Good Lord I have a lot of stuff - Huge garage sale time
Camper Chronicles said
03:53 AM May 9, 2014
I set the date for the big garage sale before going to the rally and wow do we have a lot of stuff. Good heavens I have never done a GS on this scale before and my garage is overflowing. Picked a not so great weekend, supposed to rain, Mothers Day, and local college graduation (see this is what happens when I don't plan things :) but we are committed as it's in the local newspaper. Any words of wisdom from those who have gone before??
cherylbrv said
06:49 AM May 9, 2014
I didn't even bother with a garage sale. What I felt I could get more than $50 for, I put on Craigslist and the rest I either donated to charity or listed on my local Freecycle. It just wasn't worth the effort and stress of having a garage sale for a few extra dollars. But that's just me.
As an aside, we still have 2 more rounds of purging to do. We need to completely empty the house, pack whatever we can take with us in our mini-van as we head down to FL to buy our rig (bare bones basics that we'll need to live with for 2 months) and the rest will go into storage until we return to NJ in Aug. once we see how much space we have (or don't have) for the rest of the stuff. Personally, I think if we can live without it for 2 months, we don't need it at all, but that's a compromise I have to make with DH, as the stuff we're talking about is mostly his tools and computer stuff.
Good luck with your sale!!!
Camper Chronicles said
07:49 AM May 9, 2014
Oooh interesting tactic. I should have asked for this advice before I loaded 6 bazaar sixed tables with stuff!! I am hoping though that at a $1 an item sheer volume will make me a few bucks. Also, when Lee and I were just starting out we got lots of things from garage sales or auctions and I am hoping to pass some of that along. Let's see how I feel on Sunday though...I'll let you know if I should have just skipped it.
jrzygrl64 said
08:37 AM May 9, 2014
We've done garage sale in the past, I've never made much $$ unless I had out a few big ticket items, like one time I sold a desk, and Bill just didn't want to do it. He works so many hours, he didn't want his weekend taken up by people trying to offer us $.50 for an item marked $1. Can't say I blame him. It's a LOT of work and I hope you guys make a lot of money for your effort. When we were starting out, we also got a lot of stuff at garage sales (practically furnished out first house!) but this time we are just donating the stuff we don't want to keep. I have brought many car loads to Salvation Army (plus they came once with their truck), and Children's Home of Reading (yes, orphanages still exist - this one has 450 kids!) I have a few things I need to put on CraigsList - does anyone want a ride-on lawnmower or treadmill (barely used - LOL) or universal gym (used more than the treadmill but not much)?
Good luck, Trace, let us know how you make out!
Ckerr said
08:38 AM May 9, 2014
Good luck with the sale. I made some $ when I did mine, but sure was a lot of work. We just had to empty Jeff's house after a quick sale. Interesting note... He got a lot more for furniture selling it on Craigslist down here than I did in Austin a couple years a go. Different locations have different mentalities about used furniture I think.
Dave Buck said
10:54 AM May 9, 2014
When we got down to the end of things our development was having their annual garage sale. We had a name your price sale. The second day everything was free. That way I didn't have so much to haul to Goodwill.
Cindi said
11:08 AM May 9, 2014
My garage sale is weekend after next. The neighborhood does one each year and I waited for that to hopefully "up the traffic". The following Monday is our town's bulk garbage pick up. People go up and down the streets on Sunday and pick up whatever they find. That will make all the left over stuff go away quickly.
I am excited to be thinning it out but not looking forward to the work. I had one 12 years ago when my mother died and it wore me out. Thankfully my two granddaughters have gracefully agreed to help. I have a lot of furniture listed on Craigslist and am not getting any responses at all so it will all have to go in the front yard. I can barely get through the house with all the boxes of stuff sitting around, but at least it is priced. So looking forward to getting the house listed after the yard sale is done!!
Camper Chronicles said
11:37 AM May 9, 2014
Appreciate the comments...have to say my back is already killing me with the bending up and down.
LandL Partners said
01:40 PM May 9, 2014
We had one about a month before closing. I wish I had more time to pull thing out because we still had a lot left to go through afterwards. We had very reasonable (cheap) prices and got rid of a lot of junk (I mean treasures that I didn't think we would be able to donate - a broke generator, old exercise equipment, bulky furniture, misc paint, etc. We had the sale advertised for Saturday and Sunday and also posted on Craigslist and posted signs that everything was half price or free on Sunday and some people came back to pick up stuff they passed on the day before. The following Week I had already scheduled a Purple Heat pick up for all the leftovers. Lots of work but the extra $$ and knowing someone out there could probably use it made it worth the effort.
NWescapee said
05:49 PM May 9, 2014
We had 1 garage sale and I will never do that again!!! Spent several weeks sorting, 2 weeks to set up and price and sold a grand total of $500. Given the time spent and the fact that we were both working full time and we had the garage sale with help from friends as Dale was on his way to OK to pick up the RV, there were probably better ways to spend my time. Of course, he had fun gloating that he was in sunshine and 80 degrees as he was driving while we were sitting in a garage in rain in Seattle.
We did get rid of almost all our Christmas decor in April which was a surprise. Sold almost all of the outdoor plant pots because it was spring, sold our old bikes and the weight bench which had been listed on Craigslist for over a month, so while we were happy to get rid of the "stuff" it was more work than I ever thought it would be. 70% of our sales came from 5 people who bought the big ticket items and then there were all the nickles and dimes that everyone felt they had to bargain over. Our neighborhood bulk trash pickup was 3 days later, then St. Vincent's picked up the rest of the furniture. If I had to do it over again, I would have just called them at the beginning of the process.
We made a lot more using an online estate sale, even with the commission, it was a lot less work because someone else did the work and we sold more stuff, made more money and were able to let someone else deal with the people who wanted to bargain.
Talensnana said
06:12 PM May 9, 2014
Growing up my mom would have a garage sale every summer. I have had a few, but i am done with them. I do not have the energy anymore. The little $ I make is not worth the pain factor.
Purging Phase 1- Is to donate a lot of the small stuff to a local charity Shiloh house (home for unwed moms and pregnancy support). They are sorting through the stuff and either their clients can have it, or they will have a sale to raise money for them. This is mainly the clothes, knick knacks and stuff which my kids did not take when they moved out.
Purging Phase 2- Is to pack up the things we don't want to get rid of because of sentimental reasons into a few totes which we will store in our daughters house when our house sells.
Purging Phase 3- Will be to have our kids and nieces and nephew come see what of the bigger items they could use as they start on their adult journeys.
Purging Phase 4- Load the RV and get what we want from the house in it.
Purging Phase 5- Stage the house and put it on the market.
Purging Phase 6- Hire an auctioneer or estate company to sell what's left.
While we are doing all this, we are scanning in our family photos.
Our goal is to have this all done by Summer of 2015. Which is going to be fun as not only do I have our stuff, but I still have some of his moms stuff and my parents stuff to go through from when they passed a few years ago. Once completed it is adventure time.
-- Edited by Talensnana on Friday 9th of May 2014 06:13:35 PM
Terry and Jo said
06:53 PM May 9, 2014
Like some others, our garage sale was during a neighborhood garage sale with a pretty good number of homes participating. Ours was hastily done because we only got something like two weeks notice. A lot of stuff and furniture was out in the three car garage and out on our very large driveway. When all was said and done, we made about $1500 out of our items. I walked around and if I saw somebody looking at more than one item but hesitating to buy anything, I'd sometime suggest that they could have both "item A" and "item B" on something like a buy one, get one half price.
The hardest thing for me to sell was my three film SLR cameras with lenses. An older couple came through and was looking at them with the idea of giving one to their granddaughter that was going to go to a photography school. Most of those schools want their students to learn with film cameras. While I had refused to sell the whole kit and kaboodle a year earlier for $50, I offered the whole kit and kaboodle to this couple for $35. Wish I knew the name of the young lady so I could tell later if she became a well known photographer.
After the garage sale, the small stuff went to Goodwill or Salvation Army.
Terry
French Bikers said
09:18 PM May 9, 2014
This is a good topic like everybody who lived in house for more than 25 or 30 years we have cumulate a lot of stuff. My DW likes to change the house decoration from time to time but the problem with that is the fact that everytime she change evreything from the color of painting to the cushion on the couch. After four houses you can imagine the amount of things that she kept in case of; She is the type of woman that when she buy's a dress she needs the purse, the belt, the bracelet, etc... well I think it is a nomal fact for many women. I don't blame her because I'm a bit like her but with fixing materiel plumbing, electrical, screws, nuts, etc..... Even If I made a purge every two years for the last 20 I still have a lot to get rid of before we hit the road. We have done garage sale in the past and every time it was over $ 1K, therefore this time I have a lot more to sale and I think it will be worth while. I agree with all of you about the bargaining tactic of the people that stop and like a lot of men I don't have the patience to negotiate a $1.00 rebate, so I always place a carboard with the inscription This is is a garage sale not the Salvation Army Store, negotiation can be performed to a certain extent. So far it always worked well, I always laugh when I see people coming back at the end of the day to know it the merchandise they were looking at is still available and try to make a low offer believing that I will let them at their price thinking that I'm in need of cash.
Recently some people asked us to be advised in advance when we will be ready to sell our stuff, one of them said it is like a pre-sale for good friends. I don't mind spending few hours of my time to get some money out of my stuff and I know that I will also give to my local church. I'm not a salesman at all and it is not my type of personnality but when it is about my wallet I can act like one. Out of our 4 houses I sold three of them myself, I can't accept the fact to give 20K to 60K or more to a realtor when the owner of the house is the best person to talk about his property and to negotiate. One thing is for sure is that I'm in the same position of all of the present FT and the futur FT meaning that I will have to go through that exercise, I don't mind because I do it for us and the $$$$ will go for the RV lifestyle.
Jean
2riker2go said
02:30 AM May 10, 2014
Good luck with your garage sale!! Add us to the list of people who have been there, tried that! Way back in the early stages of cleaning out we did two garage sales and they were a bit depressing. Tried to mark stuff super low so it would sell pretty easily and people still tried to haggle over prices. The second garage sale Harry was literally writing $1 on practically everything lol. He wrote 25 cents on some book and someone asked him, will you take 10 cents for this? We gave up on them after that - too much work for too little return. Decided to give the rest to people who needed it. Gave a lot of the good stuff to kids and other family members. Gave the rest of it away to friends and people on Freecycle. Loved Freecycle - I would post something on that in the morning and within two hours I would be getting emails from people who wanted the item. Great and easy way to get rid of it - put it outside and let the person pick it up. :)
WestWardHo said
08:59 AM May 10, 2014
When we did ours I got one of those mobile phone credit card readers and we got sales we wouldn't have otherwise. We placed ads on Craig's list for & a local bargain sheet and listed some items & the sale and the add said for next 4 weekends with new stuff every week as we're moving to our RV. Many came back each weekend. All told we made about $4,000 but exhausting.
Plus we hauled a lot to my sons in Tucson and more in the back of my car to my son's in WN.
Sherry
Camper Chronicles said
03:34 PM May 10, 2014
Well we made $700 today nut I am exhausted and have a wicked headache over the whole thing. It rained so that made it waaay more complicated tomorrow should be sunny so hopefully that will help. My two biggest pet peeves...professionals trying to find a super cheap bargain (do they not think we checked the old stuff on ebay?) and the folks who try to argue down a 50 cent item...geez. Two great things happened...my daughters friend just moved into her own place and I loaded her up for $50. Even took 4 of my place settings and gave them to her knowing they aren't RV friendly. Secondly we sold all of our old camping gear...tents, sleeping bags, camp table etc to a nice couple for $50. She mentioned they were having a tough time since moving here from North Carolina and needed some time away and I have her everything camping related I had. So that felt good...but I have to say after watching people paw through my stuff for the last several hours...I think I should have gone for the tax donation and given it all to a local charity. We will see how tomorrow goes...hopefully more young people who need stuff....
Oh btw my girls posted the sale on Facebook and I said I would give an extra 20% if people mentioned they were face book friends it and five people mentioned it ...so that was pretty cool .
VanMar said
05:58 AM May 11, 2014
Well, we also finished a four day garage sale yesterday. We barely had room to walk around all the stuff in a three car garage plus, what room the fifth wheel didn't take up in the driveway was full. I had never heard of starting one on a Wednesday but DW says it was the best day of all. Since we are in the process of getting rid of the big ticket items now, furniture, tools, etc, we made about two grand. Of course this was for stuff that probably cost ten grand new. All that's left now is the stuff we have to have to live in the house....bed, table, lawn mower, trimmer, etc. the rest of it will go in June. Not having much luck selling the car. Just put it on cars.com...maybe that will be productive.
Bill and Jodee said
05:32 PM May 11, 2014
We are taking our time going through the house and garage while at the same time making sure we don't buy anything that won't be for the RV. Have a couple empty cupboards and drawers now - that feels pretty good!
I have a space in the garage where I put stuff to get rid of. When it gets "full" I put out some signs, post Craigslist, and have a garage sale for five hours on a Saturday morning. Comfortable chair, good music, few cups of coffee, visit with different people (some more "different" than others), and get paid to have someone else haul away my stuff that I would otherwise give away. Usually I make about $200 ($40/hour) and anything that doesn't sell goes back in the space for next time.
Family and friends have already tagged items they want when we sell the house, jewelry and collectables sold on Craigslist, and we will do a final big garage sale the last Saturday before we're out. That Sunday the Veteran's charity will pick up whatever is left.
We're still deciding on options if there are more than a couple bins of things we want to keep. The bins can go under the stairs at the BFF's house, but more than that will need a bigger space.
I know that few people enjoy the process of organizing and purging, but I'm one of them so this isn't a chore for me. Sort of feels like I'm cheating somehow.....
Jodee
Camper Chronicles said
05:55 AM May 12, 2014
We ended up making $1,000 which was more than enough to buy the boat we saw at the rally we wanted which was nice. One of the pros came on Sunday at noon and offered us $240 for everything left and we took it. Fair deal...he'll triple his money and we were saved the work of boxing everything that was left and donating it. Taking the money and doing something "frivolous" with it made it worth it for me and Lee is thrilled his garage is practically empty so it turned out ok overall.
Trace
cherylbrv said
06:23 AM May 12, 2014
That is EXCELLENT!!!! I'm so glad it worked out for you and was worth the effort.
Jo and Ben said
06:35 AM May 12, 2014
That's GREAT Trace! Getting closer to the dream!
BiggarView said
06:41 AM May 12, 2014
Congrats on your successful sale. As far as a garage sale for us, we won't have a lot of items but definitely enough to do one. Our (that should say my) biggest challenge will be the unloading of several thousand dollars worth of model trains. I cannot see me having a model railroad setup(even a modular one) in an RV or in a campsite unless I can find space to store it while in transit. Even though we are years away, I have already sold roughly $1500 worth. My thinking for that eventual cash hoard will be the purchase and install of a fairly robust solar set-up and perhaps either one of those new drone flying machines(a guy needs his toys right?) or a very nice reflector telescope for those dark starry nights out in the boondocks Or maybe both if I'm lucky.
Brian
NWescapee said
10:21 AM May 12, 2014
Congrats on making enough for the boat, a Sea Eagle???
One tip for anyone trying to sell a car, we sold ours after we had left once we finished our final purging on the road, so didn't want to deal with Craigslist while we were moving about the country. Ended up selling it to CarMax for more than the expected Kelly Blue Book value so we were happy to have it gone for more money than we thought we'd get out of it and it was absolutely no hassle.
Bill and Jodee said
10:44 AM May 13, 2014
Ditto on the Car Max for selling vehicles! Have sold two to them, both for over KBB, both quick and hassle-free. California requires the owner to process the Release of Liability themselves. Car Max provided the DMV website and all the information needed on a separate paper which was really above-and-beyond!
Wish they bought other "garage treasures"......
Jodee
Camper Chronicles said
02:01 PM May 13, 2014
NWescapee wrote:
Congrats on making enough for the boat, a Sea Eagle???
I set the date for the big garage sale before going to the rally and wow do we have a lot of stuff. Good heavens I have never done a GS on this scale before and my garage is overflowing. Picked a not so great weekend, supposed to rain, Mothers Day, and local college graduation (see this is what happens when I don't plan things :) but we are committed as it's in the local newspaper. Any words of wisdom from those who have gone before??
As an aside, we still have 2 more rounds of purging to do. We need to completely empty the house, pack whatever we can take with us in our mini-van as we head down to FL to buy our rig (bare bones basics that we'll need to live with for 2 months) and the rest will go into storage until we return to NJ in Aug. once we see how much space we have (or don't have) for the rest of the stuff. Personally, I think if we can live without it for 2 months, we don't need it at all, but that's a compromise I have to make with DH, as the stuff we're talking about is mostly his tools and computer stuff.
Good luck with your sale!!!
Good luck, Trace, let us know how you make out!
I am excited to be thinning it out but not looking forward to the work. I had one 12 years ago when my mother died and it wore me out. Thankfully my two granddaughters have gracefully agreed to help. I have a lot of furniture listed on Craigslist and am not getting any responses at all so it will all have to go in the front yard. I can barely get through the house with all the boxes of stuff sitting around, but at least it is priced. So looking forward to getting the house listed after the yard sale is done!!
We did get rid of almost all our Christmas decor in April which was a surprise. Sold almost all of the outdoor plant pots because it was spring, sold our old bikes and the weight bench which had been listed on Craigslist for over a month, so while we were happy to get rid of the "stuff" it was more work than I ever thought it would be. 70% of our sales came from 5 people who bought the big ticket items and then there were all the nickles and dimes that everyone felt they had to bargain over. Our neighborhood bulk trash pickup was 3 days later, then St. Vincent's picked up the rest of the furniture. If I had to do it over again, I would have just called them at the beginning of the process.
We made a lot more using an online estate sale, even with the commission, it was a lot less work because someone else did the work and we sold more stuff, made more money and were able to let someone else deal with the people who wanted to bargain.
Growing up my mom would have a garage sale every summer. I have had a few, but i am done with them. I do not have the energy anymore. The little $ I make is not worth the pain factor.
Purging Phase 1- Is to donate a lot of the small stuff to a local charity Shiloh house (home for unwed moms and pregnancy support). They are sorting through the stuff and either their clients can have it, or they will have a sale to raise money for them. This is mainly the clothes, knick knacks and stuff which my kids did not take when they moved out.
Purging Phase 2- Is to pack up the things we don't want to get rid of because of sentimental reasons into a few totes which we will store in our daughters house when our house sells.
Purging Phase 3- Will be to have our kids and nieces and nephew come see what of the bigger items they could use as they start on their adult journeys.
Purging Phase 4- Load the RV and get what we want from the house in it.
Purging Phase 5- Stage the house and put it on the market.
Purging Phase 6- Hire an auctioneer or estate company to sell what's left.
While we are doing all this, we are scanning in our family photos.
Our goal is to have this all done by Summer of 2015. Which is going to be fun as not only do I have our stuff, but I still have some of his moms stuff and my parents stuff to go through from when they passed a few years ago. Once completed it is adventure time.
-- Edited by Talensnana on Friday 9th of May 2014 06:13:35 PM
Like some others, our garage sale was during a neighborhood garage sale with a pretty good number of homes participating. Ours was hastily done because we only got something like two weeks notice. A lot of stuff and furniture was out in the three car garage and out on our very large driveway. When all was said and done, we made about $1500 out of our items. I walked around and if I saw somebody looking at more than one item but hesitating to buy anything, I'd sometime suggest that they could have both "item A" and "item B" on something like a buy one, get one half price.
The hardest thing for me to sell was my three film SLR cameras with lenses. An older couple came through and was looking at them with the idea of giving one to their granddaughter that was going to go to a photography school. Most of those schools want their students to learn with film cameras. While I had refused to sell the whole kit and kaboodle a year earlier for $50, I offered the whole kit and kaboodle to this couple for $35. Wish I knew the name of the young lady so I could tell later if she became a well known photographer.
After the garage sale, the small stuff went to Goodwill or Salvation Army.
Terry
Recently some people asked us to be advised in advance when we will be ready to sell our stuff, one of them said it is like a pre-sale for good friends. I don't mind spending few hours of my time to get some money out of my stuff and I know that I will also give to my local church. I'm not a salesman at all and it is not my type of personnality but when it is about my wallet I can act like one. Out of our 4 houses I sold three of them myself, I can't accept the fact to give 20K to 60K or more to a realtor when the owner of the house is the best person to talk about his property and to negotiate. One thing is for sure is that I'm in the same position of all of the present FT and the futur FT meaning that I will have to go through that exercise, I don't mind because I do it for us and the $$$$ will go for the RV lifestyle.
Jean
Plus we hauled a lot to my sons in Tucson and more in the back of my car to my son's in WN.
Sherry
Oh btw my girls posted the sale on Facebook and I said I would give an extra 20% if people mentioned they were face book friends it and five people mentioned it ...so that was pretty cool .
Well, we also finished a four day garage sale yesterday. We barely had room to walk around all the stuff in a three car garage plus, what room the fifth wheel didn't take up in the driveway was full. I had never heard of starting one on a Wednesday but DW says it was the best day of all. Since we are in the process of getting rid of the big ticket items now, furniture, tools, etc, we made about two grand. Of course this was for stuff that probably cost ten grand new. All that's left now is the stuff we have to have to live in the house....bed, table, lawn mower, trimmer, etc. the rest of it will go in June. Not having much luck selling the car. Just put it on cars.com...maybe that will be productive.
I have a space in the garage where I put stuff to get rid of. When it gets "full" I put out some signs, post Craigslist, and have a garage sale for five hours on a Saturday morning. Comfortable chair, good music, few cups of coffee, visit with different people (some more "different" than others), and get paid to have someone else haul away my stuff that I would otherwise give away. Usually I make about $200 ($40/hour) and anything that doesn't sell goes back in the space for next time.
Family and friends have already tagged items they want when we sell the house, jewelry and collectables sold on Craigslist, and we will do a final big garage sale the last Saturday before we're out. That Sunday the Veteran's charity will pick up whatever is left.
We're still deciding on options if there are more than a couple bins of things we want to keep. The bins can go under the stairs at the BFF's house, but more than that will need a bigger space.
I know that few people enjoy the process of organizing and purging, but I'm one of them so this isn't a chore for me. Sort of feels like I'm cheating somehow.....
Jodee
Trace
Congrats on your successful sale. As far as a garage sale for us, we won't have a lot of items but definitely enough to do one. Our (that should say my) biggest challenge will be the unloading of several thousand dollars worth of model trains. I cannot see me having a model railroad setup(even a modular one) in an RV or in a campsite unless I can find space to store it while in transit
. Even though we are years away, I have already sold roughly $1500 worth. My thinking for that eventual cash hoard will be the purchase and install of a fairly robust solar set-up and perhaps either one of those new drone flying machines(a guy needs his toys right?) or a very nice reflector telescope for those dark starry nights out in the boondocks
Or maybe both if I'm lucky.
Brian
One tip for anyone trying to sell a car, we sold ours after we had left once we finished our final purging on the road, so didn't want to deal with Craigslist while we were moving about the country. Ended up selling it to CarMax for more than the expected Kelly Blue Book value so we were happy to have it gone for more money than we thought we'd get out of it and it was absolutely no hassle.
Wish they bought other "garage treasures"......
Jodee
Yepper