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I love yard sales! I became hooked on them when we were first married and I wanted to opened up a licensed family daycare in our home on a tiny budget. That was almost 20 years ago, and I have not missed a yard sale season yet. I love shopping them and hosting my own.
I have already shared my best tips for both yard sale shopping and yard sale selling on various posts both on Snail Pace Transformations as well as other blogs. Today I am putting them all together in once place so that you can learn everything you need to know to have your best yard sale season yet.
Shopping Yard Sales
1. 4 Ways To Prepare For A Successful Yard Sale Season
Found over at Living Well Spending Less this is a guest post I wrote that will make sure you don’t waste your money on yard sale finds you didn’t really need but instead truly save money by shopping with a well prepared plan.
2. Successful Yard Sale Shopping
One of my longest posts to date Successful Yard Sale Shopping is a complete listing of all the yard sale shopping tips I have learned in my almost 20 years of yard sale shopping. Learn how to grab your items for less, and make a plan that will waste less gas and less time.
3. How To Teach Children To Be Effective Yard Sale Shoppers
A guest post I wrote for Money Saving Mom where I share what I learned the first season I brought my daughter along yard sale shopping with me.
Hosting Your Own Yard Sale
1. 10 Tips For Your Most Successful Yard Sale Yet
I am super organized when I throw a yard sale, to the point that I often receive compliments from shoppers that my sale is the most organized they have ever shopped. Being organized is just one tip out of ten that have seen my yard sales total up to $600 in one 4 hour day with only a small handful of large ticket items.
2. How To Prepare Your Items For Sale So That You Get Top Dollar
There are certain steps that I follow to prepare my items for sale that help me receive top dollar for them.
3. 30 Items To Toss In Your Yard Sale Pile TODAY! Use this list to make sure you grab every possible item out of your home so that you can maximize your yard sale earnings and minimize your household clutter!
How To Make Your Yard Sale Habit Pay For Itself
For about 2 seasons in a row I went out every weekend to yard sales looking not just for what my family needed but also for items to resell. This was how my family paid for my children’s activities, like swimming lessons, and soccer. I don’t do this as often as I use to but I still do pick up the occasional item that I know for certain I could sell for more than I bought it for with little effort, doing so helps pay for the gas that I used to go to surrounding community wide yard sales as well as pay for my purchases at the sales.
I find the best items to grab are name brand in fashion maternity clothes (Old Navy brand sell well), full book sets which are still currently on the Best Sellers List, homeschooling curriculum, and expandable toy sets like Lego, or wooden train sets.
Where do I resell these items? Ebay.
For other avenues to sell your yard sale finds you might want to check out my Selling Saturdays series, where I share all the ways I know of selling what you already own and no longer need.
Word of caution, never buy something for resale that you are not 100% certain you could at the very least resale at your own garage sale for the same price you bought it for, that way you won’t ever be out money, just time.
For a list of 52 different websites, apps, and stores our thrifty family uses to help us keep our expenses low, click here to visit our Thrifty Tools Resource Page.
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Great tips! Thanks for sharing 🙂
I’ve only hosted a few garage sales over the years. My husband hates hosting them so I only do one if I’m doing one with my parents. But I do love shopping at them.
Our neighborhood does two yard sales each year. I’ll be using your tips to help us out with our September sale! 🙂
A yard sale is on my to do list. I’ve never held one before and I had no idea you could make that much from one yard sale! It gives me some motivation to de-cluttter my home and turn the clutter into some cash! Thanks for the tips and tricks!