Garage Sale Tips: Part TWO

Check out part ONE of my garage sale tips here.

It was a great day, hard work and quite tiring, but well worth the effort. Here are the final tips and some praises for my awesome team of helpers.

Fifth: PRICING

I found it really helpful to price out almost everything we had (whether it was actual stickers on things with prices or that things were in bins with everything worth the same value, etc.). This made it extremely easy on me on the day of and it also ensured that my friends helping me could make sure they got me a good price (if they were being negotiated with) and could take money from people instead of everything having to come to ME to find out how much things were. It's a bit more of your time, but I would say it's totally worth it. As a buyer and as a seller I would find it somewhat annoying to have to keep asking what the price is for everything. And as a seller who is a Mom and sometimes had to run inside or disappear for a few minutes, it was freeing to know the sale wasn't completely dependent on me.

Also, if I had known where to find out belt pack (aka fanny pack), I would have totally worn it. If you have one, it's probably a good idea to keep the money in one. We just used a little container which was handy to pass around between Shereen, Jen and I, but sometimes felt a bit exposed. I tried to keep bringing in the larger bills so we only had fives, some tens and change outside.

We also had a table set up with music (so people didn't feel awkward talking to each other quietly about prices), coffee and baked goods that people could donate toward Ugandan orphans. We did advertise that a portion of our proceeds would be going to an orphanage in Uganda (we haven't decided which one, yet) and so we were so thrilled with the outcome.

Our grand total of profits made was (drumroll, please):

~$850!!!

I couldn't believe it when I counted out the cash and Jamie didn't believe it either when he called later on to find out how things were going.

I am so thankful and completely indebted to my amazing all-star cast of helpers who gave of their time and energies and even paid ME money to buy some of our stuff!

My all-star cast of helpers were as follows: 

the MVH (Most Valueable Helper):

Shereen (my amazing sister)

Shereen (hardworker, childcare - and everything in between!) came over Friday morning and played with my boys, helped me price things when I was completely overwhelmed and had no idea where to start, stayed in the cold garage all day to sort, organize and price things, went out at 10:30pm to poster with Jen for over an hour, stayed up to chat with me, got up super early and helped all day long with me. She was my go-to girl for just about everything and even helped me pack up and unload the van at Bibles for Missions thrift store with our left over stuff. Thank you a million times over, Shereen!

Next are Suzanne (hardworker, organizer) and Jen (networker, hardworker) who both helped before and during the sale at different points.

Suzanne came over with her little (big) 8 month old guy and helped me sort and fold baby clothes as well as price and arrange them all. She was happy to do it and it doesn't hurt that my boys love her and her son Jacob. Suz also came over in the morning to help me set up and I am pretty sure we couldn't have started on time (as early as we did) without her help getting stuff from the garage to the driveway.
Jen came over the night before and helped price and organize the cold, cold garage and then went out with Shereen to poster up our neighbourhood. Her posters (I'm convinced) are what brought such high amounts of traffic to our sale! She was also there to help set up and stayed for quite some time to help with the sale. Her daughter Hannah even watched the boys for a little bit. 

Suz and Jen - you guys are such great friends. Thanks for your help!

My Mom sent at least 5 containers of muffins and scones to sell at the garage sale and they were "even better than Tim's" according to one garage-sailor. Thanks, Mom! 

And of course my husband, Jamie who watched the boys when I thought he wouldn't be able to, brought us all Tim's breakfast sandwiches and was extremely supportive and helpful during the entire process. (You're the best, babe!)

Garage Sale Tips: Part ONE

It's over. It's finally over and now I can breathe and sleep. (I went to bed at 8:59 last night - too bad my kids were up multiple times throughout the night or else I would have gotten 11 hours of sleep - thanks to my wonderful husband who got up this morning with the boys.)

I was probably on my third coffee at this point.

So, you want to have a garage sale and make it worth your while?
I can't guarantee anything, but follow these tips and you'll definitely do better than if you hadn't!

First: HELP

I could NOT have done it without these ladies!

Assemble a team of people who will help you throughout this process. Here are a few key people to have:
a) Organizers - people who thrive at putting systems together and organizing things. These people will help you to organize your things and get past the daunting experience of staring at a garage full of things and not knowing where to start. These people will be helpful both the week before the sale as well as the day of.
b) Networkers - these people will help get the word out about your sale via word of mouth as well as on the internet.
c) Hard workers - :) These are people who will help you do just about anything. They love you and want to help you. These people are KEY. These people can fit into either previous category and can also help you organize, move things, clear things, run errands, POSTER your neighbourhood, etc.
d) Childcare - if you have small children (as I do) it would be really helpful to you to have someone to watch your kids. At first I didn't think Jamie was going to be around, but it turns out he was able to stick around until noon to watch the boys while all the ladies organized and sold stuff outside. It worked out wonderfully. The boys were outside for a bit, but it was too cold for them to be out there the whole time and so they came out, played with the toys for a bit and wandered around and then went back inside. It was definitely nice to have Jamie around to help with this.

Second: WARMTH

Note that I have changed to a winter jacket. It was COLD.

If at all possible, I would not do a garage sale until at least May - especially if you're living in Canada. There were a lot of cold moments - postering, sorting and pricing in a cold garage and then bright and early putting things out on a cold Saturday morning. Granted, it was a gorgeous day for this time of year and I am so so so thankful for that, but if you have a choice, pick a warmer month.
It also helps that people are more into garage-sailing mode in the warmer months and you may get more traffic.

Third: ADVERTISE

Doing the first round of posters. (This was just a small arrow pointing down our street.)

This is key (as I found out). Here's what I did:
a) I posted an ad on Kijiji for free. I got over 20 email responses and over 300 hits on my two ads. On the recommendation of my friend Jen, I posted an ad in the "garage sale" category, but I also posted an ad in the "baby" category - guess which one got more hits? Yup. The "baby" category.
b) I/we postered. I give full credit to Jen and Shereen on this one. Shereen and I postered 4 main intersections on the main road that we live near and then later on Friday night Jen & Shereen went crazy with the posters in our subdivision which I credit to the huge amounts of traffic we got for an early April garage sale! We did 2 types of posters; one had our address, time and that it was a garage sale with an arrow and the other type were just 2 pieces of paper, one that said "GARAGE" and one that said "SALE" and they filled the entire piece of paper. Jen & Shereen put these up with arrows all around our subdivision and they looked awesome! Simple, but they did the trick (although now I have to go and tear them all down!).
c) As well as Kijiji, I posted on Facebook and emailed people to let them know that we were having our garage sale. We had a whole bunch of friends show up and it was fun to see who came out.

Fourth: HOLD OUT

There is a trick to holding out your price to those seasoned garage sailors that come early and haggle with you without losing the sale. Here's one thing I learned: Don't bring your price down for early birds. If someone is willing to come early to get the good stuff, then they should be willing to pay full price - especially for a good item.
For instance, I decided we would sell our djembe drum. We don't really use it and we'll be in Africa if we do want to purchase another. I put it at $10 which I knew was an excellent price. Well sure enough, a man and his wife showed up and started picking up items and "shopping" through all our stuff at 7:40am while we were still setting up. I decided to let them but when he came up to me with the djembe and said he'd give me $5 for it, I told him he'd have to wait as the sale hadn't actually started yet. Well a few minutes later he came up to me again and said he'd give me $5. I was so distracted with getting things set up and organizing things that I just wanted to get rid of him and so I took the $5.
Only minutes after 8am, our neighbours from across the street came over and asked about the djembe and I told them it had already been sold and that's when I realized my mistake. It was a good item and I could have totally gotten full price for it, had I held fast to my original price.
In the grand scheme of things, $5 doesn't matter too much, but it was the principle that really stuck with me and I definitely learned a lesson of holding fast to your price - especially early in the morning.
In the last hour we started telling people that everything was now 50% off the marked price.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's final tips, some praises for my amazing team of ladies who helped and the final count of how much we made.

On getting there (and back)

We went {read: DROVE} to Quebec last week for our final week of vacation.

That's about a 9-10 hr drive.

{It's at this moment I am realizing the beauty and convenience of diapers.}

Things I learned {or have learned over the past 3 years of traveling with kids}:

Leaving early is usually a good thing. {So is Gravol, for that matter.}

Maybe your kids will sleep, maybe they won't. But hopefully they'll be groggy and QUIET.

and so darned cute!

There's absolutely nothing wrong with wearing your pajamas {or having your kids wear theirs, for that matter} while on a road trip.

Roadtripping is fun {except on the way back when everyone is slowly going crazy - 1,2,3,4,5,6, split! - Sharon, Lois and Bram, anyone?} and allows you to take in the sights and make some fun stops you might not have if you had flown or taken the train.

And when all else fails, remember to bring some form of entertainment. In my Dad's days he said it was new comic books dolled out by his Mom and Dad. Today, it's this:

More Quebec thoughts and pictures to come!