My favorite time of year is coming next weekend, nope not fall or Chanukah, but neighborhood garage sale time! It comes twice a year, one in the spring and one in the fall. We have have had 3 so far and make an average of about $1,000 each time. Our neighbors across the street walk over and say "holy sh*t, where exactly does all that stuff come from?" Answer: I have no idea! It's a ton of clothes and toys and when I actually bought nice clothes for myself people would line up and fight over my stuff. Last year I set up a dressing room so people can try on my clothes. HA! It was so fun. I love busting out a fanny pack filled with change and haggle the customers. Albert never allowed me to squirrel away "my Miller trinkets and trash" but every so often an old box of koozies or last years NASCAR hats would wind up in the garage. Since it's illegal to sell them we would get a bull horn and run a red light special " FOR 10 MINUTES ONLY, BUY SOMETHING AND GET A FREE HAT!" Now, that's how you get the people going.
The girls set up a little lemonade stand and I get to teach them about profit/loss and ROI.......
It goes like this: figure out how many customers you anticipate per hour X the # of hours you plan on keeping the lemonade stand open. Then make a list of your supplies and the cost, they also want to sell bottle waters. Now there's the moneymaker. From there you can figure out how much lemonade powder and cups you need. You can also factor in how much you think your time is worth. Now set a price per cup. Do you have any money for the supplies? No. Okay, I will lend it to you and you can pay be back from the profits. I won't charge interest since you will only borrow the $$ for about 2 days. A seven year old and three year old completely understand what I'm talking about.
They charge .50 cents a cup and that gets you lemonade and a free sample bag of Pirate's Booty compliments of Aunt Steph. It's also good to run a promotional item at your sales. So typically people give them $1 and say they're cute and move on. At the end of the day they make about $50 and after paying me back my $6 for supplies they need to split the rest. About an hour after we close up our garage sale we MUST hit the toy store because $22 in their "poggy bank" means nothing. We head to the store and without fail they want something that cost more than $22, and we give in because they worked so hard and we're tired and I have a wad of ones in my purse that for some reason when you spend ones it doesn't feel like you're spending money. It usually cost me another $20 bucks!
That's the last time I invest in a franchised lemonade stand! Business Fail.
Albert and I play this little game, we each put something totally random out and whoever sells their item first wins King/Queen of the garage sale. Last year he found a questionable comforter from his college days that probably hadn't been washed since then and an old pillow (you can see it in the top left picture at the bottom of the driveway). My item was this awful suede coat with some lamb fur lined on the inside. He thought the coat was still cool because he bought it at Wilson's leather............15 years ago We had put it out at the last 2 garage sales and it DIDN'T SELL and each time he toted it back in his closet. So this past spring sale I made that my feature item. The rules are you have to stick to your price and promote it until it sells. I added a tie to it (as a free giveaway with purchase), don't mess with a marketer and hung it separately with a special sign. I was sure to win! About 10 minutes into the garage sale an older woman walks up and no kidding, asks how much the comforter and pillow are??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! Have you not seen the weird white stains on it??? Well Albert wore the crown, she paid $6 for the pillow and comforter. The suede lamb coat sold at the end when we were slashing prices.
So next Saturday is the big fall neighborhood garage sale and since we are moving we are cleaning out every single nook and selling what we don't need or anything that won't fit in the "new decor". We haven't picked our "featured item" yet but I plan on winning this year.
I love garbage sale day!
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