We just finished the second day of our community garage sale, and we are quite surprised at how well we were able to do without ANY big ticket items - those $1 and $2 really do add up. $40 for some car audio speakers was our biggest one-time sale.
Country music CD's were the big hit (this is Molalla, after-all) -- I even had to go find more seldom-used discs to add to the sale. We actually did okay selling clothes, but it helps when you have decent blue jeans and nice leather jackets. The biggest surprise was an average looking thirty-something woman who bought my Megadeth CD...
Total after day 1: $ 217.50
2-day grand total: $ 414.50
Day 2 felt like we did half the sales of day 1, but it was actually not too far off.
I was most annoyed with the slow-down and scan from your car people. How can you possibly tell what treasures are there to behold if you don't get out of your car? Of course, those people who obliviously trapsed past all the tables to do shopping in our garage were rather annoying, too...
And then there were the middle-aged men who would come up, look at everything we had out on display, and then ask, "Do you have any tools or guns?". Ummm... do you see any tools or guns? Then no, we don't have any for you to buy.
Running the garage sale was really pretty fun... I quite enjoyed getting to see which junk of mine became a treasure for someone else. We may have to make it an annual event.
Posted by jethro at June 11, 2005 06:43 PM | TrackBackHeh.
Your complaints make me think you don't have a lot of experience on either side of a garage sale. All of those things — drive-bys, "gun askers" (and "fishing stuff askers"), away-from-sale-wanderers, etc. — are commonplace. They're just things you learn to plan for and prevent. (For example, we erected our tables in such a way that people were prevented from going into the garage.)
What will you do with all your money? I bought books. Surprised?
Posted by: J.D. at June 12, 2005 08:39 AMYou are correct in your assumption that I don't have much experience with garage sales. I had figured there would be the drive-bys and the away-from-the-sale-wanderers, but I was still annoyed with them. I had positioned the check-out table close to the garage, so I was right there to inform the wayward few that there was nothing for sale in the garage.
What will we do with the money? Well, we already bought a few things:
Kiddie Pool for Noah, forty dollars.
Weatherproof Coleman 7-man Tent, ninety-seven dollars.
Enamel glazed percolator, seventeen dollars.
Toaster Forks for roasting marshmallows, two dollars.
Coleman Propane Stove, forty dollars.
What we still plan to purchase:
Folding Picnic Table, forty dollars.
Quick Shade canopy, fifty dollars.
Buying new junk with the money we made selling our old junk, priceless.
Posted by: Jeff at June 12, 2005 08:27 PMHey! You forgot to add the additional $ 10 that the neighbor brought over for that framed print; bringing our weekend sale total to $425!!!! Unbelievable, if you ask me!
Posted by: Steph at June 20, 2005 08:20 PM