If you need to have a yard sale to clean out, simplify, organized and recycle your stuff, read last week’s post about exactly that.
Once you have had a yard sale and recycled of all you did not want to repair or refurbish, go yard sale-ing for things you chose to replace. There are a few guidelines, because being spontaneous could fill your house with a bunch of stuff you don’t need or doesn’t work for you and your space. By living simply, we want to get away from collecting STUFF!
> Make a list of what you need. Know what you need. Take measurements of furniture you’re replacing. Know what size clothes you want.
> Scour the newspaper ads. Mark off the ones that have what’s on your list. If you need baby clothes, look for that. If you need furniture, look for ‘Moving, must sell everything’. Advertisers will usually list the highest quality things first along with things they most want to sell.
If an ad has a phone number, call it if something in the ad interests you. You can surely buy it before the sale! Antique dealers and second-hand store owners do this all the time. That’s why you will frequently find advertised items gone when you get to a sale early.
More upscale neighborhoods will have better quality items. Also, the fancier the area, the quicker people are likely to get rid of their things. The wealthy are excellent consumers, sadly, so their sales are full of practically-new items. Their older things have been well maintained, too.
> Draw a map. My friend, Jeannie, taught me this. She would map out where she wanted to go, so she wasn’t mindlessly driving around. She usually ended up close to the farmer’s market. Great idea! (photo flickr Robert Couse-Baker)
> Make a budget. Again, you do not want to be buying things you don’t really need and can’t really afford. Keep the impulse shopping to a bare minimum!
> Head out early in the morning. Have your list and small change. Remember how the first ten people showed up at your yard sale with $20 bills? Annoying, right? No one likes to change a $20 bill for a 50 cent coffee cup, and if you have small change, you can dicker on the price. Small change also makes for faster shopping.
> Do not over-shop! Just because items are cheap does not give you license to buy a lot. AGAIN! You don’t want to come home with things you don’t need and that you will have to clean out next year!
> Check your purchases carefully before you pay. A yard sale is not a brick and mortar store where you can return something with a receipt. Yard sale purchases are final.
> Don’t expect to cross everything off your list in one day. Be discriminating. In good weather, people are constantly cleaning and having yard sales, just like you did. There will be opportunities to shop all summer.
> Sometimes an item at a yard sale is more expensive than buying it at a store. Know what you can expect to pay new, and either buy it new in the name of frugality or buy it at a yard sale in the name of recycling.
Enjoy your purchases, and feel good knowing you have reduced your carbon footprint by selling your old things and buying someone else’s. It is so true that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.
