My boyfriend and I have lived in this house for nearly three years. Our two-car garage was instead a storage space for a tale of two households. Two singletons merged into a crowded coupledom. Our quaint bungalow was already bursting at the seams, and the garage was filled with junk, stuff, baggage, a by-product of who "he" and "I" were before we became "us."
I am a pathetic packrat. Sentimental in my nonsensical nostalgia. Andrew is pragmatic, logical and streamlined. His efficiency is a direct contrast to my emotional excess. As such, he pointed out that I had not assessed, itemized, sorted through, or even looked at the stack of boxes that filled our garage since we had moved in together. "If you haven't touched it - or needed it - in two and a half years, we CAN get rid of it," he pointed out matter-of-factly.
And so began the purge-a-thon that pricked at the inner core of my identity - LET IT GO. MOVE ON. YOUR STUFF DOES NOT DEFINE YOU. YOU DO NOT NEED THIS SHIT. And, more importantly, what the F was I to do in 2010 with VHS tapes, cassettes, a walkman, a Discman, zip drives, floppy disks, and my Rolodex collection??
Have a yard sale, of course, where I learned you truly CAN get rid of anything and everything!
Tip #1 - Get organized, stay organized and WAKE. UP. EARLY. In fact, so early, don't even bother going to bed. My boyfriend got up before daybreak to start setting up. Quite honestly, to be awake before Starbucks opens is truly an ungodly hour of the morning. It felt more like night, as I stumbled around like a groggy zombie in my pre-garage sale prep.
We had sorted, organized, bagged, tagged and boxed for days prior. On the actual day of -- or wee hours before -- we hauled everything to the front yard, popped tables, and laid everything out on display with colorful signs and clearly noted prices.
My inclination was to take armfuls of piles from the back and just stack them in a heap in the front yard. But we quickly learned an effective technique: what was a disorganized mess in your garage should be a folded, labeled, organized presentation on the yard sale tables.
Peddle your wares in such a way that they're appealing to the eye and to the customer. Sure enough, throughout the day, every time I tidied up the tables, reorganized the hanging items or refolded clothing, we made more sales.
Tip #2 - Don't stop at the garage. Pick through your whole house to find items that are cluttering closets and gathering dust in corners you forgot about. Get rid of it all. Make room for what matters.
At our yard sale, we had a table for spare, leftover or outdated electronics, a table for tchotchkes and knick-knacks, a table for kitchen excess. I mean, let's face it - do you really need twenty tupperware containers?? We had multiple sets of pots and pans, mis-matched dishes, coffee mugs stacked 5 deep and 3 high -- even tho' we got our daily coffee at my beloved aforementioned Starbucks.
It's unbelievable what you'll find. We had three - that's right, THREE - other TV sets between us. These televisions had been retired to the garage graveyard when we splurged on our big flat-screen for the house. Every household had an LED, plasma, 1080p these days. Surely no one would want to buy such archaic heavy "fat-bottomed" TVs, right? Wrong.
We sold all 3 of them that day. And one even had a broken picture tube.
We sold all 3 of them that day. And one even had a broken picture tube.
We thought about tailoring tables at the sale to specific groups of interest.
For example, Andrew is a big outdoorsman, a hiker and camper. He sorted through his closet of gear he had collected over the years and was able to eliminate a lot of excess stuff he no longer used. He displayed his camping items on a tarp which attracted many browsing husbands and other men that came to our sale.
I also travel a lot, but quite honestly, frequent hotels more than tents. As such, I had accumulated an extraordinary and excessive amount of travel toiletries from various hotels in cities and countries all over the world. These were high-end products that I simply had no use for since, try as I might, I remained a creature of habit to my drugstore staples.
I arranged a table of these goodies - soaps, lotions, combs, candles, sewing kits, shower caps, shampoos, conditioners. Things that I had collected FOR FREE and yet in turn SOLD at a yard sale! That table cleared the fastest. People scooped those products up within the first hour or two of the yard sale. Sure, I only sold them for a few cents here and there, but the point was: the stuff was gone! These items were free and had now FREED ME of more clutter. I had gained more space in my bathroom cabinet. And that, my friends, was the true value.
Another way to think out of the box to add to "the box" of "TO SELL" items - THE RE-GIFT. This photo has been blurred to protect the innocent when I, so obviously, am guilty of re-gifting. As long as friends don't frequent your yard sale, you should be good to go with this tactic. Otherwise, things could get awkward to say the least.
You know you all have these items laying around the house. Gifts from good friends with bad taste. Be it gawdy or gimmicky, some of the best intentions can result in the worst gifts during holidays, birthdays and special occasions. A yard sale is THE perfect occasion to offload such items.
At first, I was worried about how bad I would feel and then instead began to focus on what excuse I would tell my friends when they wondered why we never used the pastel crystal-stemmed wine glasses they gave us as a housewarming gift years prior?? Let's just say, they never warmed this house. They sat in the cold garage -- and hopefully now someone far more fun and funky than I was toasting the world through rose-colored glasses!
Tip #4 - The Price is Wrong. My boyfriend schooled me on many things about this yard sale. Not the least of which was me arguing about the price I should put on my designer clothes and shoes.
50 Cent ain't just a rapper, it's the magic number at a yard sale. I was mortified when my man explained that even $1 or $2 seemed too exorbitant a price for my clothing.
I honestly thought I could sell things for $10 or $20 -- and Andrew informed me, be prepared to just put all this back in my closet at the end of the day, or else straight to the trunk of my car to take to the Goodwill for donation. I was flabbergasted. As Queen of All Clutter, I clearly was too attached to these items already, and to part with them for mere pennies when I had paid way more was unthinkable to me.
Andrew helped me understand that it was about quantity here, not quality. The more I sold, the more we would get rid of, which would help us achieve our goal of more space, more room to breathe in every sense of the word.
And so I marked down my precious clothes and heels and purses to increments of .50, $1, $2. From fashion sense to fifty cents. And Andrew was right. They came in droves. Families, teenagers, boho chic hipster girls. It may have felt so wrong for me, but "the price was right" for them.
I even pulled ratty towels and old sheets out of the linen closet, labeled them for cheap and was shocked to see men scoop them up for their car wash businesses and local automotive mechanic shops! People were buying anything - even bleached, stained, pilled and torn towels and sheets! Even your rags can bring you riches.
I arranged a table of these goodies - soaps, lotions, combs, candles, sewing kits, shower caps, shampoos, conditioners. Things that I had collected FOR FREE and yet in turn SOLD at a yard sale! That table cleared the fastest. People scooped those products up within the first hour or two of the yard sale. Sure, I only sold them for a few cents here and there, but the point was: the stuff was gone! These items were free and had now FREED ME of more clutter. I had gained more space in my bathroom cabinet. And that, my friends, was the true value.
Another way to think out of the box to add to "the box" of "TO SELL" items - THE RE-GIFT. This photo has been blurred to protect the innocent when I, so obviously, am guilty of re-gifting. As long as friends don't frequent your yard sale, you should be good to go with this tactic. Otherwise, things could get awkward to say the least.
You know you all have these items laying around the house. Gifts from good friends with bad taste. Be it gawdy or gimmicky, some of the best intentions can result in the worst gifts during holidays, birthdays and special occasions. A yard sale is THE perfect occasion to offload such items.
At first, I was worried about how bad I would feel and then instead began to focus on what excuse I would tell my friends when they wondered why we never used the pastel crystal-stemmed wine glasses they gave us as a housewarming gift years prior?? Let's just say, they never warmed this house. They sat in the cold garage -- and hopefully now someone far more fun and funky than I was toasting the world through rose-colored glasses!
Tip #4 - The Price is Wrong. My boyfriend schooled me on many things about this yard sale. Not the least of which was me arguing about the price I should put on my designer clothes and shoes.
50 Cent ain't just a rapper, it's the magic number at a yard sale. I was mortified when my man explained that even $1 or $2 seemed too exorbitant a price for my clothing.
I honestly thought I could sell things for $10 or $20 -- and Andrew informed me, be prepared to just put all this back in my closet at the end of the day, or else straight to the trunk of my car to take to the Goodwill for donation. I was flabbergasted. As Queen of All Clutter, I clearly was too attached to these items already, and to part with them for mere pennies when I had paid way more was unthinkable to me.
Andrew helped me understand that it was about quantity here, not quality. The more I sold, the more we would get rid of, which would help us achieve our goal of more space, more room to breathe in every sense of the word.
And so I marked down my precious clothes and heels and purses to increments of .50, $1, $2. From fashion sense to fifty cents. And Andrew was right. They came in droves. Families, teenagers, boho chic hipster girls. It may have felt so wrong for me, but "the price was right" for them.
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| CHIC BOHEMIAN HIPSTER CHICKS CRUISING SOME CLASSICS FROM MY CLOSET |
I even pulled ratty towels and old sheets out of the linen closet, labeled them for cheap and was shocked to see men scoop them up for their car wash businesses and local automotive mechanic shops! People were buying anything - even bleached, stained, pilled and torn towels and sheets! Even your rags can bring you riches.
I am of the mindset, however, that it just goes to show you:
One man's trash IS another man's treasure ... or at least another man's underwear.
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| ME AND MY TREASURE AKA YARD SALE LOOT!!! |
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