Hosting a garage sale

This weekend I did something completely new.  I had a garage sale.  I could probably count on one hand the number I've been to in my life, besides occasionally stopping by other family members' sales.  It felt a little hypocritical to expect other people to buy our junk when I don't go buy theirs...but I guess people stopping didn't know that.

Here's how it went down and what we learned from our first time...

We hadn't participated in our block garage sale weekends before because we didn't think we had enough to make it worthwhile.  Then earlier this year I got really motivated to clean out and get rid of stuff.  Clothes, movies, video games, books, craft supplies, kitchen stuff, decorations, household stuff, etc.  I decided we could probably make a little money selling it all which would be better than just donating it to Goodwill.  Then it became even easier adding to the pile knowing that we might make a few bucks off it.

We did very little to prepare other than finding more stuff to sell.  I posted an ad on Craigslist the night before and priced maybe half my stuff then too (what I could reach after we got it all on the porch).  I basically just wanted to sell the futon and maybe make $50.  I didn't have real high expectations. 

It ended up going really well.  My sister put in a lot of stuff to sell so she was here with me the whole time.  My Mom and two of my other sisters put some stuff in and were here on and off.  At first it was very strange to see other people carrying around my stuff.  Then it became kinda exciting to sell what I didn't need/want and know that someone might get some use out of it.  It made me happy that my stuff would have a home.  (I realize how lame that sounds.) 

The only picture I took (other than the kids) was this one of the futon when I was posting it on Craigslist:

When it got to 1pm on Saturday and it hadn't sold...I started to get a little desperate.  Matt was gone for the rest of the day at a bachelor party and I didn't want to deal with this thing on my own.  Or have to figure out where to put it in my house.  But then within 45 minutes of posting an ad, someone came to pick it up and didn't even try to negotiate on the price.  I was super excited; it really made my day.  We bought it for $60 7 years ago with the house.  We sold it for $50.  I think we got $10 of use out of it in between (strangely, it got most of it's use with post-Eaglemania guests and we sold it the day after Eaglemania).

We still had fairly full tables on Saturday afternoon when the rain started but when we got everything back on the porch it was evident how much we did sell since it had been packed before the sale and there was much more room after! (and we were down to 4 tables from the 5 we started with along with selling most of the big things.)

Our intent was to bring nothing back into the house at the end; that everything would be donated or sold.  A little rain shower changed that but not much made it past the porch.  We sorted through it all and then my sister and I made 3 stops: Half-Priced Books (to sell all the books, movies, and video games left), Once Upon a Child (to sell any kids stuff left), and Goodwill (everything else).  I think doing that is what really made me feel good at the end of the day.  We got it all taken care of and didn't have any crap left to deal with. (I would highly recommend this!)

In the interest of honesty I did end up keeping a few things that didn't sell:  2 Vera Bradley bags I hope to sell on eBay, a few movies for the lake, my blue sequined heels, and a box of leis I'm going to freecycle.  And I also took a sorting toy for Luke and another vase to paint that were my sister's. 

Our first garage sale was a success.  We sold the futon and I made more than $100 besides that on stuff that we would have otherwise just donated.  It was all little stuff; I don't think there was anything over $5.  It makes me very happy everytime I go in the basement and see the big pile and the futon gone.

Where the futon and garage sale piles were.  I no longer have to crawl over a futon mattress to do laundry!

The big question is always if you would do it again.  And I would...when we have enough to sell.  I think it might take a few years.  We've gotten a lot better about not buying things in the first place.  Some of what I sold went back to high school (someone bought the shoes I wore my freshman year...they weren't cool then but I guess they are now??) and would take me years to accumulate that much again.  I hope it's a long time before we have enough to do it again!

Next up is tackling the rest of the basement.  I hope to have that done by the end of summer (don't worry...I have a whole post written about it...you should feel lucky.)