we price by category not by item and we change the price as the day goes by. Books and CDs start out at $2-$3 each and price drops over the day. A lot of the early buyers are buying to resell on E-bay or Amazon, they are going to sell the book for $5-$8, which is fine, they are dealing with that hassel and shipping, etc., but I don’t want to sell a big box of books for a cut rate at the start of the sale.
Also regarding pricing, you need to be prepared to respond to bargain hunters. You are going to price something and your garage sale hunter is going to counter, be prepared and have someone in charge of the bargaining. Some years, again depending on who is in charge, we have stuck to the posted prices and some years we’ve allowed people to make an offer, I think we make more money when people make an offer.
Someone with a truck is great to have on hand to deliver bigger items that people want to buy but can’t fit in their car.
Have a plan for the end of the sale, have your local charity pick up what doesn’t sell unless you plan to have a sale each weekend.
And reward your volunteers with coffee, donuts and let them pick out something to take home, after all one person’s trash is another person’s treasure,
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The best way that I have seen to handle people showing up early is to post a sign that says “all items are DOUBLE the marked price if sold outside of posted hours”. This way, you give early birds a chance to get your junk (I mean Stuff) but they have to pay for it.
Sales where I live (Minneapolis) usually start on Thursday so it is not uncommon to have people cruising around on Wednesday night checking things out.
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Early birds make me crazy. We’ve had to set an “official porch sale clock” to open the sale when the alarm goes off.
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Four points:
1) The most important rule (as nicely mentioned above) is about the signs:
“Good (Big & easy to read) signs mean good sales. Bad (small) signs mean poor sales.”
2) Giving out free H20 etc. might run into problems with your local health code. In some places you can not do this without getting a license. Obviously selling drink/food is right out.
3) Make sure your yard & drive are walkable and do not have any obvious places for people to trip & fall.
4) Lock up your pets as they can be a distraction or worse.
/goes to lots of yard sales.
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I definitely agree about the pets thing. You may think your family dog is lovely, but other people might find him intimidating, especially if they have (or are) children.
We don’t get garage sales in the UK really (due, I think, to smaller front gardens and less people driving around neighbourhoods, plus bad weather) people sell their stuff at car boot sales instead. It can be pretty profitable, but you have to pay for your stall and pay for the fuel to get there.
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Here in Oz firing up the BBQ and selling bacon and egg muffins is a great way to get extra revenue.
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Last June, our neighborhood held a yard sale. My neighbor sold around $40 worth of stuff but made a profit of $150+ selling water bottles, soft pretzels and homemade chocolate chip cookies.
The initial water bottles were ice cold, after that she sent her husband to BJ’s to restock the cooler, but the water never again achieved really cold status. We’re in the Philadelphia are where the heat and humidity can get sweltering.
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Great tips. I’ve been on the fence about holding a garage sale, but have so far elected to donate stuff instead. I get a deduction for far less time & hassle.
But I like to go to sales, & I wish more people would follow your advice. Signs are a huge problem–they’re illegible, or as Elle says, they point you in the right direction, but then don’t get you to the actual location.
I do wonder about the pricing issue though. I understand there are people who will automatically bargain, so you want to prepare. On the other hand, I consistently find stuff that is just ridiculously overpriced. I don’t know if sellers are planning for bargaining or (& this is what I’ve always assumed) just have unrealistic expectations about how much money they can make. Based on the stuff I see offered, it seems to me that sellers should shift their focus & consider their garage sales more of an opportunity to declutter & give unused items a home, rather than a way to make a big profit. Obviously, Katy has figured out how to profit from garage sales, but I think for a lot of people that should just be considered icing on the cake. For me, anyway, that’s why I’ve been going the donation route.
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Growing up we had a neighborhood wide garage sale every year, just about every other house would have a garage full of stuff to sell. My friend’s mom was the organizer and they would always set up a grill around lunchtime and start selling hot dogs. Great idea to make some extra cash if you’ve got people wandering the neighborhood all morning.
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I wish I lived where people make big bucks on garage sales. We’ve had several of them over 30 years and the most I ever made was $150. It’s simply not worth my time to sort, clean and mark prices on the items (not to mention spending the day sitting out with my stuff). I donate (or freecycle) everything now.
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To nit-pick a bit: A garage sale isn’t generally “profitable” (unless you’re selling marked up retail items like “Mother of five” describes above).
The original cost of the vast majority of garage sale items was probably a heck of a lot higher than you’re charging (if it’s not, you probably won’t sell much, but if you do you may owe income taxes).
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This is how you really get things fired up:
Yard Sale In The Age Of Craigslist
Posted: March 25
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Good article, great points.
I’ve hammered this before in other threads, but flea markets and swap meets are a better alternative to yard sales for me– they open every weekend, require no advertising, you have no creeps coming up to your house, and you have access to a large group of people with cash in their pockets eager to make a purchase, so you can sell everything you got.
At least here in Albuquerque the flea market is huge, and I made $600 in 4 hours last year, mostly from sales under $5, including rejects from thrift stores and consignment shops.
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My wife and I will make our annual trip to Albuquerque in the next few weeks and plan to hit the flea market at the fair grounds to look for bargains. You’re right, it’s a great place to buy and sell. We’ve found a little community thrift store in Socorro, NM that we hit on our way back from Albuquerque. They sell clothes for 10 cents a piece on the last Thursday of the month. We found some great next-to-new articles there last year.
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Not to mention, swap meets and flea markets are a better option for people who live in high rise apartment buildings or females who live alone or with small children…..
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My hub and I had a big garage sale when we first got married and moved in together. I remember we made around $500 which was a ton of money for us at the time, almost a month’s rent.
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*Live in a neighborhood where people actually drive by and can notice that you are having a tag sale in the first place.
The rural nature of our neighborhood that makes us so happy living here unfortunately makes it awful for hosting tag sales, lol. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tag sale here gross more than $20-40 at most, even when there’s good stuff or multiple houses selling things.
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One more suggestion: keep moving the merchandise as things sell so that it doesn’t look “picked over”. I learned this by participating in a well-managed garage sale a couple of years ago. The woman who ran it was/is a professional buyer for a big chain store and she knew how to merchandise! Keeping the shelves looking stocked and fresh was I think part of the reason for the success.
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Great suggestions! I live on the Mexican border which makes the market for garage sales a little different, here. All I do is set my stuff out in the driveway, put a sign out on the main thoroughfare two blocks from my house, and wait for the resellers from Mexico to make their rounds. Most of the buyers are from Mexico and intend to resell the items so I don’t get a great price for my stuff, but it sells fast. No advertising needed other than the sign. The buyers from Mexico are in the neighborhoods every weekend, so garage sales for us are often a spur of the moment activity. Things happen early, at the crack of dawn, but most of the action is over by 10:00 AM. Short and sweet.
I don’t put prices on items. It’s too much work. People who shop garage sales here ask for a price and we dicker. We save leftovers for another sale or take them to Goodwill.
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Great tips!
If you’re selling kids’ clothes, it really is worth the time to organize everything and hang as much as possible. People are willing to pay more when they can find the sizes they are looking for and things are well-organized than when everything is in a giant box labeled 50cents each.
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+1 for the commenters that suggest swap meets, as an apartment dweller swap meets and flea markets are usually the only avenue when wanting to do a yard sale.
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Good stuff! I’m organizing a yard sale right now with the neighbors so my wife and I can definitely put these into practice.
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Thanks for the tips! We don’t do many garage sales in my city, but we do bring our old clothes and things to outdoor flea markets on Saturdays from time to time.
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Thanks, I was just starting to plan my yard sale. I was told it is also good to plan your yard sale for the weekend after the 1st/15th of the month.
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I wish I could figure out a way to make garage sales profitable. Never made more than $80 on a garage sale; too few people come by and the ones that do want to haggle over a $5 item or want the items free (seriously). My sister in law takes her clothes to consignment shops because she also found it not worth it. I’ve now collected bins of really nice quality childrens clothes and also some antiques but I refuse to have a garage sale and don’t want to drop them at the thrift. Even Craigs list is disappointing me. I put an ad for antique solid wood blanket trunk, selling for $40 because I try to price lower than comparable listed items. The one person who was interested decided not to buy it (after multiple emails and questions back and forth) because it wasn’t in perfect condition. I don’t know if this extreme cheapness is specific to our town (university town so people are used to getting things for free when the students move out) or because of the economy.
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If you have good quality childrens items you might look into consignment sales for those items. We have a couple local ones that have consignment sales for childrens items twice a year and I make much more on those items there than I ever would at a garage sale.
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This is probably the best article I’ve read about having a garage sale, and I’ve had dozens of sales myself over the years and coordinate a rummage sale for my sons’ school every year. For my private sales, my take has been $600 to $1200.
Location is key. You need to be near well-traveled roads, but not be on a road so busy that people can’t find places to park. We live in a quiet area just a few blocks from one of the main roads through our town. We put up signs on the busy road and people come.
Having lots of stuff is vital. And if weather permits, don’t leave it in the garage–spread it down the driveway. You want to entice people to get out of their cars.
Pricing is important. I generally price things somewhat below what the thrift stores in the area would charge. I will bargain some, but I won’t go below what I could get for a tax write-off, since we itemize our taxes every year. For example, if a pair of man’s pants in good condition sell for $6 at Goodwill, I won’t go any lower than $2. I’ll take them to Goodwill after the sale instead.
As for bargaining, I tell my customers that I won’t haggle over a low-priced item or two, but if they buy several things I’ll cut them a deal. I also will not cut prices by much the morning of the sale, unless they are buying a ton of stuff. I tell them that I will cut prices at 2 p.m., and if they’re willing to take the chance they can come back later. Most of the time they buy it now or I sell it to someone else a few minutes later.
Like the author, I’ve also found that a single day is enough. In the past, I’ve had 2- or 3-day sales and the trend has shown that I make 75% or more of the total sales on the first day. So I just pack the stuff up for the next school rummage sale and count my money.
Most of the things I’ve sold are things I bought from garage sales or thrift store and have gotten my use out of–like clothes, toys, books, etc. The best score is to buy an item cheaply, use it yourself, then resell it for more than you paid!
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LOVE it! I love yard sales, and the first article I ever published was a how-to similar to this one.
THANK YOU for mentioning to take down the signs afterward. It is very annoying to see the same signs up week after week.
Glad you made some cash and also gave some great ideas. I can’t wait for yard sale season to truly begin for me…this Saturday!
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Great tips! I would second the idea that a couple big-ticket items in the ad draw people, so ask friends and coworkers if they have anything like that you would sell for them. They won’t have to deal with the sale (other than dropping off the item and giving you info about it), and you’ll get more customers for the rest of your stuff.
Also, in the interest of making the sale more fun if not profitable, at one sale we sold a wrapped gift that for some reason had not been given to the intended recipient. It sold right away–to a cop! (Inside was a party disco ball, and I like to imagine him giving it to a fellow cop at an office party.) A few minutes spent wrapping a couple silly items that you can advertise as “readymade gifts” or “mystery prizes” for a low price could be fun.
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We live in a rural area so we would not get the traffic if we held a garage sale on our own. Instead every two years we have a “community garage sale” which covers about 20 miles. This way there are 20-30 families participating and the buyers are more attracted. We make maps up and place these and flyers in local businesses and we also advertise in local newspapers. Everyone participating must help cover this cost. (has never been more than $6.00) The maps contain road names, house addresses, as well as which house has food for sale. We have been doing this for about 15 years & so far so good! This year I made just short of $200.
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A tip for the singles selling large items via Craigslist: I only reply to the “literate” emails, anything that looks too poorly written indicates the buyer is not serious, the buyer is on substances, or it’s a spam bot.
I give directions to the Leasing Office.
There, I can make a snap judgment whether I will let them come to the apartment to see the items for sale, and whether I need to invent-a-boyfriend or text my neighbor to stand in as “the man of the house.”
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This post comes at the perfect time. Thank you!
We have been decluttering for months and are up to 1,200 items gone from our house. They will all go in the garage sale we hope to have in the next few weeks. We will have a lot of baby gear to sell now that we are done having kids, so hopefully we will make some money. I would be estatic if I made $450 like you!
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Edit: Sorry, replied to wrong post!
My town also has the once-a-year rule, but if you don’t have a perpetual sale, or an anal-retentive neighbor who complains to city hall, the enforcement is pretty lax.
If you want to have more than one, you can also get together with a neighbor and take turns at each others’ houses. This is how I got around the nosy neighbor problem in order to have both an early summer and a late summer sale.
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I read some places need a license for a garage sale. Is that true?
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The town I live in requires a license for a garage sale. It costs $5. Each street address can only have 2 sales per year, so I think it’s to prevent/monitor people having a perpetual garage sale. Check at your City Hall.
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yes, some towns (like the one my mom lives in) have rather bizarre rules about yard-sales. her town only lets you have one per year, and you have to schedule it in advance, and if it rains, well too bad you have to wait to next year. seems a little draconian to me, but i am pretty sure most towns are far less strict and weird.
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If you have stuff actually inside your garage that you are selling make sure anything that’s not for sale is clearly marked.
The last big garage sale Mom did she had some furniture in her garage for sale but not others. All the not for sale stuff was marked with some caution tape she got from a friend and big signs saying NOT FOR SALE.
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In suburban Ohio, the serious yardsailors go out on Thursday. Friday is slower and Saturday you shouldn’t even bother having a sale.
I live on a very busy street, but I have a weird parking situation and this makes it hard to have a good sale…no one knows where to park! People wind up putting their hazard lights on and just stopping in the street–not a very safe idea!
I wholeheartedly agree with the merchandising ideas. My mom does craft shows and she lets me borrow all of her display materials, so I can hang up the prettiest/cutest baby clothes so people can see them better…they sell like hotcakes!
I’m planning on having the mother of all garage sales this July. Hopefully it won’t rain!
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Great ideas, and solid useable information. Several years ago my neighbor, who was a voracious garage sale person, ditched the concept of holding garage sales with the neighbors. Instead, she now shops garage ales far and wide purchasing items she can resell on eBay for a profit. What’s impressive is that she’s got her system down to a science; What to buy, and at what price to turn it for a profit.
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I have an app on my iPhone & iPad called Garage Sale Lite, which pulls all the local listings within a 6 mile radius of your location and maps out the garage sales. You can read the full listings, see pics if there are any and then see it mapped on your device. Awesome!
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Happy to hear that you’re liking my post, and I especially like the tip about arranging the merchandise as it sells.
I’m enjoying writing these posts for J.D., I think I need to sit down and bang out a few more!
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”
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These are wonderful suggestions. I attended a few garage sales as a buyer, and nothing excites more then getting some free stuffs. Attending garage sales was a great learning experience for me. I used to buy stuff on cheap during last few hours, and used to sale on Craigslist and eBay. I made quiet a few bucks there. I explained the total procedure in my blog here http://onecentatatime.com/5-sacrifices-to-get-a-goody/.
May be in next couple of years I will organize my own garage sale. These tips will definitely help me, nice post.
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I haven’t ever held a garage sale, but am planning to do so fairly soon– mostly to declutter, but also to maybe make a few bucks.
I think freecycle is a really great thing (when it isn’t abused by people “requesting” free things), and I’ve seen people list their garage sale on freecycle, giving the locations and times, and noting that, after a certain hour, all remaining merchandise will be free. (Freecycle is not supposed to be used for selling stuff– only for giving away things to reduce the burden on our landfills). I was thinking I might do this, because it seems like a great way to advertise the garage sale to the people who might be interested. I’m not totally sure if it will turn out well, but I think it is an interesting idea.
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I personally wouldn’t do this. I’ve done garage sales and freecycle, and you might be overwhelmed by freecyclers lurking at the sale waiting for the “free” time, taking all the parking spots from the paying customers. Some freecyclers go to garage sales, but most of the ones I’ve met are only interested in what they can get for free. I’d wait to put the freecycle listing up until the end the sale, saying “Garage sale leftovers free on the curb at (address).”
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I love porch sales (I live in the city–no garage or yard). Our street has one every year and the mass of sales at the same time drives a lot of traffic.
One situation I’ve had that you didn’t mention is having more than one person want the same item. It usually happens with furniture.
When two folks wanted an art deco armoire, we had an impromptu auction to sell it to the highest bidder. Even after bidding it up, the buyer still got a great deal.
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Check with your city Code dept for garage sale permits.
Ours run $6 for the weekend and includes stickers permitting the signs. Otherwise, Code Enforcement Officers will remove the unpermitted signs and shut down your sale – yes, even on the weekends.
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I’ve found that when we put up our signs the Friday nite before the sale so that the ‘going home’ traffic sees them helps quite a bit.
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Garage sales and flea markets are a way of life where I used to live in the FL Keys. With the closest real “mall” being in Miami, 3 hours away, garage sales are always fun there and profits from our 2-day sale paid for our U-haul truck when we moved.
Being in an apartment, I have usually turned to Craigslist, making sure to take pictures for each listing and to notate cash only, no checks or money orders to avoid any problems. If home alone, I would meet them at the clubhouse with the item(s) they were interested in for safety reasons.
When I do not sell everything at a garage sale or on Craigslist, I donate, recycle or trade it. If it’s a new or used CD, DVD, book, or video game I trade it for cash with the company I work for http://www.abundatrade.com. AbundaTrade. AbundaTrade has an online trade calculator so you can get an estimate on how much you will receive for your item and for many trades you may even qualify for free shipping.
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A guy who knows far more than I about finances suggested that it’s actually more profitable to donate your stuff and take the tax write-off. I didn’t believe him at first, but he gave an example with stuff they donated and explained that the tax laws give specific amounts for different items and he was able to write off far more than what they would have been able to get at a sale, if things even sold at all. Add the time you take to get everything ready, the time you’re working the sale, and possible clean up time and I’m thinking he’s right to say it’s not worth doing unless you actually need the cash.
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I’ll never do another garage sale. Big-ticket items go on Craigslist. Clothes and toys to charity; I figure out the tax deduction from DeductionPro or similar and get my cash in the form of a tax deduction, as mentioned above. The deduction for a sweater is something like $7. When did you last get $7 for a sweater at a garage sale?
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my last sale was about $900,
location
I do it Friday and saturday, prices as marked unless you buy a bunch on Friday, and everything goes Saturday after about 11.
I found a great way to get rid of the excess stuff after. around 2, I put an ad on the free section of CL: Garage sale leftovers, must take all, must bring truck, must call me (I’m outside after all). 2 or 3 dummies emailed me
The guy who called first, borrowed a van, took all the leftovers, and when I asked him if he did a lot of garage sales, he said ‘no, I got laid off a bout 6 weeks ago and am just trying to feed my family’
Talk about feeling good about recycling…
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Wow thanks for all the great tips. I especially like the idea of trying to organize a donation pickup at the end of the day.
These tips will really help us out at OUR garage sale! We’re just an hour down the road on Sussex Ave SE in Salem, OR and we’re having a garage sale on June 4 and 5!
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I disagree with having a sale during a neighborhood sale… That will more than likely HURT you if your goal is to turn a bigger profit. The reason why: Competition is a huge sale-buster. If there are several houses on your street also having a sale, some folks are going to be less inclined to spend as much time at your sale because they’re hurrying on to the next one (The more time spent at your sale, the better chances of selling more stuff). Or they might not be as likely to even stop by in the first place if they’re given lots of choices.
However, if you hold a sale OUTSIDE of a neighborhood sale and put clear signs outside of your neighborhood that do a good job of leading them to your house, they’re much more likely to stop by since they came all that way. The more people who stop by, the more likely you’re going to turn a better profit at the end of the day.
Trust me, I’ve been on both ends (buyer and seller). I’ve talked to several folks who’ve held sales during neighborhood sales and outside of them, and almost always they’ve did better when held outside of the neighborhood sales. Competition is your enemy!
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Summertime means garage sale time! Thanks for the post – most of us could benefit from getting rid of a few things.
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I am glad I found this site.I have had sales for over30yrs. Gone to just as many in that time.Signs,Yes big and address.Driving I only have a few min. to catch.If there is a lot of turns. Kind a post extra signs. When your sales over. PLEASE take down your signs. That is why a lot of citys will go to require permits and limits. Respect the rummage sale.Keep your money in a apron on you.That is the safest way.I have seen to many foolish stuff in person. The way people handle there money. Keep your jewlery close to where you can watch it. If possible have a freind or family help you. There are people who like to steal. I could tell you stories. Check your local stations. One of ours has where you can post for free. I know I am having a block rummage where I live june 9. Its been awhile. But I hope I sell everything. Pricing.I try to look at what stuff I have and what I want to really get rid of fast.Non cheapos will know you have fair prices. One thing that angers me. Is people who do not put prices on stuff. Than ask a jack up price. I usaully walk away not buying anything from them.Do to the lack of respect that action shows. I do like the suggestion on early birds. Thank you
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A caution for people holding estate/garage/yard sales:
Today we ran an estate sale to clear out the house of an old friend who passed. At the end of the sale two young men came in and after looking around said they were interested in buying two sets of coffee cups, mumbling something about buying them for friends in need. They bargained a little and after getting the price down to $10 they wanted to pay for the cups with a $100 bill. Something about the whole situation just didn’t feel right…and the $100 bill didn’t feel right…so we said sorry we couldn’t make change for a $100. We told them if they wanted to come back we’d hold the cups. They left and never returned.
I am convinced that the $100 bill they tried to pay with was counterfeit.
Now having lost $10 worth of merchandise is not a big deal, and losing $90 in the process of making change for the fake $100 bill would have sucked, but in the long run would not be so bad. But IMAGINE the problems that would ensue if we had tried to use the counterfeit bill – WE would then be responsible for trying to cash in the fake bill.
So please, please, please – never accept large bills at estate, garage, or yard sales unless you know the buyer. For that matter no checks either.
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Make sure to advertise your sale in as many places as you can! Big signs do really help.
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