Simplify: How to Have the Easiest Garage Sale Ever

Simplify: How to Have the Easiest Garage Sale Ever

JORDAN HARRELL

I recently started doing the grand summer-towinter clothes transition in my kids’ closets. We are fortunate to have older cousins and a couple of neighbors who pass things down to us, but because it’s free, I always feel like I have to take it all. I mean, who turns down free clothes? So during my sorting of all the things, I began to realize just how much we’d accumulated in the previous three seasons, not to mention the things they’d outgrown.

That week also happened to coincide with our yearly dental appointments. As Chandler Bing would say: “Could the dentist BE any more expensive?” Clearly, we needed to come up with some extra cash.

It seemed to be the perfect time for a garage sale. I was pretty sure we wouldn’t have much to put in, as we’d just moved here a little over a year ago and had a garage sale before we moved. “We got rid of EVERYTHING at that sale. Surely, we won’t have anything left to sell.” Wrong. Even if I don’t shop much, grandmas do. One walk through the house left me with three boxes full of stuff that hadn’t been touched in months.

I know, I know. The thought of a garage sale is daunting. It feels like a huge undertaking, and when we did ours last year, my husband really drug his heels. “I don’t want to price stuff.” “It seems like too much work.” “Let’s just take it all to Goodwill.”

But we needed the extra cash to offset the cost of moving, and we really didn’t want to pack more than was absolutely necessary, so we set out to have the easiest garage sale ever. This is what we did then, and this is what we’re doing again this year.

Fill boxes in the garage for a couple of weeks.

You don’t have to do this huge cleaning out. We just pulled out a few of our biggest boxes and set them to the side in the garage. For a few weeks, if we saw something we didn’t love, we would just throw it in there. I would take my time going through a closet here, a bookshelf there. A few things that seem to really accumulate are toys, books (especially children’s books), and décor. It’s also great motivation for your kids to clean up their messes, because they know if it’s out too long, Mom’s gonna throw it in The Pile.

Don't price anything.

If you want, you can price the big stuff, like furniture. But don’t go through all the knick knacks and take an entire evening sticking price stickers on every little thing. You can easily make $1, $2, and $5 tables, or you can just let people ask, “How much for this?,” which is what we did. The only prices we displayed were for clothing, which we hung on the bottom of the garage door with a big sign that said, “All clothes 50 cents each.”

Announce the sale on buy, sell, trade pages.

Most areas will have a Facebook group where you can post pictures of what you’ll be selling a night or two before the sale. Craigslist is also a great place to advertise. Write a description of all the stuff that’s going to be out and include a time and your address. Be aware that you will probably get messages from people asking you to hold items. This is totally up to you, but it might be a pain to keep up with your messages the day of the sale wondering if they’re actually going to show up.

Let people fill up a $5 bag.

When the shoppers are starting to thin out and your “give a craps” are really starting to run out, bring out some paper bags and let people fill an entire bag for $5. This gets rid of all those little things that you really don’t want to have to take back into your house but also really don’t want to have to haul to a thrift shop.

Facebook is great for selling one or two things at a time, but if you need to do a big clean out, don’t get anxiety about doing a garage sale.

It’s actually pretty fun: you meet interesting people, have great conversations, get to know your neighbors, and make a few bucks.

Do NOT bring it back into your home!

You made the decision to let it go. Don’t change your mind if it doesn’t sell. As soon as the sale is over, just load everything into the back of a vehicle and take it somewhere, anywhere but the inside of your home.

Garage sales are not nearly as complicated as some people make them, or perhaps what you expect.

JORDAN HARRELL Jordan Harrell lives in Sealy, Texas with her husband and three young children. She is the founder of Friday Night Wives, a thriving community for coaches' wives, and a frequent contributor at Her View from Home. You can find Jordan at JordanHarrell.com.