Saturday, June 11, 2011

That didn't go so well

I had a garage sale this weekend.  Most of the stuff came from my parents' house, when they moved.  I stored everything in my garage and my basement over the winter, giving a lot away when I encountered people or groups who could use it.  What was left was in the sale this weekend.

Maybe it's because the best stuff had already been taken, but sales did not go so well.

I started preparing last weekend, sorting through and organizing the garage.  Then I spent a few hours each evening, cleaning the garage some more and carrying things up from the basement.  I took Friday afternoon off work to organize, clean and price everything.

What's with the Early Birds who show up 2 hours before the sale, expect me to have everything ready, complain about the lack of selection and then ask me to cut my prices in half - before anybody else has a chance to look?

In all, traffic of people through the sale yesterday was steady, but people didn't buy much.  I probably made about 15 or 20 sales.  Mostly it was kids dragging their parents to visit Tallulah, who was camped out at the back of the garage.  This morning, I woke up to discover it was raining.  It spit or sprinkled all through the morning - I made $3 between 9-12, and decided to pack it in early at noon.

I made a total of $91.05.  If you count up the hours that I spent on this sale, I think I made a whopping $4.79/hour.  If you count the time I spent not working at my real job yesterday afternoon, I actually lost money.  AND, I have at least three carloads of stuff that I now need to drop off at various charities.

This is not my first garage sale.  I've done two before that were actually really quite successful.  Today, though, I'm thinking that this could very well be my last.

5 comments:

  1. It's not your fault, it's your parents'.

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  2. I had a yard sale once, with only one sale in 3 hours. Never again!

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  3. Yard sales here are like a sporting event..people are nuts.
    When I had to refuse a sale to two ladies at war over an old blender...never again.

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  4. I have had two yard sales. One for my Mom in 1983 and one for us in 2001. Two too many. People are also scary in their nuttiness. Sorry it didn't go better.

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  5. I gave up yard sales a long time ago. Now, I post on Craigs List or give it away.

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