The best way to hold a garage sale
Many people are holding garage sales – yard sales, boot sales, whatever you want to call them – as a way of making a bit of extra cash during these harder economic times. You may be thinking that it isn’t for you because you have hardly any stuff to sell – or that’s worth selling. It’s barely going to cover a table – not really worth all the effort of writing signs, etc.
However, you probably aren’t alone. Some of your friends and workmates may be thinking along the same lines. So why not get together and have a joint garage sale? Everybody contributes their half a table of items, and between you all, you have enough for a respectable garage sale.
If you’ve got a big yard, then another option is to try and organise a boot sale or a general flea market. Other people turn up with their goodies to sell and pay you a token amount for your display space. You take care of the advertising for the event. And even though the amount they pay for their little bit of space isn’t much, lots of little bits all add up.
Or else you can think outside the box and add a few other items into your garage sale apart from the outgrown children’s clothes, the unused exercise equipment and the like. Do you have a hobby that produces things (painting, gardening, etc.)? Then you may be able to make or grow a few more items for sale. Surplus vegetables always go down a treat, either ready harvested or in ready-to-plant seedling form. Or even a bunch of fresh flowers? You may not make a wad of cash with these items, but you’ll have a lot of fun, anyway… and you just might make more than you think.
Tips for protecting your cash
You are probably not holding a garage sale just for the fun of it. Yes, garage sales have their fun sides, but you are probably having one to get rid of clutter and make a bit of cash at the same time. So you need to protect your cash.
- Don’t have a cash box that can be reached easily by your customers. Sneaky people will help themselves while you’re looking elsewhere. Keep your money in a carpenter’s apron or a fanny pack – or even cargo pants, if you’re desperate.
- Some buyers will wait until you’re distracted to switch price tags. The best way to avoid this is to make sure that you have plenty of helpers – and prime them up that con artists are about.
- Some con artists will fluster you by asking for change for a $100 note. Be prepared for this and you won’t be flustered. The more “sorted” your cash float is (this is why a carpenter’s apron with lots of pockets is ideal), the less flustered you are likely to get, and you have less chance of making a mistake.
- Don’t drop the price just because you think someone is hard up and you only think this because of their appearance or means of transport. They could be putting on an act to play on your sympathy and score a massive discount. It happens. Haggle, yes, but don’t be foolishly kind.
If things get really nasty (e.g. someone who gets threatening or angry and starts smashing stuff – it happens!) then have a cellphone on hand to call the police. Never run a garage sale alone – have backup handy. Large, hefty blokes make people less likely to get nasty.
What not to sell at a garage sale
While most household items will sell at a garage sale, as long as you don’t price them ridiculously, some items just won’t sell – you might not even be able to give them away. The best destination for these things is not the table at your garage sale but the nearest recycling centre or rubbish tip.
- Junky plastic toys from McDonalds Happy Meals and the like. Does any child really play with these after the first two days? Even if they still have the original wrappers on, they don’t sell well. They’re not as collectible as the manufacturers would have you think.
- Old newspapers. Take them down to the nearest paper recycling centre. However, you may like to have a few on hand while your yard sale is going on so people can wrap breakables.
- Old glossy magazines. If you’re lucky, you might be able to sell these at a rate of 10 for 10c. Special interest magazines may be able to do better if the interest is a popular one – a fishing, hunting or DIY magazine will do better than Trainspotters’ Weekly.
- Anything broken. If you wouldn’t buy it, nor will anyone else. Chipped chinaware, ornaments or mirrors you may be able to get away with, as the items are still useable.
- Family photos with no frames. Why would anyone else want to buy pictures of your relatives? If they are in frames, remove the photos and sell the frames.
Apart from these items, don’t be afraid to put things up for sale. You may not like that old knitted hot water bottle cover or the neon pink teddy bear, but someone else will. Remember the old adage that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.
Con artists to look out for: the Hall of Shame
These are the people you don’t want to come to your garage sale, as they are con artists.
- Helpful Harry/Harriet. Helpful Harry buys several items and tries to save you the bother of tallying it all up by giving a total – which is wrong. Check everything – get out the calculator do double check if needed.
- Lobelia Sackville-Baggins. In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo discovers this character attempting to walk out with several small but valuable items that “just happen” to have fallen into her umbrella. Real-life versions of this character have things “accidentally” slip into bags, pockets, drawers or boxes they are buying. Just check inside to be on the safe side.
- Pat the Parasite. Pat the Parasite asks for help carrying things to his/her car. Pat will return later in the day claiming that you didn’t bring everything that he/she paid for and will you hand it over now, please. Of course, this is a lie and if Pat gets away with it, they will then help themselves to something else for free.
- Ma Baker. This one doesn’t teach her four sons to handle their guns, but brings children to garage sales. She waits until you nervously distract Little Darling away from the glass figurines to make her move: switching price tags.
- Marvie the Magician. Marvie the Magician gets out a $100 bill and waves it in front of you, asking for change. He then tucks it away while you get out the change. You hand the change over, in a fluster, he hopes. He also hopes you will forget that he hasn’t actually handed the money over. Always take the money before you give the change – and have enough of a cash float to change $100 so you don’t get flustered.
Beat the recession with a garage sale
Yes, we’ve all heard the politicians and gurus banging on about how times are tough and we all have to tighten our belts, etc. etc. But when it comes to actual practical ways to trim down and make the money go a bit further, the politicians, etc. seem silent, while the economic experts talk about wise investing. Which isn’t much help for the average family that doesn’t have anything handy to invest.
So let’s get practical with some of the reasons that garage sales are one of several ways of beating the recession and generally making things better for everyone:
- They’re a win-win situation. The buyer gets a bargain while the seller gets cash in hand.
- They help people interact with their local communities, which is a vital part of networking.
- Sellers can make the first steps in setting up a cottage industry by selling some of their products at a garage sale.
- If you are a garage sale habitué and see the same items being snapped up again and again, this may give you an idea for a niche market gap that needs filling.
- Buyers really can pick what they need and want up for cheaper than they can elsewhere.
- Even if you aren’t hit too hard, going garage sale hunting for fun can help other people get by. You get your retail therapy fix and they get grocery money. You can consider it a form of charity – maybe?
- If you’re a seller, the desire for a bit of extra cash can make you get on with that decluttering job you should have done ages ago.
Books to look out for at a garage sale
Most, if not all, good garage sales usually have books for sale, often at absolute rock-bottom prices. If you like a good read, going around the garage sales in your area can often be more rewarding than going around the bookshops – it’s certainly cheaper!
You never quite know what you’re going to find at a garage sale when it comes to books. An old gentleman of this writer’s acquaintance once managed to find a set of first-edition Charles Dickens novels at a tag sale – they might have looked old and “slightly foxed” as the book collectors call it, but they were worth much less than the 10c each that this old man paid for them. You may not be so lucky, but you can easily find some great deals.
One useful tip when combing through the books on offer at a garage sale is not to be put off by a dog-eared cover or even a missing cover. As long as the book itself is intact, it’s worth getting. Another tip is not to be afraid of just buying one of those “matched identical collections of classic titles that make your library look really impressive.” You don’t have to buy the lot if you see one of these collections at a garage sale – just pick the titles you want to buy.
Here are a few types of books that are always worth looking out for at garage sales:
Classic children’s books. They may not have glittery covers with computer graphics and holograms on the front, but the old stories are just as appealing today as they were yesterday. Anything by Enid Blyton is a must-have – this author is one of the most translated in the world and is enjoying something of a renaissance after falling out of favour during the 1980s and 1990s. The “Famous Five” and “Secret Seven” titles are evergreens. Other authors to look out for are Beatrix Potter, Dr Seuss, C.S. Lewis and Arthur Ransome. The old Golden Books and any early reading titles are also a good buy.
School text type books. Titles like To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye are widely studied in schools, as is anything by Shakespeare. If you need to buy texts for an English class, then garage sales are often a good place to get started. As an added bonus, you often get other people’s highlights and marginal notes as a free “study guide”.
Paperback romances. Keen readers often subscribe to three-books-a-month deals, read the books once or twice and then keep the titles sitting around for ages before putting them out for the garage sale. If you’re a keen reader who doesn’t subscribe to these deals, garage sales are great ways to pick up your favourite reads cheaply.
Classic adult’s titles. Titles by the Queens of Crime (Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sawyers and Ngaio Marsh) as well as some of their lesser known contemporaries are often found at garage sales.
Cookbooks and other DIY manuals. Good advice never goes out of date. In really old gardening manuals, you may have to ignore advice about giving garden pests a good blast of DDT (this writer has seen one). The same goes with old cookbooks that list lard or suet as ingredients: use oil instead.
What if it rains during my garage sale?
Most garage sales are more technically yard sales – held out of doors in your front yard so people can walk in off the street. This requires decent weather, as many items will be ruined if they get rained on.
However, we can’t predict the weather, so what are you going to do if the weather is pouring with rain on the day you had planned for your garage sale? It always pays to have a plan up your sleeve to cover this contingency.
- Have a “rain date” as an alternative and list this on your garage sale advertisement – “If wet, on June 24th” kind of thing. This is the best option, as many buyers are put off by the rain unless they’re really keen.
- Hold the garage sale in the garage. Make sure that the items that live in the garage are well out of the way so you don’t get somebody trying to buy your best saw. A carport is even better for this purpose.
- Can you rig up an awning over the top of the sales tables? Even a tarpaulin from a trailer can do at a pinch.
- If you have a covered veranda or porch , hold the sale up there. It may be a bit cramped, but you’ll be dry.
- Larger tag sales run by schools and the like should have an indoor venue as an alternative – school halls, clubrooms, gymnasiums and church halls are all possibilities.
More ideas for things to sell
A garage sale usually is held to sell off unwanted items. However, you don’t just have to sell second-hand bric-a-brac and clothing at a garage sale. With a bit of planning ahead and some know-how, you can sell a few other things and get some extra cash. A few ideas just to get you started:
- Do you have a fruit tree producing surplus fruit? Then sell the fruit – or get really organised and make jam for sale. Homegrown fruit usually tastes better than supermarket fruit, so this usually sells well.
- The same applies to homegrown vegetables. Now you know what to do with that zucchini surplus.
- If you don’t grow vegetables or fruit, how about bunches of fresh flowers?
- Plants themselves can sell. Raising houseplants in pots is simple, and they often sell well at garage sales. In early spring, you can target home gardeners by raising vegetable plants from seed and selling off the seedlings ready to plant – lettuces, cabbages, pumpkins, tomatoes and zucchini work brilliantly – owners of conservatories and glasshouses, take note!
- Home baking also sells well at garage sales. Make sure the table displaying these is not in full sunlight for food safety reasons, and make sure you cover each cake or tray of muffins with cling-film.
- If you paint, take photos or do cross-stitch, you can put some nice framed examples up for sale.
- Home-made clothing (which can include screen-printed T-shirts, knitted sweaters, beads, you name it) can also go on sale at garage sales. This can be a good way of testing the water for a hobby you want to turn into a cottage industry.
Garage sale guide for tweens
If you are old enough to have an allowance, you are old enough to go to a garage sale. Garage sales are great places to buy cool stuff you want, and they’re better than some of the cheap places in stores, as the items tend to be old – which means that they’re built to last and won’t break after a week. They’re usually cheaper, too, which means you can buy more of them.
Here’s some cool things that you’re likely to find at garage sales. Sure, you’re not likely to find a PlayStation (but you might find some older PlayStation games) but there’s heaps more fun things.
- Jigsaws and other puzzles
- Board games such as Monopoly or chess
- Skateboards, bikes and scooters
- Old-fashioned toys like Slinky springs, marbles and kites
- Books – keep an eye out for old versions of classics like the Famous Five, Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, and the Chronicles of Narnia, and also some older ones popular in the past and waiting to be rediscovered
- Junk jewellery and that sort of thing that you can use for craft materials or to make costumes
- Artwork, ornaments and mirrors
If you’re the type who likes to invent and build stuff, then garage sales are great places to look out for odds and ends. Wheels for making a go-kart? A long piece of pipe and some small mirrors for making a periscope? Just get out there and have a look!
Just one other thing – take an adult or an older responsible person with you, as you’re going into a stranger’s place. Most people holding garage sales are OK, but it’s best to be on the safe side. Plus the older person can help you carry your new finds.
Another reason to buy at garage sales during the recession
You probably already know that garage sales are a great place to pick up cheap items when times are tight. However, this isn’t the only reason to see what you can pick up at a garage sale as a sneaky way of beating the recession.
Garden tools are common items sold off at garage sales, especially estate sales, and growing your own vegetables is a way of making the money go further, as well as being a way to get fresher vegetables and some good exercise. And the really good thing about old-fashioned garden tools is that they were built to last, so even if they look a bit rusty, they’re probably still able to do the job.
Of course, like everything else at a garage sale, you should check the item carefully. If, say, a spade is really rusty and has a crack in it, don’t buy it; it will break after a month of hard use or sooner.
A quick shopping list of garden tools you’re likely to find at yard sales:
- Spades, shovels, hoes and forks: things with long handles.
- Wheelbarrows – if you’re lucky!
- Watering cans and spray packs (always wash these out carefully before use)
- Pots and tubs for plants
- Pruning shears, secateurs and hedge clippers
- Odd items, such as foam mats to kneel on while weeding, strange-shaped tools for digging dandelions and other long-rooted weeds out
In general, you are more likely to find hand-powered items for sale at garage sales rather than mechanical ones, but you never know your luck, as is always the way of the garage sale world.