Laugh Lines

Preparing for a Garage Sale

My sisters and I finally decided to sell a bunch of our old stuff and make a ton of money. Isn't that what usually precipitates the crazy idea of having a garage sale? We talked about it for months—usually that means we can talk ourselves out of it before we ever get too serious. This time, though, we actually put an ad in the local paper and knew we were trapped into following through.

We started pulling out the junk—what someone else would certainly buy as a treasure— and piling it into boxes for the sale. I had the unfortunate job of taking the sheets of stickers and pricing all the stuff. Here is where the trouble began. I think if you sell things too cheap, people will think they are broken, and I price them accordingly. My youngest sister insists that everything be in the quarter to one dollar range or it will never sell. My middle sister just kept finding stuff she couldn't believe we were selling, and pulling it aside to take home with her.

The next step was to find enough tables to put out in the yard at the crack of dawn for the huge sale. One sister insisted I not use the term "huge sale" for our ad, because that usually means a lot of junk. We found some old milk crates to stack and sawhorses that would balance fairly solidly, and used large sheets of old warped plywood for tabletops. We layered cardboard on the rough boards so no one would get slivers. Friday evening, instead of getting to bed early like smart garage salers, we enjoyed pizza and a video until way too late.

Some of you are way ahead of me! The three of us were grumbling and stumbling around at 5:00 a.m. to get the sale set up that beautiful Saturday morning. As we dashed in and out of the house with our boxes of goods to display before anyone arrived, it hit us that we were having a garage sale. What were we thinking? Even though you advertise 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., people arrive wanting to buy stuff at 6:00 a.m.! Department stores don't open hours early for customers, but garage salers are another breed. Of course we hate to pass up that extra quarter sale, so we are slinging junk—excuse me, displaying items—while making early sales. It was crazy. We ended up doing pretty well in sales, but sometime I will have to tell you about the rest of that Saturday. Whew!

Pam and Kathy’s Tips for Preparing for a Garage Sale

Start now to place items you want to sell in marked boxes, long before the sale is scheduled.
Price items when you add them to your sale boxes so they are ready.
Consider the weather, holidays and community activities when you select your sale date.
Get advertising in as many places as possible (newspapers, flyers, signs at good corners).
Be sure you have sufficient change and lots of old paper and plastic bags for customers to use.
Gather tables and prepare your location before the sale.
Do the sale with sisters or friends who will help make it a fun adventure.