So I had my yard sale last weekend. It went really well in fact. And I learned a couple of things from putting one on by myself.
1. Make sure you know some basic Spanish:
Down here a lot of the people are straight out of Mexico and don't speak a lick of English, so I was silently thanking my high school Spanish teachers while I wheeled and dealed prices with all of the people. There were also a lot of people mingling around that were bi-lingual and helped me out with translations when I became really stuck.
2. Have everything set up AT LEAST 30 minutes before your sale:
My mistake was I was almost done, literally unpacking the last box, 10 minutes prior to my sale officially starting and I got hammered with about 30 people all at once. Now I know for next time, to wake up even earlier and set a slightly later start time. This yard sale I woke up at 5 am and my yard sale started at 7:30 am.
3. Have enough tables:
I needed at least one more good sized table in order to not have so much stuff spilling over onto the ground and I was having to use the big huge blue totes flipped over as make shift tables. Surprisingly though, once the first couple of rushes went through I was able to get most everything up onto the tables that I had, so that was a bonus of being super busy all of a sudden.
4. Haggle, haggle, haggle:
I am so glad that my family is really into yard sales and that they would make me haggle for what I wanted to buy, because it came in handy. I also just wanted to make sure I could get rid of as much stuff as possible, that's the whole point of a yard sale!
5. Have some help:
Unfortunately I didn't have a ton of help. My husband helped set up and would come take over when I needed a bathroom break or to feed the baby. It would have been really nice to have had at least one extra person to help set up and man the tables, but we managed just fine with the small yard sale we had.
I had put a goal for myself to make at least $200 from this sale. When all was said and done at the end of the day I had made $215.50! A little over my goal and I was very happy (and tired) to have reached it. The most surprising thing about my sale is that the baby clothes I had for sale hardly sold at all. Yard sales and thrift stores are some of the best places to find baby clothes and items because they aren't in bad shape and some are even brand new. I'm taking the remainder of what didn't sell to the thrift store so it is out of my house for good and it will be nice to have a little extra space in our shed and house, at least for a minute! I would have taken a pretty picture of my yard sale all set up and ready to go, but as I said earlier, that didn't happen and after the first initial rush, I gave up trying to attempt a picture.
