Mo' Money

Well we made a good chunk of money this past weekend and are free from our clutter! I was worried that not many people would show up because there were hardly any sales advertised in our local paper. I even had nightmares the night before that no one showed up to the sale, but people did!

Three weeks ago I posted a sign on the mailboxes close to our home asking the neighbors to please call me if they were interested in having a sale the same weekend, because I really wanted to advertise the sale as a Block Sale. You know what? Not ONE person called me! I was pretty bummed out, but even MORE mad when a few of our neighbors DID have sales on Saturday! The nerve! So next year I am going to go door-to-door and personally ask them. I will also yell at the people who did have sales...or at least try to make them feel guilty.

I advertised the sale to start at 9am, thinking people would show up at 8am, and hoping to set up at 7:45am. But around 7:30am there were people milling about! It was really stressful trying to set everything out and having people asking questions. The worst was that some people came and left even before we had set out our big seller…our clothes! Next year I will also advertise ' NO EARLY BIRDS.'

We were very thankful to get rid of some of our bigger items, (aka items so big we don’t have a vehicle large enough to get rid of them ourselves.) This included old bar stools we had moved w/ us from our condo, a fish tank cabinet, and some of John’s old tires. John had a $50 sign on the tires, and at 8:30am (BEFORE the sale is supposed to start remember), some guy offered him $20! How rude is that? John said no, so he then offered $30… John said how about $40, and they said no. However a few hours later he did sell them at $50! Serves those dudes right for not realizing what a great deal they missed.

For the most part I think I sold things pretty cheap. Well compared to my past sales. It still makes me mad when people try to talk me down on something that is already cheap. I normally hold my ground and about 50% of the people pay. I also noticed that when John tells people prices, they weren’t really bartering with him. Did I just discover ANOTHER advantage of being a man? Dang it!

I guess I can’t REALLY complain because John was such a huge help with the sale. He really kicked it up a notch compared to our last sales! He was always looking for helpful things to do. I couldn’t imagine if he hadn’t of been there. It was definitely a two person job.

Compared to the last two sales we’ve had, things were pretty mellow. I expected to have some crazy stories for you, but it wasn’t that exciting. I do think some ladies put some tea light candles in their shipping bag and then didn’t tell me they were buying them when they paid. Also a young girl said she gave me a $10, when I swore she gave me a $5…mind you I hadn’t made a money mistake ALL day, and this was near the end. It’s pretty sad to me when people to try to rip off garage sales. How low can you get? Good thing there wasn't any babies with candy around!

One very positive customer was a young girl with her mom. She was so excited about or clothes and kept complimenting us on what good taste we had! I just told her it's all from the GAP. They really determine our style. She made a haul of some really cute stuff too. Her mom almost bought one of our hideous orange Christmas sweaters!!! And it was a SERIOUS purchase!
One of John’s favorite things about the sale are the dudes who drive by real slow, on the wrong side of the road, with their music blaring, and then when they decide to stop they run into the curb. So classy!

I did have my camera ready, but things started off so crazy that I forgot to take some shots! I always enjoy the before and after photos to see how much we really did sell. We only have 2 garage bags and 2 boxes of stuff to take to goodwill. So it was pretty successful!