Mrs. School Teacher recently held a garage sale.  What surprised her most was how little work and time she put into the garage sale compared to the amount of cash she was able to bring in.  Mr. School Teacher, however, was not a garage sale believer.  He mistakenly offered to match her sales!  It was one time Mr. School Teacher underestimated the returns!  In all seriousness, your garage sale junk is another’s treasure.  However, your time is worth money as well.  So the trick is finding the balance between the time you put in and the profits of your garage sale.  The following are a list of garage sale tips that you can use to have a successful event.

            You will need someone to help you with your garage sale.  Besides needing help moving tables there will also be times during your garage sale you are going to be bombarded with people asking for a lower prices.  It’s more enjoyable with another person (or persons) and probably more cash.  Also note that people tend to flock to the multiple family garage sales.  

            Get garage sale signs out at least three days in advance.  People need some forewarning and some encouragement when it comes to getting up early on Saturday morning.  Plan on making sales at least 30 minutes before your posted garage sale start time.  Early birders swarm garage sales and are some of the best customers of all.  They are your friends when it comes to a successful garage sale.

            You need to know that no matter what time you start the garage sale, there WILL be people there earlier.  AKA, “Early Birds” are often ready to buy, buy, buy.  It might be wise to purposely list the garage sale a half of an hour later than you really would like to start.  For example, set your start time to 8:00 knowing that folks will be there at 7:30.

            To state the obvious, you need to have your garage sale in a populated neighborhood.  However, if you have garage sale signs leading and directing folks and/or an ad up on Craigslist.com, you won’t have an issue with numbers. 

            Don’t get hung up on marking every single garage sale item with a price.  Arrange your garage sale in separate pricing areas.  Make a box full of socks 25 cents each.  Try to limit your pricing to a few different numbers (e.g. $.25, $.50, $1, $5).  This will help you when folks start wheeling and dealing. 

Remember your goals when you are asked to lower a price at your garage sale.  You do NOT want to have a lot of stuff left over to haul to Goodwill; that would be more work for you.  So don’t be stubborn and refuse to knock 25 cents off the price.  You will be surprised at innate bargain quality that arises in the heat of the bargaining moment.

            Have fun talking to people.  Most people that frequent garage sales are enjoying the process. (Otherwise they wouldn’t be up at such an early hour on a Saturday).  If they are enjoying it, you should too!

     By following these simple garage sale tips, you can turn your trash into cash!  One more note: once you have completed your garage sale (most garage sales tend to slow down in the early afternoon), gather up all of the remaining unsold stuff and haul it immediately off to Goodwill.  Not only will you be cleaning out your garage but you will be helping people in need.