Garage Sale Post-Mortem

Well, it’s done. The garage sale at my mother’s house that my sister and I were assigned to help with [ http://savemethecall.blogspot.com/2010/04/garage-sale.html]  is in the books. And here are a few words of advice for others considering such an event:

• When looking for garage sale assistance, consider someone more capable than me. A five-year-old, for example. Within the first 30 minutes of garage sale prep, I smashed a coffee pot canister, lost the key hanging out of a [locked] filing cabinet and threw away what looked NOT like the critical bracket to the giant awning, but just a piece of plastic. My garage sale contributions were upside down for the remainder of the event.
• The last week of July, also known as heat stroke apogee, is the BEST time to have a garage sale. Deadens the haggling senses.
• As my sister told us, “When you put the ad in the paper, make sure and reference ‘tools’”. McC: But we don’t have any tools. Sis: So what. Including “tools” really packs them in and we’ll just tell them all the tools were sold to the early birds.
• Also in the ad, make sure you put “absolutely no early birds”
• Keep in mind there’s a fine line [a 50¢ sticker, to be exact] between junk and merchandise.
• Do not let the owner of the junk merchandise supervise what gets added to the “sell” (vs. “keep”) stack. Exceptions were granted for too valuable, too new and too old. Why don’t we just call this a used book sale?
• Make sure the proceeds from the garage sale will cover the workers’ wine bill for the week day.

Finally….seriously consider outsourcing.  In my most significant contribution, I convinced my mother that the Goodwill is a “garage sale aggregator”. We may not have earned the $75 we had planned on, but we saved ourselves the knee-slapping good time that accompanies heat stroke. And no early birds.