Garage Sale Results

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We had our our 2nd ever garage sale on Saturday morning. It was a beautiful Saturday morning and I am happy to report that it was a success!

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We started with a whole garage full of crap treasures…

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I’d say that we sold half of it.  (I forgot to take after pictures.  We were ready to get the remainder loaded up and taken to the Salvation Army…before I decided that I needed to keep any of it.)  Not horrible for as much stuff as we had.

How much money did we make?

  • Nate and I:
    • $170.00 (We had some large items..an old laptop, 2 bikes, bathroom faucets a papasan chair..the rest was clothes or household items.)
  • My brother (who was an awesome garage sale assistant):
    • $15.35 (childhood toys..broke my heart a little.  My little brother is growing up…at the age of 26. :) )
  • Nate’s mom:
    • $48.00  (household items)
  • My mom:
    • $2.25 (all clothes)

How much time did we invest?

  • We had our last garage sale 2 years ago.  We usually go through our house about twice a year and throw everything we haven’t used in the past 6 months in our basement storage room.  We did make a quick run through (probably about 20 minutes) for final items.
  • We separated the items by category and marked them: 1 hour
  • Setting up tables/carrying items from the basement to the garage/final marking: 2 hours
  • Selling items:  4.5 hours
  • Packing up/hauling items to the Salvation Army: 45 minutes

Things we learned/tips:

  • We held our garage sale on the week-end of our town-wide garage sales.  We live about 10 miles outside of the Quad Cities and town-wide garage sales usually draw pretty good traffic in Iowa.
  • Having a full garage helps attract potential “customers.”
  • Placing large items outside (if it’s nice) also draws in “customers.”
  • Marking items “cheap” will help you sell more and probably make more of a profit than prices items higher and hoping they will sell at that price.
    • I had at least 6 large garbage bags full of clothes (don’t judge).  We sold all clothes for $0.25.  We ended with 1 1/2 large bags.
  • Be willing to negotiate.  We had the laptop marked at $50 but took $45.  We may have been able to sell it on-line for $70-80 but the garage sale was much easier. We had 2 faucets at $25 a piece and took $30.
  • Keep the signs you make for garage sales in the future….just be sure to spell garage right…

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It’s amazing how far pharmacy school gets you.  This picture was from our sale 2 years ago.  We kept all of the correctly spelled signs for our sale this year.  It was nice to not have to to go through this embarrassment again.  Check out my Motorola Razr phone…oh getting old…

My brother and I did sneak away for about 30 minutes to see if we could find any treasures. We walked away pretty empty handed.  I did purchase this table for my niece for $0.50. 

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Nate’s sister had been looking for a small table for our niece’s room and I didn’t think I could go wrong for $0.50.  Stay tuned for it’s make-over!

What are your thoughts on garage sales?  Awesome way to clean house?  Too much hassle?  Do my messy garage shelves make you want to organize them?…yeah, me too…