Sold!

So, the big yard sale is finally over and done. Didn't sell any of the big ticket items, like that 5 cubic foot freezer that's been cluttering up my garage for four years ever since I bought a full-size upright. But I did get lots of customers and sold a lot of small stuff – $156.25 worth, to be exact. Taking out the $11.11 I spent on the newspaper ad, and I cleared $145, which is a nice piece of change in return for clearing out a bit of space.

I was so busy that I didn't even have a chance to snap a picture of the piles of junk plethora of marvelous bargains until a couple of hours into the sale, though as you can see there was still plenty left at that point:


The 145 bucks notwithstanding, I have to say it's probably the last yard sale I will hold; it's a heckuva lot of work. I'm going to try to sell some of the "big" stuff on Craigslist, and the small-but-good stuff on eBay; and the housewares are going to one of the thrift stores along with the clothes I cleaned out of my closet (but didn't attempt to sell). I am determined to finally get my car back in the garage this winter (it sat out for the last two), and that means I can't continue to store junk from year to year for a potential yard sale. Besides, a lot of this stuff has sat here through two or three yard sales without selling, and I think it's trying to tell me something.

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We are sale-ing, we are sale-ing...

Well, I managed to keep up a post a day for quite a while, before missing Tuesday and Thursday this week. My excuse, such as it is, is the yard sale I've been planning for several weeks. Scouring through boxes and closets and bookshe;ves, I've dredged up quite a supply of stuff for this sale, and stashed it in the garage; most of what you see on the left side of the photo, and in the foreground, is sale fodder.


It's been at least two or three years since I held a yard sale, and I had forgotten just how much work it is. I actually burned a vacation day from work today to finish getting ready. Not that I have everything priced, not by a long shot. But all the big stuff is priced, so that's ready to go out on the driveway first thing in the morning. I'll have to handle the smaller stuff on the fly. Anyway, I'm as ready as I'm ever gonna be.

By happy coincidence, the homeowners association for my subdivision is sponsoring a community yard sale tomorrow, which, with any luck, will drive more traffic through the neighborhood. (I didn't plan it that way – I didn't know they were having a fall community sale until last weekend. They usually have one only in the spring.) I still took out my own very modest 3-line ad in the local paper, and put a much more extensive ad on Craigslist. Tomorrow is supposed to be partly cloudy with a high of 73, which is just about perfect in my book.

Wish me luck in clearing out a bunch of junk, and hopefully getting a bit of cash in return. And then maybe I can get back to my regular blogging. :-)

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