It's a garage sale!

I've never been successful at garage sales.  I look around my house and see so much stuff, stuff that I'm certain other people want for their house.  Other people look at my stuff and say, "What a lot of junk!  She wants us to buy that?  No thanks!"

I once had a woman steal from me at a garage sale.  She tried on a sweater in August and walked away with it still on.  "Hey,"  I called to her.  "That's my sweater.  It's fifty cents if you want it."  She went completely ape on me.  "What you mean, this is MY sweater!  I've been wearing it all day!"  Yeah, right, who wears a black sweater in 100 degree heat?  I let it go - if she needed the sweater that badly, let her have it.

The best purchases I ever made at a yard sale were probably the bunk beds in Nikolas' room and the Gymboree snowsuit I bought when Allegra was a baby.  A coat, hat and snow pants for $7, and all four of my girls have worn it. 

When I was taking ballet, the mother of another student sold all of her old pointe shoes for $5 a pair.  A woman bought them to make a wreath.  I don't have the luck - if I put out old pointe shoes, they'd probably get stolen, or avoided like the plague.

My kids love yard sales, like just about every other kid.  They've been my neighbors best customers, returning home with sports bags that have JUST one hole in the side, stuffed animals in spades, a  crayon mold designed to look and sound like a sports car - you dump your crayon nubs in and melt them down while the engine revs - a spiral potato peeler for me (cuz we all know how much I cook potatoes), and framed pictures too many to count.  I consider it my duty to deliver these items to the thrift store for my neighbors.

Click on over to Scrutiny by the Masses and check out today's post, part of The Parent Blogger Network's Garage Sale America BookTour.  As usual, I'm giving the book away, so leave a comment for your entry.

While you are clicking, won't you pretty please click over to sk*rt and vote for me?  It'll just take a minute - I'd be forever grateful.

Comments

[Brandy]

I hate doing yard sales too. But, it's because I never know how to price things and end up selling them too cheap. I also don't do well with confrontation so that makes it hard as well.

[QueenB]

My yardsale luck is about the same. Last year we added a little bake sale so that the kids could be involved and make a little money for summer activities. Yeah, we were a little surprised when their bake sale made twice as much money!

[mom101]

Geez, you really do have bad garage sale luck. I remember that people bought EVERYTHING at ours. Monogrammed towels - with my family's monograms on them! Nuts, right?

[Izzy]

I had my last garage sale on Thanksgiving weekend a few years ago. It just didn't occur to me that it was a bad weekend for such an endeavor. I had like three people come.

[theotherbear]

I got rid of a whole lot of stuff recently. Furniture, all sorts of things. I know I should have had a garage sale. I was lazy. I put all the furniture outside with a sign saying "free" and it all went, the rest I donated to charity places.

I can't believe someone stole a sweater from your garage sale. That is so bad it is kinda funny.

[Jennifer]

We had one a few years ago and I told my son whatever he sold he could keep the $. Well, out went all his old Gameboy cartridges and old Nintendo games. He pulled in a whopping $87.00, which he used at Gamestop to buy a whole bunch of used games. I did pretty well on my old baby stuff, especially that awful Peg Perego stroller I had. Somebody actually paid me $50 for that hard to fold monstrosity!

[The Mentor Mom]

I'm due for a yard sale as well. I'm overwhelmed just thinking about it. They are so much work! There is an upside...maybe I can get rid of the disco slinky that my son picked up at a neighbors sale. If I hear that thing go off one more time in the middle of the night...

[Gem]

I think old pointe shoes would be great for decorating a little girl's room with a ballet theme.