POLL: Garage Sales

[MotionMan]

Topic of discussion recently: My wife and her cousin hate putting on garage sales. The cousin's wife, me and my daughter enjoy putting them on. I enjoy meeting new people and having them carry away my junk while paying me for the privilege (Think Tom Sawyer's fence). I even encourage some shoplifting of smaller items

I enjoy going to garage sales (but I rarely ever get to) but my wife hates them. I always find someone practically giving away some pretty good computer-related hardware.

Where do you fall, and, if you know, why?

MotionMan

 

[El Guaraguao]

Love em. When I was a kid, my mom brought home a giant box slap full with atari games, couple of controllers and the console itself. for $20.

I still dream of the day some old lady is selling a neo geo home console with tons of games for $20.


BTW, wtf is "feh"?

 

[PottedMeat]

They're great. I picked up a Dell P4 2GHz RDRAM + 15"LCD for $1.00 - the LCD had a bad capacitor and the computer had a lot of crapware slowing it down - both fixed. Got a acetylene + o2 bottle for $5.00 - saved me ~$100 when getting a oxyfuel welding rig.

 

[MotionMan]

Originally posted by: mofoe2001
Love em. When I was a kid, my mom brought home a giant box slap full with atari games, couple of controllers and the console itself. for $20.

I still dream of the day some old lady is selling a neo geo home console with tons of games for $20.


BTW, wtf is "feh"?

Yiddish (See Definition No. 1 and the last part of No. 2).

MotionMan

 

[TwiceOver]

I don't like hosting but don't mind looking.

Picked up an HP Laserjet 4M (yeah old) network laser with two unopened toners for $10. That was 2 years ago and the thing is running great!

 

[TestedAcorn]

Depends on if there is good shit for cheap.

 

[fatpat268]

I hate them... at least around here where I live.

It's all baby stuff... cribs, clothes, leftover unused diapers, toys, etc. And if there is electronics, it's usually something ancient or it's broken. So, I tried the whole garage sale thing, and while I'm probably missing out, it's too much effort to find a garage sale that's not all baby junk.

 

[BoomerD]

We had a garage sale/estate sale about a month ago...ARRRRGGGGHHHH! I HATE having garage sales...too much work, too dammed many people I don't know in my yard, too many Mexicans offering you $1.00 for something you have priced at $50. We DID make about $2000 however...

next up, "Christmas in July." My wife wants to sell off most of her collection of Christmas collectibilia, everything from out 7-1/2' pre-lit tree that we rarely use anymore, to antique Christmas ornaments.
For more than 20 of our 33 years together, she was known as "Mrs. Christmas" because she decorated EVERYTHING...Nowadays, with the kids grown and gone, and we rarely see the grandkids during the holidays, she's lost her Christmas spirit, and wants to sell almost everything. She will keep stuff that is family memorabilia and heirloom Christmas stuff, but she says the rest has got to go.
(in addition to much of my garage being full of Christmas junk, we have a storage shed that we pay $50/month for that is FULL of Christmas stuff...)

Still, as much as I'd like to see this stuff gone, I don't look forward to all the hassle again.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: BoomerD
We had a garage sale/estate sale about a month ago...ARRRRGGGGHHHH! I HATE having garage sales...too much work, too dammed many people I don't know in my yard, too many Mexicans offering you $1.00 for something you have priced at $50. We DID make about $2000 however...

next up, "Christmas in July." My wife wants to sell off most of her collection of Christmas collectibilia, everything from out 7-1/2' pre-lit tree that we rarely use anymore, to antique Christmas ornaments.
For more than 20 of our 33 years together, she was known as "Mrs. Christmas" because she decorated EVERYTHING...Nowadays, with the kids grown and gone, and we rarely see the grandkids during the holidays, she's lost her Christmas spirit, and wants to sell almost everything. She will keep stuff that is family memorabilia and heirloom Christmas stuff, but she says the rest has got to go.
(in addition to much of my garage being full of Christmas junk, we have a storage shed that we pay $50/month for that is FULL of Christmas stuff...)

Still, as much as I'd like to see this stuff gone, I don't look forward to all the hassle again.

You could give it all to the kids

 

[BoomerD]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: BoomerD
We had a garage sale/estate sale about a month ago...ARRRRGGGGHHHH! I HATE having garage sales...too much work, too dammed many people I don't know in my yard, too many Mexicans offering you $1.00 for something you have priced at $50. We DID make about $2000 however...

next up, "Christmas in July." My wife wants to sell off most of her collection of Christmas collectibilia, everything from out 7-1/2' pre-lit tree that we rarely use anymore, to antique Christmas ornaments.
For more than 20 of our 33 years together, she was known as "Mrs. Christmas" because she decorated EVERYTHING...Nowadays, with the kids grown and gone, and we rarely see the grandkids during the holidays, she's lost her Christmas spirit, and wants to sell almost everything. She will keep stuff that is family memorabilia and heirloom Christmas stuff, but she says the rest has got to go.
(in addition to much of my garage being full of Christmas junk, we have a storage shed that we pay $50/month for that is FULL of Christmas stuff...)

Still, as much as I'd like to see this stuff gone, I don't look forward to all the hassle again.

You could give it all to the kids

WOW! Why didn't we think of that?


They either don't want it, or don't have any place to keep it. Neither one is in a stable relationship or living situation right now.

 

[JulesMaximus]

I love getting rid of my old junk and garage sales are great for that. Think about it, all you have to do is put some signs out and hundreds of people come by and offer you money for your shit. I've made a few hundred dollars everytime I've had a garage sale. Childrens clothes and toys are very popular items. So is furniture as long as you aren't unreasonable with your pricing.

Attending garage sales, not so much. I'll slow down and scan for something that might catch my eye but I don't make a point of scouting out garage sales or being the first one there in the AM (which is when all the good stuff is usually sold).

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: TestedAcorn
Depends on if there is good shit for cheap.

Exactly. I hate the ones where the stuff is only about 20% off the original price, but it's utterly ancient.

Wow, an old, worn lamp, for $20? Amazing! I can buy a new one at Kmart for less than that.


I like the sort where if I'm buying one thing, they'll say, "Oh hey, here, you'll probably need this too, just take it, it's wasting space here."


I've never been a part of organizing one. Where I grew up, there wasn't nearly enough traffic or population to make a yard sale worthwhile. Maybe 100 cars would a day would pass by the house, sort of - 50 in the morning, and the same ones again in the evening.
There were larger community yard sales done well over 10 years ago, but the people organizing them just stopped doing it at some point.

 

[waggy]

i love going to garage sales. you can find some of the best stuff for cheap.

people have no idea what to price stuff. its either far to high or very cheap.

 

[imported_Imp]

Hate and hate. Daddy is a collector of garbage (literally) so I'm very put off by second hand stuff...

 

[iamwiz82]

We had one. Never again....

I'd rather just donate it to the local salvation army.

 

[Perknose]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82

Originally posted by: BoomerD
We had one. Never again....

I'd rather just donate it to the local salvation army.

...too much work, too dammed many people I don't know in my yard...

:laugh:

 

[rh71]

Those people who bought your stuff... will make double on ebay.

 

[lokiju]

They're a pain in the ass to do but it's nice to clear out the crap and make some money back though.

 

[sonoma1993]

there awesome, I got a freee new entertainment cabinet.

 

[Squisher]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
We had one. Never again....

I'd rather just donate it to the local salvation army.

:thumbsup:

 

[BoomerD]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
We had one. Never again....

I'd rather just donate it to the local salvation army.

We ended up donating a HUGE pile of stuff to Sally's, about 1/4 truck full!

 

[Captante]

(1) I hate running one ... rather toss my stuff curbside & let the garbage-man take it.

(2) Every once in awhile I'll go to one, but I don't go out of my way.

 

[IronWing]

The only time we held one, we just stuck stuff on the driveway and let people make low offers. No stress, very little work, very little profit, but the junk was gone.

I used to like to go to garage sales but was disappointed when all they had was baby crap. Now I have a sufficient amount of stuff in my life and don't see a point in going to garage sales anymore. Getting rid of stuff is more satisfying than accumulating it.

 

[MotionMan]

Originally posted by: ironwing
I used to like to go to garage sales but was disappointed when all they had was baby crap. Now I have a sufficient amount of stuff in my life and don't see a point in going to garage sales anymore. Getting rid of stuff is more satisfying than accumulating it.

When I get the chance, I do garage sale drive-bys - I check things out from the car before I even park. If I see something interesting, then I take a closer look.

MotionMan

 

[nanette1985]

Originally posted by: rh71
Those people who bought your stuff... will make double on ebay.

Not like the old days. Now, a lot of folks will check ebay first before selling their stuff. (Which is what I recommend for the poster selling his Christmas collection)

Still, I have a couple of categories that I know I can resell.