Garage Sale Mania!

It's been almost five years since Ryan and I had our first (and only, to that point) GIANT yard sale. We did it about three months after I quit working full time at the station, and basically in that three month period, I spent many, many days combing slowly through our house, finally organizing it well for the first time since we got married. I pulled out all the things we still had in duplicate (from combining two full households) and things we hadn't used in those first almost three years of marriage.

At that time, we lived on a street that had very little visibility, so we hauled all our sale treasures to a rental house Ryan's mom and Allen owned over in Greentown. The house was empty at that time, so we stored everything inside, and when the town-wide sale weekend hit, we filled the entire yard and driveway with so much stuff. (A few friends added things of their own.) I worked hard to organize and prepare, and aside from getting stung in my tongue when I accidentally ate a bee, the weekend was a wild success. We earned enough money to pay for our fall vacation, which took us to Virginia Beach, Maryland, a state park in New York, and Niagara Falls.

Shortly after that, we moved to Kokomo, and because we've tried so hard to live as minimally as we can, we haven't had a sale since. We've tried not to accumulate to the point of needing a full sale. But starting last summer, we began to see stacks piling up, so we decided to start deep cleaning the house and pulling out things we truly didn't need. We started a sale stash in the attic with the intent of having a garage sale this summer.

We had no idea that we would be moving this summer, and a sale would be a necessity and a blessing. We were so glad we'd been slowly working on the project for a year, because it allowed us to have better success!

We had our first sale on Father's Day weekend. We both had to work that Friday, so we could only do a Saturday sale, and it was a hot day.

We sold almost all our big stuff that day, and quite a bit of our smaller treasures. When we closed the doors at the end of Saturday, we pushed the remaining items to the side, and as we packed, we just added to the pile. We found more things that we just wouldn't need in our new season, as well as things we didn't use enough to make them worth keeping.

This past weekend, we had a Friday/Saturday sale and we sold almost everything out there. Our leftovers took up less room than we had in the back of our car. It was pretty incredible.

It was also pretty hot. Again.

 (The baby wasn't part of the sale. She's the reason I filled in for her mama at the church for three months. I just adore her cute little self!)

This has nothing to do with the sale, but is pretty cool. On Friday, during a lull in traffic, we kept hearing all these really angry crows squawking outside! Ryan peeked out the garage door to see what was up and came running back to get me. He told me he was pretty sure there was a bald eagle in the tree across the street.

WHAT!?!?!?

And indeed there was! He stayed for about a half hour (while thankfully we only had a couple of customers) and we took ridiculous amounts of pictures of him. Ryan even captured his magnificent exit. It was SO cool!

Eagle bonus aside, we ended up having a really successful sale. Here were a few of the things we got great feedback on if you're thinking of having your own sale soon.

* Great pricing. Sure, we were a bit more motivated on our pricing because we were eager to see things LEAVE our garage, but we had several comment that the prices were worth it. I tried to price everything with the thought of what I would be willing to pay if I went to a sale. (One guy on our last day told us he had walked out of a sale earlier that day because the prices were ridiculously high. He said he didn't realize he would need a loan to shop there.)

* Organization. I learned this one from my last sale. People really appreciate a well-organized sale. (I think, too, that people are more willing to buy, because they figure if you've taken the time to organize well, they can trust what ;you're selling.) I sort all the stuff I'm selling into categories and label the tables. That way if shoppers don't need kitchen stuff, they know they can skip the whole table labeled kitchen. And if they definitely need office supplies, they can park at the office table for a while.

* And then reorganization. After every flurry of shoppers or after someone bought quite a few items from one area, I went back through the entire sale space, "fluffing" up the tables. I spread things out in crowded areas, refolded clothes, and brought things up from the floor where table space had been created. I tried to always make the sale look like it had just opened. People commented that it was a very organized and tidy sale with great curb appeal, and that made my day.

* Creative advertising. We didn't do newspaper advertising, because it's just too expensive here. I didn't post anything on a community Facebook page either, but I did post on my own page that we were going to have a sale. I posted pictures of all my category signs and a few of the items we had for sale that were a bit more on the "big ticket" side. Several people who came said they loved reading the Facebook posts. (Our only other advertising came in the form of a sign at the end of our street - and several people said they came just because they saw that. Fortunately at this house, the end of our street runs into a very busy road.)

* Keeping an open mind. One lady asked if I was selling some decorative windows that I hadn't really planned to sell. I thought about it for a minute and realized I didn't actually know where I would put them at our new place, nor was I entirely sure they would survive the trip in a moving van. They had been free to me to begin with, so I quickly priced them, parted with them, and feel very good about that decision. And as the sale began to wind down, we also kept an open mind about our prices. It was more important to us to see the stuff go to new homes than to make our top dollar dreams for each one.


So there you have it!! Our pre-moving sale fun!