Ahhh, it's that magic time of year. :) After a mild winter here in Central IL, everyone is ready to begin the garage sale adventures for 2012.
I've seen several signs along the roadway already and went to three this morning. :D :D :D
If you've followed the garage sale adventures here through the years - you will know that I love, love, love garage sales. When our son was younger and I was a SAHM (stay at home mom), going to garage sales allowed me to save my family money - especially, on items for our son. You can't beat lightly used children's clothes and toys.
The things I look for when I hit the garage sale trail are: framed pictures, decorations for the house, furniture, unique vases, jewelry, music, books, and gently used/new clothes. I also buy inexpensive children's items and resell them in my sale.
I've gotten pickier in what I buy through the years. Even though something is "cheap" to buy - it's not a bargain if you don't NEED it, use it, or can't sell it.
One of the first rules of garage saling . . . if you are even remotely interested in an item you see, pick it up and carry it with you. If you hesitate and walk away and come back to it, it will be gone! Trust me on that one!! ;) If after carrying it around, you decide you don't want it, you can always set it back down again. I can't count how many times I've missed out on a good bargain by a nano-second of picking the item up first.
As I've mentioned before, I can go through every room in our house and name the garage sale finds. I would have never been able to afford the things we have if I bought them brand new in the store.
It bothers some people to shop at thrift stores, garage sales, tag sales, jumble sales, flea markets, or whatever name it goes by in your area. They wouldn't dream of owning something that belonged to someone else. I grew up this way, so it seems natural to me - plus, it really is the best way to recycle items and also make some money in the process.
Good luck to our bargain hunters this season. Let us know what you're looking for and what you find in your adventures. ;D
By the way, I spent a $1 today and got two Whitney Houston CD's. (A talented singer that died way too soon.)
Bucky
If I didn't shop at yard sales or thrift stores i'd never get anything.. ::)
I went to the thrift store today and got a set of wahl pro series rechargeable animal clippers for $5.. New they cost around $50.. They work great.. And it's a lot cheaper than taking my dogs to be groomed.. ;D
I went to the Thrift Store today and found a nice floor lamp for $8. It is 3-way, swivels and has a pretty pink tulip shade like those touch lamps have. I've been looking to replace the old one I have for sometime so am really happy found this one.
We got a very few garage sales going but it is still too cold here to get many out. Also gasoline prices are up there so people are more pickier on where they will go. Me it is usually on the way to someplace I have to go to or a neighborhood sale or a church rummage sale.
This past Saturday, I get up early to be one of the first in line for the annual Fine Arts garage sale at the school (which was listed on the schools calendar of events). Get to the school and the parking spaces in front of the school - which are normally taken - are sitting empty. :-\ We go inside through a side door, up to the gymnasium - the gym is dark and I peek in the windows, no sale set up there! :(
I was so bummed . . . I got up early and everything for this sale. I have no idea where the sale was held at - just now, I sent an email to the school secretary to ask her where it was held at this year.
All is not lost - onto some other sales that I knew of. Found a few goodies for the house - a 4-drawer white storage cart on wheels to use in our sons closet, a brand new box of unopened 41 pc. Rubbermaid storage containers, a Giani Bernini purse for $4 (this gal had a bunch of designer purses . . Prada, Giani Bernini, Dooney & Bourke, etc.) - I should have bought some more to resell in my sale, but I didn't want to tie up my money as I didn't have a lot with me.
My hubby decided to go with me this time garage saling (he usually doesn't bother) - I have mixed emotions on this one. He tends to dilly dally and I like to "get in and get out" and move on to the next sale. Plus, he stands right next to me and I turn around - there he is . . . "outta my way bubba - give me some space"!! ;D
Anyhow, he's decided we need to start assembling an emergency supply of items that we "might" need should we get trapped in the basement if a tornado should hit our house. With that being said, he bought two hand saws and a wooden ladder at a sale that will be put into our "supplies" in the SW corner of our basement should we need them.
It's kinda a standard practice after I've been out hitting the garage sale trail . . . show & tell. ;D "The boys" (hubby & son) like to see what bargains I've found and they are always hoping I've brought them something too. ;)
Anybody else found any good bargains lately?
Bucky
P.S. I just checked my email - the secretary at the school said they did NOT have a Fine Arts garage sale this year and apologized that someone didn't take it off the school calendar.
Ohhhh Bucky...this is your time of the year...garage sale season!
Have fun looking for all of those bargains!
Me, too, Bucky. I KNOW this is your time of year. Spring has sprung when the garage sales start. ;)
I'm not a garage sale buff, but I did visit a local vendor's market the other day. It's similar to a flea market, but not exactly.
It's a warehouse building with aisles set up, and people rent a space to put out things they want to sell. But, unlike the flea markets I've been to, the sellers are not there. Each thing is priced and you just go to the front counter and pay at the end just like a retail store. I like not having people watch me as I'm checking out their stuff!
There are lots of new items and many that are standard garage sale fare. Lots of furniture, some quite nice, baby items, clothes, household items, wool rugs, tools, even lots of new wallpaper probably donated from a store.
I did find one thing; a pretty hand-painted landscape pic just right for my dining room I'm fixing up. I showed my MIL when she came over and she commented it may really be worth something some day. I told her it was worth $8 to me yesterday! :D ;D I don't care about later.
I must be getting older . . . :-\ . . . . today is one of my favorite sales and I DIDN'T go to it!
It's funny, last night when my hubby asked if I was going to venture out in the morning to the sale, I said, "no". He said, "WHAT?? You're not the person I know - the Bucky I know would never miss this sale!! What did you do with my Bucky?" LOL
The forecast was for rain this morning and I just didn't want to walk all around a neighborhood (subdivision sale) and get cold and wet. Kinda takes the fun out of the adventure. So, I slept in!! Ahhhh, that felt good!! :D
I did stop at a few sales yesterday - and that was pushing it too - as it was really chilly and windy (25mph winds). Again, another killjoy when garage saling.
I found two tops yesterday for myself - I'm always hesitant to buy clothes for myself at sales as I never know if they'll fit. Fortunately, these two fit. ;D If they didn't, I would just put them into my next sale that I have. I found two, brand new - tags still on - monogram hand towels that I will use as a gift for my SIL in her new home, that I got for a $1 (store sticker says $16.99). I also got a book by Maria Shriver, "Ten Things I Wish I'd Known - Before I Went Out into the Real World". (Of course, this was written before all the ordeal with Arnold - so, maybe it would have read . . . . Eleven Things I Wish I'd Known!!!)
One of my goals that I'd like to do some day is cross-country garage saling. When I see the shows on the 100-mile garage sale that they have in the summer/fall it looks like that would be fun. I have gone garage saling when I'm visiting my family in Ohio, but then you have to be careful what you buy, as you have to consider how much room you have in the car to bring it back home.
Melinda - good job on the new picture! Yep, value to us in the here and now is what's important. ;)
Happy sale trails everyone! ;D
Bucky
Oh yeah!!!!!!!!!!!11
eye2dry
Woohoo . . . I got some "garage sale therapy" in today!! ;D
Tomorrow is a town-wide sale and several of the sales were also open today. Yay!
I've found some really good "finds" during this sale in years past.
As I was going to one sale today, it was in the same neighborhood as one I've found some good bargains at before. The house I've gone to before, wasn't open. :( I "thought" about going up to the door and asking if they were participating this year. But, I chickened out. LOL
I ended up going to 12 sales and here's my finds: new pair of women's winter gloves (I'm going to leave in car as a "spare"), pr. sandals, a book by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.; Susan Boyle CD, and a box of office sheet protectors. Total: $4.00 ;D
Anybody been to any good sales lately?
Bucky
Yeah for the "sales therapy" Bucky!
Will you go to the one tomorrow, too? You would be in heaven if you saw the one in our hometown in Ohio. It's running this weekend; Fri.-Sunday. Imagine a town of about 10,000 people and almost every yard has a sale. Must be like your townwide sale there.
This one is amazing because of the variety! People sell your normal stuff; clothes, tools, household things of all kinds, but also cars, boats, you name it, and I don't mean a boat like a dingy~ we're talking huge houseboats, bass boats with all the extras. ;) :D
There's one main road through town and vendors come from 5 or 6 states to sell hotdogs, icee drinks, funnel cakes, you name it. They estimate 50,000 people there all weekend. I used to put out a few things every year and give away coffee early in the morning and sell danish to go with it. Hey, gotta have a little marketing plan, right?
Hope you have fun this summer. ;D
Memorial Weekend it is garage sale mania here.
Also I have gotten some great things out by the curb first trash day after Memorial weekend.
I got a pair of old metal lawn chairs from 40's or 50's. Very heavy and ornate with the seat and back punch out in a design. It is tubular style frame.
My hubby sanded them and painted them and they are on my porch. LOVE THEM and they were free.
eye2dry
Lucy,
I love those old chairs! We had some red ones when I was a kid. And they are heavy enough not to blow away in a slight wind.
Isn't it great when you can find something like that free? My MIL used to look for things like that when they lived in a larger city; she really found some cool stuff. She called it "garbage-picking" :)
She found our daughter's bassinet that way and was almost afraid to tell me. It was beautiful; she and my FIL had given it a fresh coat of white paint, bought a new pad and lacy skirt for it. I didn't mind at all. ;)
Oh I would love to find some of those type of lawn chairs. Are they the ones that have the metal type seat and back on a tubular shape frame that goes down and under?
I can't wait this year around August I think, for that several state 127 biggest flea market sale. I am right here where it is.
I have a couple of aunts who use to make that into a vacation. They would travel in their camper, and stop along their way, all along the route of it.
Me and my husband's middle name is thrift.
susanep :)
Susanep.
Yes, they are!
I am sitting on one now on my side porch as I type this.
eye2dry
My parents had several of those metal chairs too - green. In fact, I'll be visiting Dad next weekend . . . hmmm, maybe, I can talk him into letting me have one of them to bring back to my house?! ;)
Susanep - Walmart has those kind of chairs on their website - a 3-piece set, 2 chairs and a small table are $149.99. You can also find them on Ebay, Amazon, Buy.com, and other places. I think years back, Target carried them.
I've posted this comment before, but if you have ever looked through an "antique" shop, you will see quality items that have withstood the test of time. Unlike today, the cheaply made, expensive pieces that break real easy. You can find some really good bargains at the antique shops.
Went to a few garage sales yesterday and today. ;D My finds for $2.25 are: brand new package (of 12) Bottle Top (these "tops" fit on your pop/soda cans and turn them into a bottle. It's one of those "as seen on TV" items. I've wanted to try them before, but not for $10 that they normally sell for. At 50c for the whole package, it's no big loss if they don't work.), pr. sandals, 2 - "Eat This, Not That" books (these are cool books - you'd be amazed at the calories in some of the items restaurants serve!! :o), a brand new "Danny the Duck Bottle Huggers" - this is cool too - you slip the bottle inside the ducks mouth and the baby can hold onto the duck. Cute.
Next weekend there are a lot of town-wide, and subdivision sales. Unfortunately, we'll be traveling and I won't be able to go to them. :-X
Bucky
Garage sale/yard sale folks.
here in central Ohio..the heat has apparently affected sales. 91 degrees yesterday, with 92 so far today.
They normally start saturday and end on monday. I went today...right in the middle.
ONE sale was in progress on the main street which is a State Route and always has been a hopping place this time of year.
I did buy from her 2 bird prints .....nice wood frame, with nice matting. prints were of mourning doves and meadow larks. I collect bird prints, with the birds in their natural setting.
It was worth the stop and the sauna!
eye2dry
Garage sales this summer have been few and far between for me - it's been way too hot to venture out. :-X
Well, this morning, I get up early and head to one. The ad sounded good. Well, this lady was only going to be having a 4 hour sale. I get there, and nothing is marked. Grrrrr - I don't like those kind of sales where you have to "ask" how much things are. Now, I've been to unmarked sales before where it was by "donation" - this wasn't like that, she just didn't bother to put stickers on her items.
Plus, 70% of her stuff was still packed in boxes that she hadn't put out yet. Gesh, lady - you placed your ad a week ago, you KNEW you were having a sale . . . when did you plan to get it all together? ::)
I bought a folding step stool to use at work - $2. I wonder what she had in her boxes? I wasn't going to wait around for her to unpack them and left.
Went to a few more sales and the last one I stopped at, by that time, it was pouring rain (which we really, really need). Now, a "true" garage saler will go out in any kind of weather. ;) They didn't really have anything I "needed", or wanted - so I left. As I was leaving, one of the girls had a little baked goods table set up, so even though I didn't want anything, I bought a few things from her - which made her day! :) By the time I got to my car, I felt like a drowned rat - even though I had my umbrella with me, it was such a hard rain that the water was all running down the road towards the drain and my feet got drenched, as did ME when I closed up my umbrella to get into the car.
Good news!! While I was looking in the car console for a road map to find this one sale, I came across a bank envelope with $23 in it that I had forgotten about (was from one of my previous ventures out garage saling). Woohoo!! Love finding money!! ;D ;D
Anybody else been to any good sales lately??
Bucky
Bucky,
Sounds like a good end to your sale day, in spite of the rain. You found cash to further the next excursion! That's pretty cool in itself. ;)
Back when it wasn't so hot and I was feeling close to normal, I stopped at some garage sales. There are not that many of them here in Eastern Iowa either due to heat and severe drought. But with August I hope there will be more - and it will be cooler.
I bought a Nu-Wave oven - new, all books, etc. used twice for $20. So I am going to use that to cut down on the heat in the kitchen. I also found a bunch of nice shirts for 25 cents, new girl baby clothes w/tags (coworker having a girl) and a beautiful wooden kitchen trash can. Oh and a new cat bed for $4 that the cats will turn up their noses at probably. LOL So I did pretty good at the ones I did stop at.
Due to the extreme heat we've been experiencing this summer, I just haven't been in the garage sale mood much this summer. :'( This is SHOCKING for me . . . I'm a die-hard garage saler. It's in my blood, inbreed from my mother.
Yesterday, on my way home, I notice there is a sale in a sub-division right off my road. By the time I saw the signs, the sale was over for the day. So, today after my errands in town, I decide to stop in and see what they have left for sale day #2.
What a deal I found!! Now, this won't sound like much to you guys, but to my husband . . . it will be like winning the lottery!! OK, maybe not THAT good, but he will still be thrilled. LOL
I found a wooden Miracle Blade knife block for 25 cents. I've priced these on eBay and they run from $20 on up! My husband watches all the cooking shows on TV (we don't have cable or satellite, so it's just the general stations on TV). On occasion, hubby will try his culinary skills out making things he's seen them make on TV. How nice you say? Nah, not really . . it just means he creates a mess in the kitchen getting out every pot and pan, spoons, etc. (and of course, he never cleans it all up afterward!). Plus, our son and I don't really care for all the spices, rubs, etc. he whips up . . too spicy for us - usually a lot of barbecue stuff.
Hubby has wanted for a long time these knives he's seen advertised on TV by Chef Tony. He talks about these knives ALL THE TIME. Well, this week while I was at the store returning something, I was browsing through the housewares department and lo and behold, came across these knives by Chef Tony!! I picked the box up and thought, "hmmmm, I think this is what he's been wanting and drooling over on TV!". So, I bought them. Later that evening, I give them to hubby . . . HE WAS THRILLED!! (Yay, brownie points for Bucky!!! ;D)
I already have a knife block with my knives set in it that I've had before we got married. Now, we'd need another one for "his" new set of knives. Well, as luck would have it, his knives are Miracle Blade . . . which MATCH this knife block I got today for 25c!!!! Woohoo!!! What a deal! I've already washed it up and it's ready for him to put his new knives in it. (More brownie points for Bucky!! ;D)
I also found an office chair for a friend who asked me to keep an eye out for one. Called her and she asked me to pick it up for her. :)
So, today I shopped for others - but, it was still fun. The hunt is the best part of garage saling!!
I would still like to have a sale of my own this year. I usually have two sales a year and I haven't had ANY yet this year (it's been tooooooo hot). Anybody want to have a sale with me? We'll have fun! ;D
Bucky
I stopped at a garage sale this weekend on the way to getting cat food.
I got a 100% silk blue blouse with the $57 price tag still on it for $2. Why anyone would pay $57 for a blouse is beyond me. ::) :o
Well done Mrs Bucky
Let us know what he says when he sees his present :) But I hope you don't have to endure too much of his spicy food.
Piebird, well done you! A blouse at that price must be really special. Will you dare to wear it?
Kathyx
Feel free to congratulate me on my latest aquisition ;D
I went flea marketing - I love flea markets. Anyway, I found this really old sofa with so much flavor I couldn't resist it. It was for sale for $250, talked them down to $225 - not much, but hey, a deal is a deal.
Well, I'm shopping around for upholstery quotes and have found out that it is a Danish Mid-Century (1940's) Modern sofa. In good condition it can go for $8,000.00!!!!!!
WooHOOOOOO!!!!
So, I'll put $2K in it - sit on it for a while, then maybe re-sell it. Haven't decided yet.
But I think I can do the couch flipping gig. It's a heck of a lot easier than flipping houses! Not a bad way to make extra money.
Now I want to get a trailor hitch for my car, buy a used trailor, and drive the country side. Heck yea!
MarsCon.org will be having a charity auction on March 3. We just received a large donation of Sci-Fi related items with more to come from her family between now and then.
Wow, iraisin - what a find on the sofa!!
I like to watch the Antique Roadshow on TV some times. It's amazing some of the prices they "say" one can possibly get if something were to go to auction. Of course, it's always contingent on finding the right buyer who is willing to pay the big bucks for an item. ;)
Enjoy your new found sofa.
Bucky
Hubby loved his knife block! ;D
Stopped at a garage sale before work - for $5 I got a brand new, never been used, 3-section mini buffet server & warming tray that retails at Walmart for $34.88.
I will probably turn around and sell it in my garage sale and make a profit on it. ;D
There are several garage sales on Saturday - but, not sure if I will go to them or not. I better run into work first (and make some money), before / if I head out to the sales to spend some money. :-\
If anybody hits any sales this weekend . . . good luck!
Bucky
Well, I finally had my garage sale. Usually, I have two sales a year. This year because it was soooo hot this summer, I didn't have one. So, I figured since it is the last weekend in September that I would either have my sale now, or not have one at all this year. :(
Some people just throw a sale together . . . and I mean, throw! Not me, everything is priced, displayed nicely, I have music playing, etc. I put a lot of hard work into my sales. I'm glad it shows as five different people told me this sale, "wow, this is the nicest sale I've ever been too - it's so organized!". :D
I broke the sale up into two weekends - so four sale days and 115 cars later in and out of our driveway - my 2012 garage sale season is over. Whew . . . . We made $365 - so, I'm pleased with that.
Now, at some point this next week, I have to take what's left down and put the tables away.
I'm hoping to still get in some garage saling this fall before winter gets here. We'll see. I don't "need" anything, but it's always fun to look.
Oh, and by the way, you know that 3-section mini buffet I got at a sale in August for $5? I sold it in my sale for $18. ;D
Here where I live in Illinois, the first two weekends in October there is a big, 100+ mile scenic drive taking place where vendors & crafters sell their wares. Vendors dress in turn-of-century attire. I've never been on this drive, but I've heard good things about it. It's usually pretty crowded and bumper-to-bumper traffic . . . not really "my thing".
Anybody else either had a sale of your own this year or been to any good sales recently?
Bucky
I'd love to come to that! Maybe some year... Have fun for me!
Sharon