this weekend was our 2nd annual yard sale, and it was quite a success and a memorable one at that! we made a total of $500 between jamie, mom, and myself. even my dad sold one of his things (a baseball mitt he’d found something like 10 years ago)! i thought i’d document what we did in order to reduce the amount of stuff we have. i touched on some of it in an earlier post.
whenever i go through my house trying to edit our stuff, there are usually certain types that emerge:
- bulky items (like furniture)
- collectibles (anything from musician paraphernalia to antique dining sets)
- trendy items (recognizable brands)
- electronics and computer stuff
- things i remember exactly how much i paid for but won’t necessarily be appreciated by others
- generic items (household things)
- brand new items
- obviously used items
- may as well be trash, but someone might actually want
- stuff i would feel bad taking money for, but aren’t quite trash
- trash (throw it away. do not donate it.)
my cleansweep approach:
1st week: i listed most of the bulky items on Craigslist (made $180)
2nd week: yard sale (made $500) + goodwill donation ($600 tax form)
next step: sell collectibles on ebay
next step: yard sale (towards the end of the summer)
next step: everything left gets donated
do it again every year
craigslist:
i try to be as accurate as possible in my listings with good formatting and photos. photos are a must, i really hate when listings don’t have them. so i give as much info about my item including color, style, dimensions, brand, condition, and anything that i think might inspire a potential buyer like “great for a kids room”. i always have an asking price, but also assume a buyer will bargain down a bit. i always put “non-smoking home”, “local buyers only”, “cash only” and “pick-up only”. these things are pretty critical. then i wait. the hard part is dealing with a bunch of interested parties. i usually try to follow them in order, but there are always non-responsive deadbeats. usually the buyers will come to the house to inspect the item. i try to give them a little space when deciding on the spot. if they don’t have the full amount of cash and the item is around $100, then i’ll ask them for a deposit amount so that i know that they are a serious buyer. it’s up to you if you want to tell them there is competition.
so to break it down, things you need to sell on craigslist:
- photos of your item
- brand and model info
- measurements
- a flexible schedule
yard sale:
this takes a lot more preparation. possibly more than it’s worth. but if you are organized or less ocd than me, it could be really freeform in execution. i literally went through the entire house closet by closet, cabinet by cabinet, drawer by drawer, and even deeper. everything was staged in one room where i sat for about 2 full days pricing things. basically, i tried to price things based on what i might pay for it at a yard sale. some things i looked up how much they were going for on ebay. i know jamie looked up the prices of his video games (they were really successful). my mom didn’t have anything pre-priced. she just wrote sheets of stickers out (25 cents, 50 cents, $1, $2, $3, $5, etc) intending to stick them on the day of. it turned out that she spent most of the day answering the question “how much is this?”.
i aimed to have my yard sale on the same day as a local church’s yard sale. i did the same thing last year (when i made $200 alone). i thought this was particularly clever since they would likely be doing a lot more advertising and then i could just direct people down the street to mine using signs. last year i bought fluorescent poster board and stenciled on them with sharpies. that took so much time, extra money, and was really messy. if you can avoid that, do. this year i printed out posters at work (which i know most people don’t have the luxury). they came out super nice. i kept the info to “yard sale” and “address” with a space vertically in-between for an arrow. i estimated i needed 14 posters to cover all of the major intersections to bring people driving around in the area to our house - some were also to create double-sided signs. so we had 8 signs in actuality. jamie was very excited about his idea to mount the signs using duct tape onto old curtain rods (actually half curtain rods). one end was straight and slid easily into the ground, the other end was curved which made them easy to pull back out. maybe i’ll take a photo and add it here when i get a chance. they are quite re-usable too - bonus!
about 2 days prior to our sale i posted an announcement on craigslist that included a screenshot of a google map of our address and a list of some of the types of items you might find at our yard sale. also if it is a “multi-family” yard sale (the bigger the yard sale sounds the better). i posted another announcement in our city’s community website. both were free.
the day before, make sure you have enough change for breaking bills. we forgot about this until the last minute but was able to scrounge up approx. $60 in smaller bills ($1s, $5s, and a couple $10s) and coins. i’ve heard so many times at other people’s yard sales that they run out of change and have to make emergency runs. you really want to avoid that.
the night before, i actually make brownies to sell as well. for some reason i really like taking this extra step. maybe it’s because people tend to get hungry if they are yard sale hopping and everyone likes baked goods, even if they are from a box. i usually don’t have the energy for anything more grand. this year they sold out quick, so i’ll have to remember to make 2 boxes next time. hey, if one box of brownies is $0.99 or less and you sell squares at $0.25 each, there’s a few bucks of profit right there. the oil and eggs are pretty much negligible as is 30 min of oven electricity.
the day of. our yard sale was set for 8am - 2pm (the same hours as the church’s sale). but wouldn’t you know we had earlybirds hovering as we set up. good thing they bought a ton of stuff. like a charm, the shoppers came flooding in especially between 8-10am. after that there were pockets up til noon, and a straggler or two until 2pm. i think i might close shop earlier next time.
as we packed our things back up, we took another look at the quality of what was left. anything that was iffy or definitely boring, we put right into the car and drove it over to the goodwill. don’t forget to get a receipt so that you can write off the donation on your taxes.
so, the next step is to see if i really can sell the more collectible items on ebay. unfortunately ebay takes the most effort and i am a little worried about the new feedback rules. but having less stuff and more money is quite attractive. now if only i could stop myself from going to yard sales myself! at the very least i can say that if there were any items i bought at yard sales being resold at my yard sale, i made as much as i paid or more. this is where my flickr documentation comes in handy. but tons of stuff gone for $700 in cash, not too shabby.
