I’m a sucker for yard sales. Saturday mornings, I’ll prowl the suburbs, looking for hand-lettered signs next to the curb.
I got hooked a few summers ago when I went out to find a set of kitchen chairs. I found a kitchen table and four chairs for $150 at a neighbor’s moving sale — and an RCA receiver with 5.1 surround sound for $20, and a ’90s edition of Trivial Pursuit for $5.
Over the years, I’ve bought an antique typewriter for $1 (the kids had never seen one), a 6-disc set of classic soul music from the ’60s and ’70s (in a case shaped like a box of 8-track tapes!) for $5 and a toy store’s worth of Fisher-Price Little People playsets for Thing 2 for pennies on the dollar.
After my first big score, I went out every Saturday morning the rest of the summer, trying to recapture that first high, but that proved impossible, which is the first rule of garage sales:
1. Once you score big, it’s all downhill.
Sometimes, you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for, or you’ll find a deal that’s too good to pass up, but these bargains are rare. If you’re lucky and stumble across one, savor it, brag about it (although most people will think you’re weird for getting excited about buying someone else’s junk), but don’t expect to repeat it.
Likewise:
2. The first yard sales of the season are usually the best.
I lucked out last Saturday when I found a 1940s Philco radio at a garage sale for $50 (it doesn’t play, but I collect antique radios, because I’m a geek), and I found a Pioneer receiver with 7.1 surround sound for $20 (a nice upgrade for that RCA receiver I got a few years ago), but I know that’s probably it for me this season.
I have a theory: I think the people who have garage sales in the spring are people who’ve been sorting and stockpiling junk all winter and maybe since fall. I think they looked at their stuff and threw out the worst of it and saved the best for the garage sale, and as soon as the weather was nice, they’re getting rid of it.
I think the people who have yard sales in the middle of summer generally are people who looked around and said, “We ought to get rid of some of this stuff,” and they’re just selling everything. There’s no attempt to curate their collection, to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Some more rules:
3. Go early. We had a yard sale a couple of years ago. It started at 8. People started coming at 7. Shopping at yard sales is a competitive sport for some people. In our case, the early bird got the busted antique clock for $50.
4. If they’re selling Christmas ornaments, pass. I don’t know why, but people who sell Christmas ornaments seem to have a lot of tacky home furnishings from the ’70s and ’80s — lots of rounded brass picture frames and pastel home furnishings that bypass kitsch and go straight to ugly.
5. If the yard sale is more than 3 blocks from the main thoroughfare, skip it. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a yard sale that’s 5 blocks and three turns into a subdivision, but the longer you drive, the more you’ll think, “This is taking forever! It had better be worth it.” It probably won’t be worth it. It’ll be old baby clothes and imitation-leather purses and VHS tapes, same as most yard sales, and you’ll just be disappointed.
6. Bargain, but don’t haggle. Don’t haggle the way you would for a used car, but it’s OK to bargain a little, and it’s kind of fun. The best approach is find a couple of things want and offer a flat price. For example, “Would you take $5 for this orbital sander and the Yahtzee?”
7. Understand that, sometimes, you really are buying someone else’s junk. Sometimes, you’ll get a great deal, and sometimes, you’ll have wasted your money. I bought an old PC at a yard sale last summer for $15. I thought I could fix it, but it really was toast. Even with a new hard drive, it wouldn’t boot up. The only part of the machine I ended up using was the power cord, and that’s OK.
It isn’t always whether you won or lost; it’s that you played the game.
IMAGES: Garage Sale in Monroe by John Beagle and Garage Sale (sign) by besighyawn, via Flickr.
I haven’t been to a garage sale in years, but I used to hit them all the time. You’re right about the best ones being early in the season!
I scored a 1940s Philco radio at a garage sale when I was a teenager. It worked! I used it for years. It had this cool little cover over the dial that worked kind of like a rolltop desk.
This Philco was in pieces. The part with the tubes (kids, ask your grandparents) had been taken out and was just lying in side the cabinet, and I haven’t had a chance to try it. I have a few other old radios, and they don’t even power up. I need to learn how to repair these things.
My SIL & BIL are avid yard salers. They have one probably about 3 or 4 times a year, and they also travel around to a bunch of them every weekend. They have gotten some really great deals of stuff. They have a good eye, and the BIL is very handy, so he knows he can fix stuff that otherwise might be tossed because of something broken. He scored 2 really nice car seats for their grandkids for like $5. One is easily worth $250 new. I am envious of their finds, but not enough to get up at the crack of dawn on the weekends and sort through other people’s junk to find that one rare deal.
The table and chairs I got, the chairs were broken and wobbly, but I fixed them, and they’re rock solid now. It’s a good feeling, fixing things.
I remember my dad used to occasionally wake us up early to go yard saling. I blame him for me not being able to sleep past 7:30 on weekends,
Don’t blame your dad. That’s just something that happens when you get old … er. Older. I’m not saying you’re old.
I used to love going to yard sales, but I haven’t done it in years and years. I’m trying to get rid of some of my…um, stuff…so I’ll be having a yard sale soon. Okay, soonish. I have a lot of good stuff, but I take so long to organize, that I’m just not ready for it now.
I had some stuff put away for a yard sale, but SOMEONE thought it was garbage and threw it out. I’m not naming names.
You really should have started a whole new blog about this one man. Call it “Crap for Sale”, or “Come and Get My Crap for Your Cash”.
That would be a good blog: “I Got This for a Buck.”
Stunned. I am stunned you came up with that phrase.
That is precisely what a friend and I would say to each other in display of some really useless material the good old days before we had any money, just out of college.
“I got this for like, a buck.”
So for $16 you got a power cord and an antique typewriter. Score!
Will you give me a heads up when you schedule a yard sale? Sounds like there will be groovy finds.
Those were different yard sales, but, yeah, basically. I wasted the money on the computer, but I think the typewriter was worth more than a buck, so it evens out.
I’ve never bought into the idea of buying somebody else’s junk just for a bargain, though I’m probably in the minority. I have, however, tried to unload my junk on the unsuspecting public, and it’s amazing the people you meet and the things that sell! Perhaps you should write a blog on that, hmm?
I don’t buy random junk. I hold out for the good stuff, except, sometimes, for toys, if Thing 2 is with me. I’ll buy crappy old toys, but I consider that hush money. Kid knows how to cause a scene.
One thing I won’t put in a garage sale… my pre-fall of Communism edition of Trivial Pursuit!
Good point! That’s such a great artifact!
Its funny you mention yard sales, because me and my dog go yard saling on Saturday mornings. Great exercise for him and me. And sometimes I find a good deal. Grabbed a life jacket for $2. But yard sales are a year round thing here in FL.
Hey, stranger! Yard sales are like gambling. You win just often enough to keep playing.