Hello sweet Friends! If you’ve followed my blog for long, you know how much I LOVE yard sales. But I have also had over 25 yard sales of my own! I’ve learned a few things along the way and thought I would share what has worked for me to get the most out of all that hard work.
Let’s face it, shopping yard sales is way more fun than having them, but if you gotta do it, you may as well do it RIGHT, am I right?
Doing it right does NOT mean that you start digging through your attic the night before to see what you can get rid of. A successful yard sale takes planning.
Tip #1
Set a date and get started early. Set a date and start gathering your yard sale items two to four weeks ahead of time, depending on how big your household is. This will seriously cut down on the stress! Gather all of your items to one area. Leave no space untouched:
- Clothes closets
- Drawers
- Kitchen cabinets
- Linen closets
- Bathroom cabinets
- Attic
- Garage
- Storage units
- Coat closet
- Laundry room
- Yard
Then call a friend or family member to join you. The more stuff, the better! I would limit it to three people/families max to keep it easy to handle.
Tip #2
Price everything. I mean EVERY thing. You don’t want multiple people shouting at you for prices while you’re already helping someone else. This is my biggest frustration as a yard sale shopper, and I often won’t buy anything if nothing is priced.
A couple more pricing tips:
- Price to sell or be willing to negotiate. The goal is usually to get rid of stuff!
- Price everything in 25¢ increments for easy adding. Avoid the “yard sale” stickers that are pre-priced.
- If more people will be joining you, have everyone use different colored pricing stickers to designate what items belong to which person. I always use green stickers I buy at Office Max in my area.
Tip #3
Use bins or boxes to keep everything organized and easy to shop. For items like my son’s clothes, I like to sort them into clear bins and add a sign to the outside:
They are so much easier to shop and sell like hotcakes at a dollar a piece, and I am thrilled that someone else will get good use out of them. Usually when the bin is almost empty, I will slash the price to 50¢, but almost all of them sold this year.
I organized my old scrubs the same way this year:
These are so much easier to shop than laying everything out on bed sheets on the ground, and I reuse the same clear bins year after year. If they are not in the budget, boxes in good condition will probably work too.
Tip #4
Bag items with multiple pieces. This is part of keeping everything organized. All you need are these two items:
Clear kitchen bags and gallon zipper bags.
- I organize so much with these. I put my son’s pajama sets in them:
- I group together toys with them:
- Seasonal items…this was a bag of miscellaneous Fall décor:
One lady bought both bags I had. I probably wouldn’t have sold it all had everything been laid out separately.
- And for all those little happy meal toys, goodie bag toys, etc that your kids accumulate throughout the year, I love to bag them as $1 grab bags, grouping like items together:
I sell a bunch of these!
Tip #5
Use ribbon or string to “package” items. Organize sheet sets, comforter sets, towels, etc by wrapping them with ribbon or string:
I wish now I would have grabbed those towels my Mom was selling…they were like brand new! Wrapping them this way made them easier to price too. Be sure to include details like sizes for sheets and curtains:
Tip #6
Get as much on tables as possible. My parents and I did craft markets for 15 years, so I am lucky that I have five five foot tables from that business to use, and I use them all, plus two card tables.
If you have to use two saw horses and a piece of plywood, if you have to drag your patio table around from the back yard, do it. Your yard sale will look more worth stopping at if everything isn’t just spread across the driveway.
As items sell, continue to move things up to the tables from the ground and reorganize.
Tip #7
Hang adult clothing if possible, or at least keep it off the ground. I have a four way clothing rack from my retail days long long ago. I used to go to the warehouse every year and borrow one and they finally just told me to keep it. Clothes sell really well and I know hanging them helps them sell better. You can also use two ladders and a large wooden dowel, but rig up something if you can.
If not, fold it neatly on a table like we did with our jeans:
Just try to keep it off the ground if you can. We used hang tags and I added a green sticker to those that belonged to me. You can barely see the clothes rack in the background there. For the hanging clothes we also used hanging tags and just added our color sticker to them, and hung them on the neck of the hangers.
Tip #8
Clean your items. No one wants to buy your dirt. I didn’t wash all the clothes because they were already clean, but I did wash many of the linens. If you are selling anything that can easily be wiped down with a Lysol wipe, take the time to do it. That goes for dishes, toys, baby gear, and anything else that can accumulate dirt and dust.
Tip #9
Make good signs. Making easy-to-read and easy-to-follow-at-45mph signs is SO important. I put my signs out just before opening at 8:00 am. (And yes we stay out there until 3:00. Unless you have city rules, why not make the most of all the hard work you did setting up?)
Here is my tried and true yard sale sign:
- Start with fluorescent posterboard. It is like 77¢ at Walmart, not a bank buster. I cut them in two to get two signs from one piece. And no need to bleed several black markers dry, opt instead for black craft paint and a brush to paint your signs.
- Large print that is easy to follow while driving! Unless you really live off the beaten path, keep it simple. Yard Sale. Time. Arrow. Keep all the signs the same color so shoppers know those are your signs and they are on the right path. (If you plan a Sunday sale as well, leave a space between the time and the arrow to add the word “Sunday”, and then take your paint and paint brush and go around and update the signs early Sunday morning.)
- Scrounge up some scrap wood to use as posts or stop in at the hardware store and cut a few pieces to mount your signs on. Cut the bottom at an angle to make them easy to get in the gorund. (We save the posts to use year after year…that is last year’s dirt. 🙂 )
- Let the top of the wood post stick up just enough that you can hammer the top of it without smashing your sign. Attach the posterboard with good quality tape. Now you don’t need to rely on lamp posts, sign posts, etc.
When putting your signs out on a busy road, don’t put them right at the intersection. Put them before the turn lane to give drivers enough time to get over.
Be a courteous neighbor and take your signs down when the sale is over.
Tip #10
Be ready to sell. (My Mom will love me sharing this picture of her from a yard sale we did a couple of years ago!) Designate one area to be used to take in all that cash you’re going to make. I use a small table at the front of my garage.
That’s our money box. She was selling it several years ago, and we ended up using it to collect the money. We use it every year now and call it our good luck charm.
Always keep an eye on the money! We remove the larger bills every hour or so and take them inside. (If you’re solo, opt for a fanny pack instead.)
We tally what we sell simply with a notebook and a list for each person with stuff to sell.
Here’s a couple more tips:
- Save several grocery and shopping bags the month prior in case someone needs a bag.
- Have newspaper, tissue paper, or small empty boxes handy if you have a lot of breakables.
- For change, start with $50 in ones, $50 in fives, and $3 in quarters if you can. That should ensure you have enough change to last the day.
Want to see the most ridiculous yard sale my family has ever had?
SO MUCH STUFF! This was at my sister’s house. She and my parents were getting ready to move. I wish I had taken more pictures!
I also wish I had taken more photos of our yard sale we just had, but we got so busy so fast. I think you get the idea though. Start early, organize and price everything beforehand. Make good signs.
- You can give a shout out on Facebook leading up to the sale and again the morning of with pictures, or list on Craig’s List a couple of days prior. You might need to if you live more off the beaten path.
I hope you are now feeling confident to go out there and make some money! If you have any other great tips I missed, I’d love to hear them in the comments. 🙂
Pin this for later if you plan to have a sale this Summer:
I’ll be back on Tuesday with this shelf:
I’m trying to be good and work through all those small pieces left in my stash.
UPDATE: Check out how this little Home Interiors shelf turned out now HERE.
XOXO,
Don’t Miss a Thing!
If you like what you see, there are several ways to follow along!
Marcie Lovett says
Wow, that was some yard sale! How much did Brennan make?
Christy says
Yeah, girl! Brennan did not want to sell anything ha ha, so we tried to keep him away from the sale. He did earn a PJ Masks costume from Walmart though lol! XO
Marcie Lovett says
I noticed he left his mark on the money page! Yeah, best to keep the smalls away, since they usually don’t like seeing their stuff sold. Too bad I live 200 miles away, or I’d have bought your mother’s towels! And the red toile bedding, too.
Christy says
Ha ha yep…he wanted to know where his column was, so I told him to add his name. I wish I would have bought those towels…never even occurred to me! And the red toile bedding that was also my Mom’s never sold. I was so surprised. My Mom ended up keeping it. 🙂
Christina in FL says
Christy these are super tips. I am saving them! :))
Christy says
Thanks, Christina! XOXO
Shirley Cline says
Christy,
Thank you for the wonderful ideas! I will be printing out your tips and keep them handy for the next yard sale we have. When my granddaughter was a lot younger she wanted to be involved in our yard sales too so I’d buy canned soda and water bottles. She would sell them for 50 cents each and got to keep the money (but only if she stayed at her post). Sometimes she would make more money than the rest of us! LOL. Now she’s 25 and she still talks about our yard sales. What great memories we share!
Christy says
My pleasure, Shirley! I love the idea of getting the kids involved, and I almost always buy from them when I see them at yard sales. I’ve tried many times to get my boys out there selling cookies or something, but they have just never been interested. My oldest helps me set up now so at least he earns money that way. Yard sales are hard work, but we are good for a laugh too! XO
Kim says
Great tips, thanks! I will put those to good use. We are going through our house and trying to purge all the junk we don’t need. Whew it sure is a long process. Where do we get all this stuff?! LOL And I paint furniture also, so I’m going through that and getting rid of the things that I have no inspiration for. So there is definitely a yard sale in our future. I think it needs to be sooner rather than later. We can’t get to anything in our garage.
Christy says
Thanks, Kim! I say the same thing every year…where did all this crap come from?? Luckily our neighborhood has an annual yard sale so it’s incentive to purge once a year or it would be really bad. Sounds like you need to bust out the calendar and set a date…that’s the first step! Good luck!! XOXO
Sherry Stuifbergen says
At your large garage sale…there was a jelly cupboard and a dish cupboard in the back! (yellowish paint)…WOW…that’s my kind of thing! Hope she got a good price for those antiques. i am a garage sale junkie and I HATE…”make us an offer” (this is on everything out.)… too lazy to price. Not many are as organized as yours.
Christy says
Those pieces were my Mom’s. That yard sale was long before my blogging/furniture painting days…oh how I would love to have those pieces now! I think my sister’s neighbor bought both pieces so at least they went to a good home. And yes…why would you go through all that and then not price anything? Makes no sense at all. We do really well every year and are left with very little, and I totally credit being organized for that. 🙂
Lisa Cullett says
I kept finding myself “shopping” your yard sale items. So funny! Thanks for the tips!
Christy says
You’re welcome, Lisa! And ha ha! We didn’t have much left and what was left was donated. 🙂
Mary says
Great timing! My yard sale is tomorrow and I use every one of these tips each time I have a sale. I do one thing differently that has made it a lot easier- I price everything $1.00 and up- no change to worry about! Just like you, I bag items together to make small items come together to sell for $1.00. So much easier for me.
Thanks for all your great projects and posts. I get so much inspiration from you lovely lady!
Christy says
Aw thank you, Mary! That’s a great tip, anything to make it easier! Good luck with your yard sale!! XOXO
Melinda says
Thanks so much for the great tips!!! I am getting revved up for mine now! I have giant tubs full of items to be priced. I hate making offers, when things aren’t priced..I figure it is yours put a price on it and then we can dicker:) lol.
Christy says
My pleasure, Melinda! They are a ton of work, but it always feels so good to get the house cleared of old stuff, and make a little loot at the same time! And yes, price your stuff lol! Good luck with yours! XO
Nancy @ Artsy Chicks Rule says
Wow, you really do know how to have a yard sale like a pro!! lol So organized, I want to come over and see it all!! 😉 xoxo
Christy says
Yeah, Girl! We are pros ha ha! I had quite a bit left over and normally we would save a lot of it in containers and put it up for next year’s yard sale, but I donated it ALL this time and it felt SO good! XOXO