We had a garage sale on Saturday. We had one about 6 years ago before we moved from Mississippi. They're a lot of work, but we always feel like it's worth the effort to make some extra money and declutter the house.
We always talk about participating in our neighborhood garage sale in the Spring or Fall, but had never actually gotten our act together to do that until this year. We started talking about it a month in advance and really prepping for it one week in advance. We had perfect weather, a pretty good turn out and made a good profit. We both agreed that it was definitely worth the effort it took to make it happen.
I'm going to share 6 garage sale tips with you today in case you found yourself wanting to declutter your house this Fall or coming Spring.
1. Purge EVERY Area of Your Home
Make a master list and work through all the spaces. Kid clothes, adult clothes, shoes, coats, winter gear, sports equipment, home decor, garage items, toys, electronics, DVDs, kitchen items, etc. It will feel so good to declutter all of those areas. Get rid of anything you don't wear or use regularly. I did this in a little over a week. I tackled several areas each day and collected items in our bonus room. I tried to keep them sorted by categories as I purged.
2. Involve the Whole Family
Ask your entire family to come up with contributions to the sale.
For us, my husband did his own clothes, shoes, DVDs, books, tools, sports equipment and electronics. I asked the kids to help with their toys and shoes. I did the kid's clothes plus my own stuff. I could have done the decluttering for everyone, but I want the kids to learn this important life skill. Sure, I probably would have gotten rid of more toys, but I'm happy that they thought through the toys they were ready to part with.
3. Buy Printed Price Tags
The printed price tags were so handy. I gathered items for about a week and then priced everything the day before the sale. It went really quickly. Also, stick to easy prices so you're not having to add up crazy amounts the day of the sale. We did $0.50, $1, $2, $3, $5 and then higher price tags for larger items. Avoid really specific prices of $0.75 or $1.50, $2.50 because it's a pain to add up or negotiate. I'll link my favorite set of price tags from Amazon below.
4. Advertise & Organize Your Sale
Our neighborhood pays to advertise for us. I made signs to hang on our mailbox and promoted the sale on my Mom's group's Facebook page. The more traffic you can get the more money you'll make.
Set up tables with similar items. Keep all the kid clothes, adult clothes, DVDs, toys, sports equipment, etc together. That'll make shopping easier and help your buyers to shop with ease. We used our picnic tables, folding tables, wagons, kiddie pools, etc to help display our merchandise. We also went through the sale about every half an hour to tidy things up.
5. Don't Bring Items Back Into Your House
If you decide that it's time to get rid of things, do not bring them back inside.
Come up with a donation game plan for anything that does not sell. Another neighbor had a giant donation trailer dropped off in front of their house. After the sale we bagged up 95% of what didn't sell and promptly dropped it off at the donation trailer right after our sale. The other 5% of things we opted to list on ebay or take to a local resale shop.
6. Divide Duties
Kevin and I had a conversation before the sale about our expectations.
I told him that I could definitely purge the whole house throughout the week and price items, but that I could not commit to spending hours outside the day of the sale running things + trying to keep the kids occupied. He agreed and said he'd run the sale and get change from the bank if I could get most things prepped for it. We also talked about what we'd need help with as far as set up went. He'd probably still tell you that I was stressed about everything coming together leading up to the sale, but things went really smoothly.
My Amazon affiliate links for my must have garage sale purchases:
Have you been tempted to have a garage sale?
I love how organized you are for things like this! We’ve had some really good garage sales in the past, especially before we moved from Washington to Texas. Are used to do one every year and would work to get rid of clothes and toys that were no longer used or needed.
ReplyDeleteNow we sort of hit the point where we don’t have a lot of that “merchandise” so to speak, so glad tales has sort of fallen off my radar. I do sell regularly on Facebook marketplace, varage sale, and eBay though, just to keep items moving out of the house. So glad yours was a success and you made a good amount of money! They are just too much work otherwise haha!
*garage sales, not glad tales 🤪
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, we aren't allowed to have garage sales in our neighborhood. So all the purged items in our house go to Goodwill. We did a garage sale back in 2000 before we got married to combine two houses into one and made quite a bit of money!
ReplyDeleteI've thought about having one to get rid of stuff when we move, but I never have enough motivation to actually get it done. I have sold some stuff on Facebook marketplace.
ReplyDelete