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.

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.

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!!

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

That's GREAT Trace! Getting closer to the dream!

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.