If you are moving or cleaning the clutter out of your home, you should consider organizing a garage sale. We talked about some of the benefits of garage sales in our previous blog as well as the economical and environmental benefits of a garage or yard sale. You can benefit from your hard work even more by earning some extra cash when you clean up your house and all while having some fun. This is what we encourage all environmental enthusiasts to do. Clean up your house, earn some cash, and together we can all make this planet a bit cleaner.
Here are some tips on organizing a garage sale
1. Gather your items
To select which items you can sell, you will have to thoroughly go through your house. Start with your attic. Go to every room and look through boxes, search items in your closet, drawers, and under your bed. Then go through your garage and basement to find anything that you don’t use anymore. If you have items that you can rebuild and reuse, separate them. Also separate the items that can be recycled such as glass bottles, metal containers, old newspapers, old clothes, old furniture, electronics, wires, appliances, and anything else that is recyclable. A good rule of thumb is that if you haven’t used your items for the past year, you are never going to use them. Instead, let someone else that would use them make good use of it.
2. Get neighbors involved
You will be able to get more attention from buyers if you can get your whole neighborhood involved in the yard sale. A street sale can really grab people’s attention. You can easily have a festive environment in the neighborhood if your neighbors are also putting up signs for garage or yard sales. You can get a whole lot achieved when the whole neighborhood pitches in. Often block sales turn into block parties.
3. Advertise
You can get the word out about your garage sale without spending a single penny on advertising. There are ways to advertise for free through sites such as Craigslist and other social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Putting up paper signs the old fashioned way at bulletin boards of grocery stores or at street corners is also a good way to advertise for free.
4. Prepare your inventory list
People often make the mistake of not keeping a list of items they want to sell as well as not putting the price tags on the items ahead of time. If your items don’t have a price tag on them, then you will find yourself in an embarrassing situation at the sale when you have to come up with a price on the spot. An inventory list will save you from troubles even when the price tags are lost during the sale. Make sure to price your items competitively and sell everything at a fare price. Generally, you would charge ¼ of the price you bought the items for originally with a few exceptions for valuable items or items that are practically brand new. You could also lower the prices for items that you would otherwise just throw away, or things that you might have to pack up and bring back home when the sale is over.
5. Added attraction
You could easily make a few extra bucks by adding a snack stand or bake sale with it. The snack and drink stands are fun and added bonus to the bargain hunters. Plug in your old boom box and make it even more attractive with some tunes. It will make the yard sale more enjoyable, creating a party mood. Hold a raffle and create even greater excitement among buyers. For the raffle, select an item that has the most appeal among buyers such as something new or attractive.
You will feel great after you cleaned up the clutter in your home and after you made some cash all while having a great time with your neighbors, friends and family. A yard or garage sale has immense value in reducing global impacts—much more than what we realize. It encourages us to rebuild, reuse, and recycle stuff to save valuable landfill space and reduce carbon footprints that we would otherwise cause while transporting, dumping, and processing these items. Don’t forget to check with your city or authorities for any legal requirements or permits in advance.
Try these tips and organize a garage sale this weekend. Let us know how it went. We would love to hear from you, so please post a comment below.
Source: Balanced Life Team
