When I was young in the 70s it became the “Thing” to do. My mother and her neighbor would spend all day Thursday’s making the rounds. And we got really nice stuff.
Of course back then it was fun. That was before eBay and Antiques Roadshow made everyone think their garbage was actually worth more than a quarter.
I remember my mother would frequently get a bag of clothes, in a garbage bag for a dime or quarter (this was the 70s) and there was no dickering, you had to take the whole bag, and usually you found one or two good items of clothes. And the rest would be used for rags or taken to the Mental Health Hospital where my neighbor worked.
I remember I’d go on occasion and it was really fun. People were more interested in cleaning out their attic or garage than making serious money.
Every now and then I’ll see a yard sale and it’s all trash that is WAY over priced. Just because your daughter looked “cute” in that dress 20 years ago doesn’t make it worth $10.00
If I can wake up early enough, hell yes! And screw that ten dollar tag, I’ll give you a dollar. They always take the dollar. The problem with garage sales is that you might say on your signs that the hours are 8-2, but guaranteed, you will get cars of people outside of your place around 5, and by 6 they are ringing the doorbell and actually mad at you. This is why my mom gave up on all of that and just puts old couches and bbq grills out on the street, because they will get picked up in minutes, and then just give the rest to goodwill.
Man, one garage sale we had in high school was memorable to me because it was so popular, I was going to college and we were selling tons of my old namebrand clothes that were too small and making a small killing. My granny got so excited, that she kept going back up to my closet and grabbing more and more stuff, including my new off to college clothes! That was awful for me, and hard to stop granny, because what do you say? I think in the end we told her to go make sandwiches for people and got most of my clothes back to safety.
But yes. There is still a huge “goin garage sale-ing” crowd.
Absolutely. I’m already looking forward to this season’s treasures. You’re right that some sales have overpriced items, but there are still plenty of goodies to be had. I used to get tons of clothes for the kids when they were little, but they’ve outgrown that now. My theory was that for the first ten years the kids really don’t care where the clothes come from or how much they cost, so our clothing expenses were very low. Once they got older I had no problem taking them to the Limited Too, Abercrombie, and Hollister if that’s what they want. The cost averages out over time.
I stopped taking my daughter shopping when she turned 18; I figure that by then they can get jobs and buy their own stuff. My son is 14 and is growing so quickly that we get three pairs of jeans and five shirts at a time. That usually lasts for only a few months and then we start over again. He has absolutely no interest in clothing at all. He has one pair of shoes and when he outgrows them (usually well within six months) we buy another pair.
Anyhow, I love garage sales as a good resource for books, decorative items, ourdoor items, and things to sell to the local consignment shops and on E-Bay. It’s a good way to pick up some extra cash flow.
purple haze, that’s why my garage sale I just spoke of was so popular. Filled with Abercrombie and Banana Republic dresses and whatever else was popular at the time. This would have been 1998, and we didn’t know enough about ebay, so we were selling everything for no more than 5 bucks, and even then, that was a formal dress. It was just a way to make a little spending money rather than shipping it all over to Goodwill. You should have seen these women fighting in our driveway over my stuff. I’ll never forget my mom watching two women fight over a pair of Abercrombie jeans we were selling for a buck and she said “You are way too spoiled”. I can hear it like it was yesterday.
Also, one more thing for purple haze, but will your kids wear thrift store stuff? When I was 15, I thought anything from the mall was so embarassing, and only wanted old man shirts and old wranglers. I still buy those now sometimes. You never know. At some point in time, depending on the kid, thrift store is waaay better than embarassing old Abercrombie.
I love garage sales, but I don’t think the area I’m in now is a very garage-sale-rich area. I didn’t see any signs up last summer. There are a lot near where I work, though, so I’ll be sure to make the trip a few Saturdays this summer to see what I can score.
I heard a rumor that the gov’t might be banning the sales of used baby equipment at garage sales, because of safety issues. Is this true?
If it is, that sucks because we’re getting a new baby in the family (not mine!) and I was really looking forward to stocking up on kickass auntie gear this summer.
It’s really big here, especially right now. I’m getting ready to have one. I tried to get my friend to have it with me- I said, “Hey, you want to have a yard sale together?” When she said okay, I said, “Okay. I’ll bring my stuff over on Friday and you can call me on Saturday and tell me when to come pick up my money. Kthanks.” For some reason, she got mad at me and now won’t do it with me. What?
I love going to garage sales during the summer. I usually find a few good books or some old owl statues. Several times I’ve gone to garage sales, and if something was a little more than I wanted to pay, and they wouldn’t take less, I’ve given them my number, and told them to give me a call if it doesn’t sell. Usually it sells, but I’ve gotten calls back on some things.
Our cub/scout pack had a jumble sale (rummage sale?) this weekend to raise some funds - we have two per year and it’s our main source of income for the group.
Since eBay and “Cash in the Attic”-type programmes have come around we have a lot more people trying to nab a bargain they can flip for serious cash.
We get people travelling for several miles to attend, and the queues start several hours beforehand (this is for junk donated by the local townspeople). I guess they all hope to spot that priceless vase and pick it up for 50p.
We made $2800 profit though, which keeps the cubs/scouts in tents and billy cans!
We held an estate sale when my mother died, and I am never never never going to do that again. Talk about seeing people at their worst. People showing up way way early, people making insultingly low offers, people taking stuff that had clearly been set aside. We actually had a break-in a couple days later–it was obvious to me that some scumbag (or scumbags) had used the sale to case the place; after the sale we had found several windows unlatched.
I don’t do garage sales very much, but I do love the thrift stores. Most of the time I don’t find much, but sometimes I find a real treasure or two. Garage sales start too early in the morning for me, and usually it’s too darn hot (even if I do get up early) for me to be comfortable browsing outside.
When I first discovered eBay, I could not tear myself away from it. It was terrible, all these people offering things for sale, things that I just couldn’t find anywhere else.
This is what my husband and I do on the weekends in the summer. We stop at Trackside (at Arlington), place a few bets, then hit the neighborhoods in Arlington Heights. It’s fun. And we have acquired some kinda cool stuff, actually.
Hallgirl1 and I go nearly every other weekend when they’re in season. We score books (won’t pay more than 50 cents each though), household stuff and anything else which strikes our fancy. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid when all my clothes were from garage sales. When I became a parent, and later a single parent, nearly everything that clothed the kids came from garage sales. When I divorced, all of our stuff was crap, so if it hadn’t been for garage sales, we wouldn’t have had anything in our home!
Thinking of my home, nearly all of my current furniture and household stuff has come from either garage sales (the majority) or second hand stores (like the sofa I scored two weeks ago at the Salvation Army for under $100!). The rest of the stuff (like my recliner) was bought severely marked down at regular stores. My four poster bed frame? Second hand store for $50. The two upholstered chairs in the living room ($5 each, garage sale), the living room end tables ($5 each, garage sale), 1950’s retro kitchen table and four chairs ($50, second hand store), diningroom table and 4 chairs ($200 garage sale), dining room buffet ($20, garage sale), foyer buffet ($20 garage sale), dressers ($5 for one, the other was free at the curb)…yep, I’ve had a good haul over the years.
It’s always most fun to see what you can get and for what price. It’s like a hunt.
Our neighborhood is having a community wide yard sale. All the streets are packed, and I can’t wait to see what’s it like tomorrow. Probably even crazier. Last time this happened we went to the zoo for the day and happened to run into several other families escaping the chaos!
Not necessarily banning, but children’s products made after Feb 10, 2009 are subject to new some requirements. Thrift stores and the like are exempt from testing/certification.
My neighborhood has a big garage sale every year. I don’t really make any effort to go to individual sales but the neighborhood sale is so much fun, walking all morning from sale to sale. I’ve gotten great stuff.
In fact I’m glad this discussion came up because it looks like I work the weekend of the sale. I’ll need to put in a request for May 15th off.
No, but my parents and some of their close friends enjoy staging (is that the right word??) them as a mutual project and I absolutely adore hearing about them afterwards because it’s pretty hilarious. The selling of “antique Indian crafts*” to upscale Boston suburbanites, the trading of knickknacks between the sellers, and at least one person tries to buy Awesome Cat** per garage sale. At least one of our childhood heirlooms will be scavenged and sold per garage sale so my sister and I prophylactically started a big box o’ stuff labelled "Mummy is not allowed to sell this sht at the next garage sale!" Oh yeah, and my parents enjoy 8-10 mile constitutionals around Upscale Boston Suburb and at least a goodly portion of the crap they sell at their garage sales is stuff** they’ve scavenged out of curbside pickup on one of their walks but have grown bored with, or need to offload in order to make room for more shit they drag home out of someone else’s trash. I like to imagine they’re selling the original owner’s nostalgia garbage right back to them after their housekeeper most likely threw it out.
The selection of goods from their friends is usually of similar origin.
My father is usually handed the duty of collecting the money and spends the whole morning arguing with my mother about why he can’t just wear his usual uniform of wife beater, boxer shorts and scarf (for added warmth) with my mother protesting that no one will want to come to their garage sale if he wanders about in his usual crazy-scientist-hobo-gear. By 10 he is grumpily out on the front lawn wearing jeans he’s owned since 1991 (they don’t get much use on account of his spending most days in his wife beater and shorts). But then my mother will force him to wear a hat, usually a hat that was previously owned by my sister or me during our “Blossom” phase, which takes him straight into 80 year old geezer territory. My mom usually tries to sell the hat as the sale winds down and they’ve trucked out most of their “inventory”.
So yeah, the answer to your question is “no” because I know some garage sale staging enthusiasts pretty well and I’m quite thoroughly prejudiced about the items sold.
*Knick knacks you could buy for a rupee
**Awesome Cat is my parents’ really awesome cat.
***Modernist vases, random bits of furniture, outdated college textbooks, Nancy Drew mysteries, etc…
Before I had my son five years ago, I had a little yard sale of my own every summer. But since I had him, I go to sales more often instead. I have found all sorts of good deals on toys and clothes for him.
After he was one or so, the novelty of putting him in brand new outfits had worn off, and we buy most of his stuff second hand now. I am pretty choosy, however, so most of what I buy could pass for new.
I have saved $100s of dollars in the last few years.
Just one example is his Little Tike’s lighted desk. I got it for $20. It came with lighted work table, desk lamp, chair etc. and usually goes for over $100! It was hardly used.
