Peace of Mind Organizing

Should you have a yard sale?

13 May 2024

Our yard sale was in the basement.

For years, I’ve discouraged clients who said they wanted to hold a yard sale. I always told them that it was a whole lot of work for not a lot of reward and it would be easier to just donate the stuff they were ready to let go of. If the client insisted they wanted to try a yard sale, I’d extract a promise that they would have a charity pickup scheduled for the day of or the day after the sale.

That was before I’d held a yard sale. I just had one and guess what? My advice hasn’t changed. We’re getting ready to move and we’re letting go of a lot of stuff. We decided to participate in our neighborhood-wide yard sale because the timing was excellent. Since about 50 homes were participating in the sale (the neighborhood association put out a map of the homes having sales), we thought it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

The sale was May 4 and I organized it in our big, empty unfinished basement, rather than in the yard. My guess is that we had 80 to 100 people come through. And, I’m happy to say, we netted almost $1000. But it was a lot of work. And I didn’t heed my own advice and didn’t schedule a charity pickup. Probably half the stuff sold but the other half still needs to find a home. I still have to deal with that.

There were some benefits: I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed seeing people buy my stuff at bargain prices. It was nice to know the stuff was getting a new life. The timing of our sale lit a fire under us to go through our stuff (at least the stuff that seemed like it might sell), which is giving us a bit of a head start on our July move.

But would I do it again? No. But that’s partly because of my stage of life and because I won’t have a yard after we move.

Should you have a yard sale? I’d say it depends:

• Are you letting go of enough stuff that it would be worth your time to organize the sale?
• Are you willing to let go of the stuff that doesn’t sell? (Please don’t bring it back in the house!)
• Do you live in an area where you’d get a lot of shoppers?

In my view, a yard sale doesn’t tend to bring in enough money to make the effort worthwhile. People expect low, low prices. (I wish I’d priced some of my things lower or slashed prices in the afternoon.) Your time might be better spend trying to sell the larger-ticket items on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace.

But if you do have a yard sale, do yourself a favor and schedule a charity pickup at the end of the day.

Tagged with: decluttering, downsizing, garage sale, yard sale

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