My son’s subdivision is having its semi-annual yard sale this coming Saturday. Once again, propelled by the promise of a massive number of shoppers carrying fistfuls of dollar bills, I feel I must participate.
I have a love/hate relationship with yard sales.
I love the idea of my unwanted stuff going to someone who can find a use for it. I love cleaning out the house, especially the garage, where everything in “decision limbo” ends up. (Should it stay or should it go?) I love making some extra cash. Meeting and talking to new people. (Except for those folks whose only mission is to get something for a quarter.)
On the downside, having a garage sale involves waking up before dawn, displaying, pricing, cleaning the items, haggling over prices on everything, and then putting in the effort, when you care the least, to clean it all up and pack away the items that didn’t sell.
In the end, most of the unsold items are dropped off at Goodwill, which makes me think that I should have simply donated them in the first place instead of taking the time and effort to organize a garage sale.
I would have been better off sleeping in and enjoying a leisurely Saturday morning.
But, like I said, I can’t seem to help myself. I enjoy seeing neighbors appear happy with purchasing and giving my old stuff a new home.
As a kid, going to a yard sale was a treasure hunt to find the coolest thing in the neighborhood for a buck. I didn’t know much about negotiating back then. The price marked or told to me by the organizer was the price. I had enough money to afford the thing, or I didn’t.
In my 30’s, my experience with having weekend sales escalated. My grandmother would make a yummy pot of navy beans, ham, and cornbread twice a month for me and the neighbors working. Gram lived on a corner lot, had a white picket fence, and a sign advertising her alterations business, so the house was noticed by cars passing by.
Gram’s neighbor had a plant nursery, so I would help sell the plants and soon brought other items I owned or found to resell to make some extra money. I also learned plant names like lantanas, hibiscus (all color varieties), azaleas, sabal palms, areca palms, royal palms, plumeria, night-blooming jasmine, and more.
During this time, I also learned all about negotiating, though the pricing of the plants was generally not up for debate. That didn’t stop folks from trying.
From there, over the years, I’ve either hosted or attended literally hundreds of yard sales, thrift stores, and antique malls. I also worked in thrift stores, owned a boutique/thrift store, had booths at antique malls, and helped manage a large antique mall. This type of shopping doesn’t include my years as an eBay and Half.com addict. I used these venues as an excuse to obtain more “stuff” to resell it at a higher price.
That was the incentive, anyway.
At one time, I had three storerooms full of items waiting to be sold at the highest and best price while also paying monthly to store the “valuables.”
When my husband and I decided to move back across the state a little over four years ago, I still had one 10 x 15 storeroom remaining and two large booths packed with items for sale at the antique mall.
It was a lot.
I ended up selling all of it for a fair price (but less than I originally paid, if you count all the storage fees) to a friend who had several spaces at the local flea market.
It was a relief.
I decided to get out of the buy low, sell high business once and for all. It took up a lot of my time and life, and other than the times I was employed simultaneously, it could have been more profitable.
What it was was addictive and often fun. It just was not a money-making business, at least not for me.
And, as my Dad always said, “time is money.” In that vein, I spent a colossal amount.
These days, I’d say Amazon and the ease and vast availability of all types of online purchases, in general, is my vice. I was a loyal and frequent customer of Amazon way back when they only sold books. It was thrilling to come up with an idea or topic and find a solution pretty much instantly, even with a dial-up connection.
Now, there are so many (so so many!) ways to get the latest and greatest information on what me, my family, friends, and especially my granddaughters need and must have: Influencers, YouTube, targeted ads, email marketing, social media, reviews, ratings, limited time price reductions, comparison shopping, and plain ‘ol Google searching when you have an idea.
What is a Grandma to do?
As you might have guessed, some of those purchases turned out differently than I envisioned when I pressed the Enter key, or they consequently received limited play, wear, or use.
As a result, I’m not very proficient at first R…Reducing, even after all these years. In fact, I’d say I’ve got a lousy track record at it.
The second R…Reuse I have some decent familiarity with, though I still have lots of room for improvement.
I’ve always liked to paint. When my son was younger, I painted an old dresser and bed set in primary colors. Over the years, I’ve painted and redone furniture for my family and friends and to sell to strangers. I’ve even saved pieces from the trash and made them new again.
I’ve been known to take a candle holder or two and make a planter out of it.
On a bigger scale, I use refillable water bottles almost exclusively, almost always sell or donate items that still have life in them versus throwing them away, buy books on Kindle, use cleaning products that are safe for the environment and concentrated, and of course, shop at thrift stores.
In so many ways, even in my 60’s, I’m still a work in progress. Progress, not perfection. That’s a good thing.
I do the best I can at what I can. My plan is to grow wiser and more thoughtful and need less as time goes on.
It’s always good to have a plan! (wink)
I’m posting early this week since I’ll be busy with the aforementioned yard sale on Saturday. Fingers crossed, I make twenty bucks an hour.
Thanks for reading! Keep smiling!
You might also like
