Saling Away

This weekend was dedicated to the emptying of the basement. At least that was the goal, and though there is still a lot of stuff down there, it is far better than it was earlier this year. I keep referencing my basement from hell, but that is only because I have been obsessing about it. Having it so full and unorganized has been driving me batty, and I do not need to be any crazier than I already am.

Saturday, June 08 was graduation at the school where I teach, and I have been off since then. Last week I spent my time pulling everything out that I wanted to sell and pricing it. I used the leftover labels from my wedding kisses. It made the basement even more of a mess, but at least the end was in sight.

I also used the time to call my mother repeatedly to beg her to come and help us. She and I make a really good yard-saling team. We had a yard sale when we lived together that netted about $600. It helps to have numerous people working a sale because it is exhausting and can be quite tedious. It is good to have people around that will keep it fun.

We had an unbelievable amount of things to sell. I am sure that you have heard the expression “everything but the kitchen sink.” Well, in our case that did not apply because we even had the kitchen sink. It is still available if you are interested!

Garage sales can be a good time despite the work. It is all about what you make of it. I enjoy interacting with people and getting to know my neighbors. After three years in this house, I know several of my neighbors well, but there are still many that I have never met. Several of them came to our sale to introduce themselves. A couple of them made purchases; one brought over some CDs to sell. He ended up making $21 and is hooked. He is already talking about next year’s sale. I guess we are going to have to have one to make him happy.

I find that it helps to have furniture for sale. Even if no one buys the furniture, it seems to be the thing that draws people in. We had several tables and chairs that we were hoping to sell, but I also pulled out some end tables and a cedar chest. They are pieces that we are currently using, but I do not plan to keep them forever. I figured that whether they sold or not, I would be happy.

In the end, there was only one table and a microwave that we were really hoping to get rid of that did not sell. I will put them on Craigslist this week to see if we can get rid of them that way.

I am not going to write a bunch of to-dos for yard sales. There are always a million posts about that. You can google “how to have a successful yard sale” if you need more information. I will give you one tactic that has been successful for me. On the second day of the sale, after noon, I separate the remaining items into two sections. This Sunday, I put all of the clothing, books, and some miscellaneous items on tarps on the grass. The other items were on tables on the driveway. All of the items on the driveway were priced as there were the day before, although I did lower some of the prices the second day.

Then, I sold people bags for two dollars. They were welcome to fill the bags with as much as they could fit from the things on the lawn. People love this, and you get rid of many more things than you would have otherwise. You might think that you make less money this way, but I think that you make more.  Either way, at the end of the day, you have considerably less to dispose of.

I really like to see how excited people get over their “bargains.” As someone who loves a good deal, I like to share that special feeling. It is also nice to know that someone else appreciates something that I once cared about. You can always donate things, but when you do that you do not get to see the smile that it brings to people’s face. Everyone really enjoyed filling the $2 bags.

There are some miserable people that try to get deals in a nasty way. I like to give people a good price and will usually lower my prices a great deal if I think that the person that is buying the item really appreciates or needs it. I do not like people to try to cheat me, however. The way that I deal with them is to refuse to lower prices at all. This usually causes them to leave quickly. There were only two of those at our sale this weekend. Compared to the hundreds of lovely people that I met, two is not such a problem.

I was glad of all the help that my mother gave us. It would have been much more difficult without her. We were late getting started on Saturday, and she was able to sit out front and keep an eye on things while we frantically ran in and out retrieving everything. She also negotiated with people and helped us sell several things that might not have sold otherwise.

My friend Krystal also came by with her kids to keep us company for a while. I was glad to have her there. My neighbor Jake, who is five years old, also did his best to help us make sales. He came very close to selling something marked $2 for $9. He was quite the little negotiator. One customer remarked that Jake has a future in sales.

At the end of the day, Douglas wanted to store everything to try to sell at a future yard sale. I could not stand to bring it all back in, however, so we compromised. We packed all of the clothing and books and put them in the truck. On Monday morning, we brought them to the local Goodwill, along with some of the little miscellaneous items. The nicer pieces we did bring back into the basement. Several of them we will use for now. Some of them we will store until someone needs them or we have another opportunity to sell them. As I stated earlier, I am going to put some items on Craigslist.

Overall, it was a fun weekend. I am glad that we did it. Now we know our neighbors better, our basement has more space, and the best part is that we made about $450 in sales. That does not count the $21 from the neighbor’s CDs, which we gave him. We also gave my mom some money for all the help she gave us. Jake got some sidewalk chalk that he had fun using.

Happy Homemaking!