42 Dreams of Arizona Bay

This is the first time I’ve been on the other end of a garage sale, and I learned a lot of stuff:

1. Do ask your best friend, a garage sale veteran, tips. They will include: where to buy price sticker tags, getting a good amount of cash to make change and having plastic bags on hand for people who end up with a lot of stuff. Bring tape. Bring pens for pricing. We even bought index cards for pricing entire boxes of stuff.
2. Do be realistic about your prices. People are miserably cheap. What sounds like a good deal for my beloved CDs is not for the average person. It doesn’t matter that you can’t get that CD for that price used at the record store, or that you can’t even get it for that price on half.com or eBay. People are cheap, and garage sales are full of impulse buys. Do I really want to pay $3 for that Guns N Roses CD? No, but I might pay $2. Or those DVDs … One guy said, I could buy that cheaper at Wal-Mart. Well, maybe a couple of them, but not every DVD at Wal-Mart is $6. But that guy ended up buying all of my DVDs at $2 a piece. I was just happy to get rid of them, honestly.
3. Be prepared to bargain. Be prepared to banter. You don’t want this stuff in your life anymore, right? I tried to make a man buy my Raggedy Ann, at a reduced price, but apparently $3 and an entreaty to love my large doll went unheeded. He did ask, however, who made her. I had to admit that I don’t know; she’s the first Raggedy I got in my adult obsession for the dolls. I got her at an antique store, and she is the one with the orange hair (not red) and hand-markered face. My orange-haired stepchild doll. She is not going to Goodwill. I can’t do that. But I was hoping someone would take her.
4. Display is everything. The first day, we didn’t know what to expect. Our things, at least, were not arranged as well. We didn’t have a folding table, so all of our stuff was on the ground. I know I don’t like bending down to look at stuff. The next day, we borrowed a table, and quite a few CDs sold. Still didn’t sell the Gamecube, but that was something we weren’t willing to come off of, much. Our friends moved a box of dishes on a table, unpacked them for display on top of a tablecloth and even put out a couple of cooking books. Inspired, yes. Did they sell, well, not by the time we left. But it was still pretty to look at.
5. Consider just having a one-day garage sale. Two or three people told us on Sunday that Sundays are death for garage sales. The best time for a garage sale is usually from 7:30 to 10:30 in the morning, which we seemed to see reflected in our busiest time for the weekend. Later than that, and people are garage saled out. I understand that myself; I quickly reach my own garage sale limit.
6. People like to cruise and turn their noses up at your sale. You clearly do not have what people want. Some people walk in and walk back out. Again, it was interesting to see that from the other side.
7. Put up signs. Put up signs. Put up signs. Our friend, whose house we were borrowing, wondered if we should put up signs. YES! said Heather. Our friend’s house is hard to find, in a maze of subdivision somewhat close to a major vein of traffic, but not that close. So the friend and I hurriedly scrawled signs and put them up around the neighborhood. We had to redo them because most of them were gone, and Heather and I made more. Lots more. The signs did help.
8. Advertising the ad: one chatty garage sale goer offered us a bit of advice, apart from only having a sale on Saturday. Classified ads are a waste of money, for the most part. Sure, people see them, but are they really worth what you paid, versus what you are going to get from your sale? He was right. We split the cost of $28 four ways.
   Craigslist, however, is almost as effective and free. We asked people occasionally how they found the sale. Were you just driving around? Did you see the signs? Did you see the ad. Which ad was it?
9. Be prepared to be bored. There were plenty of times things were so slow. I spent a lot of time admiring my friend’s thick grass lawn, from the ground level. There’s something I can’t resist about thick healthy grass under my feet. And after that, I usually find that it’s better to let my whole body enjoy the thick healthy grass. I found a patch of shade to keep myself from turning into a lobster. My legs sticking out from under the table apparently fooled one neighbor into thinking I was gag legs. I missed it; I must’ve fallen asleep.
10. People do not want books. They don’t want video tapes. They want good deals on junk. And tools. Lots of tools. One of our co-garage salers had a lot of tools he wanted to get rid of. A lot of his stuff sold.

We did make a fair amount of money. Netted $66 or so, subtracting the cost of the garage sale ad, the cost of gas to make the half-hour trip two days in a row, and about $5 spent at the dollar store for supplies. Not bad. Could’ve been better, but that junk was just sitting around, taking up space.

Yesterday, I still had the boxes in my car and offered some more books to a coworker. He took maybe 10 off my hands. Hopefully, I will motivate myself to get out of the house before work to just take the rest to Goodwill.

Cleansing is good. Money is good. Am I just a little disappointed that all of my stuff didn’t get snapped up by another nerd? Just a little, yes.

But we’ll probably take another stab at it in June. When we have more time to prepare. Find some more stuff we don’t need. There’s always more stuff, right?