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Yard Sale a bust for me

June 19th, 2016 at 04:03 am

My sister-in-law's neighborhood was having a community yard sale. My MIL & other SIL decided they wanted to participate, so I joined in. Between my other SIL (with my 10 month old niece) and I, we had TONS of baby girl clothes & items. I mostly had clothes though and didn't expect too much money.

Still - the neighborhood advertised big time. We put it up on all the local facebook sales sites. We had several people say they stopped by because of the posts (so yay, that worked).

I had maybe 200 baby clothing items. My MIL was selling soda & hot dogs, SIL had bigger baby items, plus toys & clothes.

Not sure how much my SIL made in the end, my MIL made maybe $15. I made $23.

However, I spent $1 for tag labels, and I spent 3 hours last night sorting by size & pricing, an hour setting up this morning and then breaking down later. So Hours spent on this - about 9 total.

definitely not worth it. Overtime hours, which I could have worked last night and today would have net me SO much more.

However, it was nice to be outside, I ran into an old friend AND I got to hang out with my husbands family (who I am lucky to like).

12 Responses to “Yard Sale a bust for me”

  1. PatientSaver Says:
    1466330618

    Yard and tag sales are IMO a ton of work with a pretty small payoff. I had a garage sale yesterday and netted about $114. A little better, but when you consider how much work I put into it, it was hardly worth it. I'll be posting about it later today. Smile

  2. creditcardfree Says:
    1466334956

    200 items at $0.50 each could have netted $100, but one never sells everything they put out. Pricing, traffic and weather all play a part. I don't hold garage sales anymore, but I would for the social aspect. It is kind of fun! But the money usually never works out to be profitable for the work.

  3. CB in the City Says:
    1466339309

    I left a reply on PS' post, too. My last two garage sales were dismal in terms of profit. I'll never do one again; it's donation for me! I still like to GO to garage sales, though. Smile

  4. Jenn Says:
    1466341678

    In addition to the benefits you list, you decluttered your house of items that you won't use again (200 of them - wow) and got paid to do it. And those are the benefits for YOU - imagine the folks who bought the items. Next time, don't pay for anything to host the sale - you can make a sign with whatever paper/cardboard you have to say " all clothes - 25c", "all books - 25c", etc.

    In our area it's common to place the items that didn't sell in a large cardboard box at the curb late in the day. Cars will drive around and pick through the box, and sometimes take the entire thing.

  5. ceejay74 Says:
    1466350257

    I agree they're not worth it except if you want to meet your neighbors! Their only real benefit is it motivates me to go through every room in the house and get out everything I don't want, and then I make sure to send the leftovers to Goodwill or another charity so none of it comes back in the house!

  6. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    1466357101

    DH and I plan on doing a garage sale this summer. Smile I'm going into it knowing it's a lot of work and probably not make much - but maybe we'll meet a few people as they stop by ... plus, it kind of feels like something *to do* now that we're homeowners. Smile Once will probably be enough to get the novelty out of the way.

  7. Merilu Says:
    1466364173

    I have been doing garage sales for years and always made really good money because we had several people participating. This year, however, our local township will not allow us to put signs at the end of the street to lure people in. Of course, this came up after I had the garage mostly set up for a sale this coming weekend. This will definitely be my last one. It sure is a good way to declutter the house however.

  8. rob62521 Says:
    1466376140

    My mom used to do very well with garage sales. I apparently didn't inherit her talent. I like going to them, but as for me, we donate stuff now. Every spring our neighborhood has garage sales, but other than going to their houses to look, we don't have one ourselves. My mom used to invite another couple and I think the social aspect was part of the fun.

  9. Househopeful Says:
    1466379269

    Jenn - I didn't sell 200 items, I sold about 50. There was no paying a fee for participating in the yard sale, I just got labels for $1 (which I also needed for some file folders, so it wasn't really an 'added expense'. So there's that Smile
    I actually put the remaining 150 items (baby clothes and sleep sacks 3mos to 9 mos) for $50 on the OfferUp app (if you haven't played with it, that one is fun!). Someone made me an offer of $40 for the lot, so I am meeting her tomorrow with 2.5 trash bags full of baby clothes. Can't beat that!

  10. SecretarySaving Says:
    1466455109

    There is an app you can download called Offerup and I've had pretty good luck with it. Garage sales in my area have really good stuff but the clientele buying want things practically for free.

  11. HouseHopeful Says:
    1466605174

    Secretary saving - I actually mentioned the Offerup app in the comment above yours! lol I use it all thet time.

  12. My English Castle Says:
    1466881768

    Agreed with everybody about the cost/benefit ration. I sell much more on FB lists. But I do enjoy, like CB, going to them!

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