My husband and I have been doing some work around the house. As we move from room to room, we’ve been going through our stuff trying to declutter. This process has led us to the decision to have a garage sale.

I will admit I really don’t like the prep work for getting one of these together. My husband and son, on the other hand, love it. They enjoy determining pricing, setting it up and running the sale.

I have to share a story from a neighborhood garage sale we participated in a few years ago. It was shortly after we moved to Lawrence, so we didn’t have too much to sell, but we did have a big-ticket item, a couch. Our son, Thomas, decided to sell some items he no longer used. He put out his Rescue Hero action figures, ice skates and roller blades that no longer fit, some miscellaneous items, and a bike.

His toys sold pretty quickly, so much so that he kept going through his room to find more stuff he could sell. It was getting closer to the end of the sale, and his bike had still not sold.

Our next-door neighbors had a ton of stuff they were selling. They had a steady stream of shoppers all day. Thomas, being the shrewd businessman that he is, went over to our neighbors and asked if he could bring his bike over to their yard to try and sell. His theory was that since they still had lots of people going through their yard, his chances of selling his bike in their yard were far better than keeping it in ours. And sure enough, that bike sold by the end of the afternoon.

So, yes, Thomas loves garage sales. And as soon as he heard we were contemplating having one, he started going through his room.

How do you feel about garage sales – do you like shopping them or having them? What tips can you share – is there a strategy in shopping these sales?
A strategy for having a successful sale?

Here are some tips I found on-line from Little House on the Prairie Living for shopping at garage sales:

1. Check the paper first. Go through and look what is for sale and write down the sales you want to hit. This is a huge time-saver so you don’t have to stop at sales that won’t have anything you need. If you are only going on Saturday, it’s best to skip the sales that were on Friday also. Most of the time the best stuff is already picked over.
2. Look up the addresses before you go. Just go to Google or Mapquest and search for the location.
3. Make a route of which ones you are going to hit first by working your way from one side of town to the other. Make sure you write down times they start so you know which one to go to when.
4. Know what you want to look for before you go and know what you are going to spend on it. For example, if you are looking for kids clothes know what size and what styles you need.
5. In the morning. Get up, shower, and get out the door. You want to be at the sales right when they start.
Nobody will care how fancy you look or if you are all dressed up at 6 a.m.
6. Have fun shopping!