Garage Sale No More
I’ve been busy this week to say the least. Mostly with work, but in my spare time I’ve been preparing for a garage sale that was today. By preparing I mean pulling everything out of the plastic tubs in our basement and letting my husband do the real “work” of carrying it upstairs and outside.
My mom and I must be gluten for punishment, because we both decided we had enough junk that we needed to clean out room in our houses. Our junk differs a little though. Hers was knick-knack stuff, lots of baskets, flower pots and old things. It always amazes me because we’ve done this before and when she unpacks her stuff in our garage I think to myself there is no way anyone will buy that odd thing. Then they do! What cracks me up most is the way she prices her items. There were two of the exact same flower pots - one marked a quarter, the other ten-cents. I never mark anything ten cents. I figure if it’s not worth a quarter, it’s not worth selling.
My assortment included mostly toys, kids clothes and some household items. We also sold a few pieces of odd furniture (in hopes we might actually get to move next year). I have kept EVERY SINGLE item Ethan has owned since before he was born in dozens of large plastic tubs. My original hording thought was we’d put it all to use with another child….but it seems due to medical issues from a car accident a few years ago, that dream is unlikely to become reality. So in my own version of “therapy” I decided to part with almost all of it.
Overall the sale went well. We sold quite a bit of stuff and then packed up the remaining things and donated it to two local worthy organizations. But you know the interesting people you come into contact with when you open up your garage and junk to complete strangers!
First of all, when a sale says it starts at 7 a.m. do you arrive at 5:52 a.m. and expect to shop? I think it’s rude and I let the 3 shoppers who attempted know it by turning them away. Secondly, I realize you can bargain with the seller on higher priced items, but when something is a quarter and you ask if the seller will take twenty-cents….WHY? Really, a nickel?
My mom had brought a large metal briefcase looking box with the first ever made VHS tape recorder. Oh yeah! She had marked it $5 and in my head I giggled. All be darn if some weird young man with many, many piercings decided to buy it. The funnier part was when he was half-way down the drive my mom says, “He’s going to make a lot of porn with that!” Oh my, we didn’t need to go there.
I left my mom in charge of the money. I don’t do math - at all. Especially in my head under pressure. Early in the morning I think she got scammed by a Hispanic woman who pulled a rather well played “gypsy” type heist over on her. (I only know it resembled a gypsy con because I’ve been watching “The Riches” on FX.)
Later in the day we were almost taken again, but I put my foot down. I’m not entirely sure I did the right thing though. A woman came and bought a couple dollars worth of kids clothes and toys. She returned about 45 minutes later carrying her sacks and barged into the garage, slamming the items on the table. According to her she’d went to get gas, pulled her change out of her pocket and realized we didn’t give her the correct amount back after her purchase.
Now in the dramatic act she pulled the “change” out of her pocket along with about $40 and demanded $5 more dollars. I admit we very well may have short-changed her, but how am I to know she is telling the truth? And why didn’t she count her change before she left? I was polite and explained that it wasn’t that I didn’t believe her, but she should have checked her change before leaving. She wasn’t pleased and started crying and carrying on in front a dozen or so people. To add to her exit, she yelled to people as she was walking down our drive to count their change.
Although the profit is nice and a cleaner basement is great, I’m not convinced all the work before and after are worth it. Note to self: No more garage sales.
THE BEST NEWS EVER ~ I “donated” the 960 lbs. of rubber in our driveway to a Christian pre-school!! I had put a “free if you u-haul” sign as wishful thinking during the sale…..and to my amazement the ugly animals were the talk of the sale! So they are now gone. Now I just have to explain that to the in-laws.
Ohhhhhhh the professional garage sale picker overer, at 5 am, seriously.
The funnier part was when he was half-way down the drive my mom says, “He’s going to make a lot of porn with that!” Oh my, we didn’t need to go there.
Your mom sounds like a riot.
You hit exactly on why I refuse to have any more garage sales. I now donate everything and write it off at tax time.
Your mom sounds hysterical. And yes, I had no idea people shoplifted at garage sales until a friend of mine complained of it at his. Shoplifting at garage sales. Crazy!
Hey, can I link ya? If you don’t want me to, just let me know. If I don’t hear from you I will assume no news is good news…
You know what? I had been thinking about you yesterday and today. So I got to your site, left a comment and when I checked my site saw you left a comment. So wierd!
No more for us either! We did it once. Now we donate. Or more often, just have a messy basement! LOL
Damn, I never realized that people would try to scam you at a yard sale. That’s kinda messed up. Hmmm….and we’ve been thinking of having a yard sale this summer…..maybe I’ll persuade (beat him about the head) the hubby to rethink this.
people are bizarre, aren’t they? five cents? 5:52 am? crying because they didn’t count their change?
cheap though i like to think i am, there’s a part of me that half just wishes some nice fairy would come along and steal the things i’m ready to part with. i’d rather them just be gone than have to go through the human torture of selling them…sigh.
good for you on the clean basement and missing rubber, though.
I did one garage sale and never again will I put myself through that.
Yesterday I decided that garage sales should be banned after trying to get from one end of town to the other with all sorts of stupid people slamming on their brakes everytime they passed a garage sale sign. If I drove a tank, I’d smash dumb people.
I would still rather have a yard sale than deal with Craig’s List. Those people are nuts. One man who came to buy a china cabinet tried to buy every other piece of my furniture too. He offered me something like $50 for the whole living room. Which I wasn’t selling. Which included an antique heirloom handmade cedar chest from at least 4 generations back in my family.
I told him to get out of my house. He still wanted the china cabinet, so I raised the price and then said to get out. Crazy dude paid the new higher price and left. Bizaaaaaaare.
Oh NO! What will you do without the driveway blubber?!
Garage sales always suck. Shiesters. And those people who wake up at “butt crack of dawn” to get a good deal–for five cents off! What’s the big hustle? But, I’m really glad you sold as much as you did and it wasn’t a total bust.
It’s two days later and I still can barely bend over….I had dreams last night of the Hispanic woman banging on my front door demanding her money!!! Nightmares people!!!
A garage sale is an invitation to garbage pick, in daylight, with (a little) less shame.
Nonetheless, every so often my wife counters her genetic instinct of hoarding and storing and puts a bunch of our crap (that I would gladly have paid a hauling company to remove) on the lawn. Then when she sells something (that she bought last year at a garage sale for $5) for $2, she turns proudly to me and says she just “made” 2 bucks.
But yeah, the crazies that come hours ahead… that’s nothing. We had THREE people come the night BEFORE and ask to go through it first! One came after 9pm and woke up our daughter with his banging.
[…] back to my week adventure with the garage sale. You know the event I held in our drive where certain people tried to rip us off. Some for a few […]
The last yard/garage sale I had was a PITA.
I decided then and there that although it’s nice to make extra money it wasn’t really worth all the hassle.
I now box things up and either call the Kidney Foundation to come out and pick it up the household items, donate to the clothing room at my mom’s church all the good clothing and drop into the Salvation Army container the items that have seen better days but still have some wear left in them. Then I file my receipts and write it off at tax time. Much easier