Our Country Garage Sale Plan Foiled
After sharing my tips on how to have a successful country garage sale I now have to admit defeat. We held our sale this weekend and it was a dismal failure -- as in the worst garage sale I have ever held.
We had a couple of big problems. The first being advertising. We seem to get the best response with a very detailed Craig's List ad that includes some pictures. Just as I was getting ready to put the ad up my computer decided to die. (I'm waiting on the IT people to let me know if it can be resurrected.) Our little country library has very limited hours and they were closed on our sales days, so the ad was a no go.
Secondly, we had rain, rain and more rain; oh and throw in a whole bunch of heat and make-up-slides right-of-your-face-as-you-are-putting-it-on-humidity. This was probably our biggest hurdle. People just aren't in the mood to garage sale in the rain. No matter how much planning you do, there's not much to a sale if you don't have customers!
After a couple of days of rain and lackluster sales, we finally decided to call it quits. I was never so happy to end a sale. As soon as George suggested we pack up everything and donate it, my energy renewed and I quickly packed every part of my car by the driver's seat with our castoffs and drove to the closest Good Will.
An Interesting Phenomenon
As excited as I was to be packing up our dismal failure of a garage sale and getting all that stuff our of our house I was torn between wanting to donate the stuff and cram it all back into our house. With each item, I had a little flash of "waaaaiiiit maybe I can use that!". So I kept reminding myself the reason we had the sale in the first place was to get rid of the stuff and I just kept loading the car up. Why is it so hard to part with our things?
Success is a Matter of Thinking
As disappointed as we were we decided to consider the sale a success. After all, even though we only made $20, we did get rid of a whole car full of stuff, which was the whole point of the sale. Sure it would've been nicer to rake in $300 or so for our old stuff, but I'm not in the mood to give up a nice sunny weekend for another sale and a spot to store the stuff until then. We also got rid of a large dresser and hutch that was way too big for our bedroom. In my mind that made the whole weekend worth it. Every time I walk in the bedroom I'm thrilled by how large and open it feels.
I have the hardest time letting go of "stuff", too. I've been donating everything that we get rid of other than bigger items that we sell on Craigslist. Hope you have more success next time. ;)
Trixie, I so meant to come back and thank you for your wonderful advice. Several things have happened lately that have made that not possible, but I am back on today and wanted to say thank you so much! SUCH good advice. I'm so sorry yours didn't go great, but I heartily am motivated by your sharing how good it felt to donate. I struggle with the exact same thing. I think that, for those of us (such as myself) who have experienced not having a lot, it can be very hard to let go of things b/c we have known harder times. So i think that fear creeps in to let go of stuff. BUT, it feels so good to not listen to it and get rid of it. You've motivated me greatly! Thanks for your wonderful posts.
Grace
The same thing happens to me when getting rid of stuff-that last minute-maybe i can use it----thing. Ugh!
But ALWAYS THINK TO WHEN i GIVE THE THINGS TO sALVATION ARMY PERHAPS i am helping others to so that helps.
Still love you site-thanks
Jennifer in Canada
Just found your blog. I'm a fellow Michigander and I think the failed garage sale is part of the reality of a downturned economy especially here. We too had our worst garage sale last summer. Our items were nice, clean, attractively arranged and decently priced. But the profit was not so good! We quit after one day. Try, try again! Blessings!
Hi Lori,
I've wondered the same thing. We sell a lot of stuff on Craig's List and am always surprised at how much longer it takes to sell something -- it seems like the whole of our state is selling off their possessions for some extra $ due to the hard times.
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