Take my junk… Please!

My daughter loves to have sales. She frequently sets them up in her room, selling a variety of her things, her crafts, and strange things she found along the road. Her prices are not entirely garage sale class. The couch foot she found on the side of the road… $10. With the sale limited to her bedroom or our living room, her customers are lacking.

After her begging, I gave in and hosted an actual yard sale during the city-wide sales. It just happened to be the hottest day of the summer, the kind where you sweat through your clothes just sitting on the steps. The heat drove the kids inside within an hour and I was left in the scorcher for the rest of the day. As the temperature climbed, the customers diminished. It was a very long afternoon. I did make some money, but I ended up carting a whole truck load to the thrift store.

I don’t expect to do another sale any time soon. It’s so much easier to load everything in the truck and haul it away than to prep and hold a sale.

My mother-in-law is a fantastic garage saler and can find wonderful bargains… the super cute Christmas dress in the perfect size for fifty cents and the like. Each summer we give her a list of the kids sizes and she finds all kinds of school clothes for them. It is great, although the kids are getting pickier about what they wear, so it isn’t as easy to choose things without their approval.

When the kids were younger we went to garage sales all the time. I’d load them in the stroller and we’d hike around the neighborhood. They are great places to snatch up barely-used baby and toddler  clothes. But then my kids learned to talk and they figured out how to find the most annoying, ridiculous, and over-priced toy at the sale. Garage sales weren’t fun any more when I had to say no a hundred times at every place.

I’m sure I’ll do more garage saling in the future, probably checking out estate sales for interesting furniture and what-not. I’m always interested in the floorplans of houses and estate sales are a good way to check that out. I drove by one sale several times and didn’t stop because I had just acquired a truck load of estate sale type items from my mother and didn’t have a place for anything new. Then my friend told me how cool the house was, but when I went back the sale was over. The house is for sale now, but last I checked there weren’t any pictures online.

I love finding great treasures at sales, but lately they’ve been more trouble than they are worth.