It is Garage Sale Time!!

Summer is not my favorite season of the year but there are a few reasons that I bear it and even look forward to it. Beach trips, gardening, fair food, and most importantly- garage sales! I am a firm believer that one person's trash is another's treasure and in the past couple of weeks I have found some awesome deals from garage sales. Just this past week I bought some beautiful baby clothes (neutral of course!), a baby ring sling (yay!), as well as some gently used clothes for the girls.

This upcoming weekend Lakewood is going to have an All City Garage Sale and we decided sort of last minute to join in the fun. Looking around at first I didn't think that we had a lot of stuff to sell, but upon closer inspection I found that we have lots of items that I think will go pretty fast- a 3-cd wall mounted player (we are all iPod now), a child's bike seat that almost brand new, a never used monkey cookie jar, Tickle Me Elmo Hands (scary to me), and a travel baby swing that isn't needed. I found some framed children's art that the girls didn't care for, lots of fabric that I have no use for, a bucket of sewing scraps, and so many books that I should just have my own library!

Although this isn't our first garage sale here are some tips that I have learned from being an avid buyer that maybe will help some of you out there planning your own garage sale:

♥ If you don't want Early Birds you better say so in your ad, something like "Early Birds will be shot on sight" will probably get your point across.

♥ Advertise everywhere you can! Craigslist is where I go for my scoop so that is where I will post our sale this year.

♥ Price everything visibly... nothing is worse than having to guess or go ask about every item you pick up.

♥ Blanket signs like "All Toys- .50" and "All Clothes- $1" are great signs and save you a lot of trouble.

♥ Have a money box, but carry around money and change with you... craft and hardware aprons are great for this.

♥ Clean up everything and present it nicely! Nothing is worse than picking up a filthy glass or toy... it turns me off to the whole sale.

♥ Don't price your items higher than a third or quarter of the original cost, even if it is in perfect condition. People wont care that you bought that table 10 years ago for $700... everyone who buys at garage sales is looking for a deal.

♥ Finally, don't hover around the people buying at your sale and tell a story about everything there... it is weird and personally makes me run away!

Do you enjoy garage sales and if so what tips do you have to share for buyers AND sellers??