Lessons From a Garage Sale Prepper

With oodles and oodles of boys clothes taking up room in our storage areas, Marcus and I ventured into the notion of having a garage sale. It seemed like a good idea at the time...and it will be an even better idea when it's all over!

The sale is on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, but we had time over the weekend to get things ready, so our garage is totally decked out for a garage sale. I've learned a number of things about having a garage sale throughout the past few months as we've been stashing stuff in the garage for the big weekend. I'll share my discoveries...

1. Let's not have another garage sale. I'll consider it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

2. We have an obscene amount of stuff. Obscene, I tell you! Never in our married lives have we lived in a house for five years, which is how long we've taken up residence on Elm Avenue. We've collected lots and lots of stuff. I can't remember where some of this stuff came from, but it must be ours. Right?

3. Never post your garage sale on Consolidated (our local craigslist.com) the week before the sale, even if you include the dates. Last week, I posted an ad on Consolidated, thinking it might encourage some buyers to hold out a week for our big "Boys-A-Palooza" sale, as I called it. But even though I wrote April 27 & 28, we had several garage sale shoppers driving slowly by our house Saturday morning, and one eager shopper come into our garage because Thomas had opened the garage door. We promptly closed it after that.

4. It feels grrrrreat (thanks Tony the Tiger) to get rid of so much stuff. I think I'd always hoped to be a minimalist of sorts. Sorting through all of this stuff has helped me realize I have missed the minimalist mark. So here's to a fresh start with less stuff. Plus, we'll need the space for all of the stuff one little girl has already begun to collect.

5. Maybe a garage-sale-free future is not ours quite yet.