Now that title is an eye-catcher, right? Who doesn’t want to clean up their life and get rid of their literal and figurative junk!? It is therapeutic to purge things. In fact, there is a whole…dare I say underground revolution…surrounding this right now. If you do a quick Google, you will find COUNTLESS books about purging–purging grief, plastic, bad habits, toxic people…THINGS. That’s where this particular post comes in 😉 Many of my friends are reading the Marie Kondo book now and going to town with the purging of THINGS (I’m a born purger so I’m admittedly not reading the book…yet!).
I’m not sure what it is, but I grew up surrounded by yard sales. Here in NY, they call them tag sales and I’ve also heard garage sale. Whatever you want to call it, I think there’s a reason my family was drawn to them–for both hosting and shopping. There’s something about putting your unwanted items out and being able to make a little cash. It makes you feel a bit like an entrepreneur, a bit like the manager of a store for the day, and a lot like you’re cleaning out–which you are! And shopping at yard sales…it’s all about the hunt for a great bargain! To this day, I get most of my kids’ clothing at yard sales. It just makes sense!
Because of my family’s obsession with garage sales over the years, I’ve learned a lot…A LOT…about hosting them. I’m going to share some tips with you today so you can have a stellar tag sale, get rid of a lot of your “junk” and put some money in your pocket!
The first step is promoting your sale. If no one knows about it, you will be left with all the stuff you started with. And a sad face 😦 Some people like to purchase ads in the Pennysaver or other publications. I am here to tell you that this strategy has gone the way of the cavemen! We have had the most success with a healthy mix of good old fashioned SIGNS (yes, that’s right) and social media blasts. Get on your local Facebook community pages and use your Twitter account…advertise your sale on all the group FB pages you can find that relate to your community. Here in my area, we have a “mommy page” for every single town. I blast all of those pages with my yard sale details! And it’s not spam because mommies LOVE tag sales! The signs…the way your signs look are of utmost importance. They need to be large, neatly printed, and easy to read when driving by quickly. Plus, they must contain pertinent information: date, time, location, and rain or shine, if that’s the case for you. They also need to be placed at major intersections and on highly traveled roadways. Arrows are very important. Make the arrows separately…they should be BIG! If you make them separately, you can place them whichever direction you need to when you hang the sign 😉 Easy! Here is a picture of my signs.
Next…organizing your sale. First of all…I recommend putting a price tag on every. single. item. Labor intensive? Yes. But, it will pay off HUGE when people know what to pay. If you don’t do this, you will spend 90% of your time on sale day answering the question “how much for this?” Also, when people haggle you (and they will!), you will know your starting point. If you don’t label things, you might end up giving things away for much less than you really intended and regret it later.
Next, I like to organize everything into sections so people have an easy and pleasant shopping experience. Also, it helps me out because when the sale gets crowded I can keep an eye on everything. I know where the more valuable items are and I can watch things better even when there’s a rush of people.
Round up tents (in case of rain!), tables, tarps, and clothing racks. You WILL sell more of everything if items are nicely hung and laid out and people do not have to dig through piles of things or bend to the ground for all items. If things are heaped in piles, people will miss A LOT but if things are organized, it’s easier for shoppers to see everything you have to offer! Another trick is to make tables out of saw horses and slabs of wood or old doors. We take a few doors off their hinges in order to make some really stellar tables each time we have a sale.
Also, it is good to have a variety of things. If you’ve only got clothing to sell, wait another year or two until you have more of a variety of items. Or, if you really want an epic sale, make it a multi-family sale. I have hosted four of these now and they are amazing. People flock to these sales because the variety of items is really great. If you’re doing a multi-family sale, I recommend that the head in charge of each family (usually the mom 😉 ) have her own money and her own money apron. When people buy items from multiple sellers, you do the math in your head and hand it over to your co-seller. For instance, a woman buys two items from you, one from Sheila and three from Ella. You take her entire transaction and split it up in your head (or on paper!), keep your earnings, and hand Sheila’s and Ella’s over to them. Done! Easy! It might sound like it can get complicated, but it really doesn’t. Another tip to help out with this is not to include items under $1 each. Having to make change with coins is annoying and does complicate splitting up multi-person sales. Honestly…if it’s not worth a whole dollar, throw it out or donate it!
These are my top tips. To recap:
- Promote your sale using social media and neat, clear signage
- Put a price on every item
- Organize your sale into easy-to-distinguish sections (I label mine with signs!)
- The head of each family should have her own money apron and change (include lots of $1 bills!)
- If it’s not worth a dollar, chuck it or donate it. Don’t fuss with coins at your yard sale!
With that…happy yard-sale-ing! Whether you plan to host or shop…one man’s junk is another man’s treasure! ❤
Five Little Duckies 