Wrapping It Up

Well, we survived the garage sale. Since I haven't had one is awhile I was a little rusty. (By little, I mean little like the Titanic was a "little leaky.") It never occurred to me that people would actually start showing up at 6am for a sale advertised to start at 7. BTW, WHAT is up with you people??? 6am for a garage sale? REALLY? Seek professional help...quickly. Aside from that disturbing fact, I tried to keep things as easy as possible so I bought stick on price labels and tried to gather things to sell that I thought someone might actually want.

Mostly, I thinned out my "coupon freebies stash" from the pantry and put out the extra hairspray, shampoo, body-wash, razors etc... that we won't need any time soon. I also managed to save the Coach purse my daughter tried to sell for a dime and her sister's favorite outfit she had labeled "make offer." That girl scares me...pretty sure she'd sell her sister if the price was right. Or even close.

As always, I was surprised by what sold quickly. 4 boxes K-Y jelly went in a jiffy. Hmmmm, don't even want to think about that one. So did the tubs of Vaseline. All the body-wash and lotion went but only half the make-up. (Interesting since it was all clearly sealed.) Where else can you get a brand new lipstick for a buck?

Only a few deodorants sold, although by the end of the day I wanted to GIVE them to a few people. Garage sale-ing in 90 heat is a rough sport apparently!

All of the cleaning products went but candles were hit or miss.

Kids clothes shocked me. The good Gymboree stuff wasn't touched but Hannah Montana t-shirts flew off the rack, even the ratty ones. I could make a snarky comment here but the facts speak for themselves I guess.

Kids' sporting stuff was a big hit. Water toys, not so much. Books went at a brisk clip but probably aren't worth bothering with for as little as people want to spend. Better to donate them.

In the end I made $252. I had to sit out there from 7am to 11am. We did have steady traffic due to the neighbor who placed an ad in the paper for a "multi-family moving sale." I made enough to buy my iPhone so I am very happy about that. Now I just have to come up with a method to pay for the monthly service contract and I'm golden.

None of this changes my basic belief that it is better to just donate the stuff. I could have saved myself 2 days worth of work preparing and cleaning up not to mention that I STILL have a bunch of stuff to take to donate. Yep, one garage sale every 15 years is plenty for me. I was tempted to sell all of Hubby's tools to one man who asked, but I resisted. I also didn't sell his golf clubs even though somebody offered me $8 for them. I just couldn't sell out the clubs of a man stuck in a tent defending our very freedom and way of life. At least, not for less than $12.50.