The anti-hoarder in me is cheering as I cross off another item on my 30 Before 30 list, #10: Host a yard sale.
I regularly try to purge my home of things we’ve outgrown or never use. While donating items can be great for the spirit and for filing taxes, it’s nice to occasionally get some extra cash. For the past few months I’ve been filtering items out of storage and placing them aside for our garage sale. My guest bedroom was a wreck, but I knew it’d be worth it!
We also invited my parents to join us, as my dad has been working to clear out some of the piles in his garage up in Scottsdale. After a day off work to set up and price everything out, we were good to go! The sale went very well and we came out the other end with about $600 between us.
There are a lot of yard sale posts around the web, but I thought I’d share what I learned from our Saturday garage sale:
Don’t ignore curb appeal.
We had plenty of drive-bys, as people assessed our items without even stepping out of the car. One lady pulled up to the driveway and looked out her window for a good three minutes before deciding to drive off. Put big ticket and visually appealing items out where they can be seen from the road.
If it’s free, people will take it.
We marked a few items as free just to get them out of our hair. I wasn’t sure anyone would take our beat-up old shelf or nasty fireplace tools, but sure enough, out they went. The word “free” is like the Pied Piper of garage sale patrons.
Don’t expect people to bargain with you.
Some items were underpriced and some over, and that’s to be expected. But if the price isn’t close, people will just skim over it. Some items I purposefully priced high: ones I’d be happy to keep if no one could meet it. However, if you want the item gone, price it low!
Label and price everything.
Some may have thought I went overboard with labeling and pricing every single item, but it really made a difference. Trust me, it’ll be a much more enjoyable sale if you aren’t being asked “What is this?” or “How much is this?” every three seconds.
I’d encourage people to host a yard sale if they’re looking to clean house or to get some extra cash. It wasn’t a huge effort and was a lot of fun!
