Last Weekend & The Stockpile Sale

Last Weekend was the end of Hubs week off from work.
He decided he wanted to go to the monthly Chess Club Tournament held somewhere outside of Philly.
So he was gone all day on Saturday.

While he was gone, Daughter and I held another Stockpile Sale.  It was the same set up as the one I held in July...one day for 4 hours with big neon green signs saved from the last sale, posted on the roads leading up to our house.  Man, those signs just draw the regular yard salers in like flies on a garbage truck.lol

We opened the garage door about 15 minutes early this time and there were no early bird/dealers sitting waiting for us to open to pounce on all those copies of the Declaration of Independence for a quarter we were selling....don't they wish!
I put out some of the old/vintage/new in the box toys I had earmarked to send to Salvation Army that were still lying around the house as well as the toiletries.

It was slow at first but picked up by 9am and we had fairly steady business until almost noon.
With the slow start I didn't think we'd make near what we made in the July sale, but in the end, we finished up with $335.50.   That makes our total $682.50 for the year's sales.
And a good bit of what we sold was the old toys and collectibles.  I was shocked by how much of that went really!

Good sellers.....toothbrushes, mouth wash, shampoo, soap, cans of coffee, nail polish, diapers, Olay stuff, batteries, Lysol spray, deodorant, vitamins.  Anything I put into the crate marked "Everything 75¢".lol
Stuff that sat.....high end shampoos, men's razors, women's bladder pads.
This go round a wider range of items sold well, so there wasn't much that I didn't sell some quantity of.

We've been using our Garage Sale profits to purchase college needs for Daughter this week.  That was the deal I made with her--if she wanted me to buy some of this college stuff, she had to help me hold the sale and raise some cash.
The rest of the profits will go toward food buying and/or the extra gas we'll be using hauling kids and their stuff back to two different colleges later this month.

I'll be boxing up the toiletries that are leftover and deciding whether I have enough to do the flea market in September.  Just eyeballing what is left, it looks to be that I've sold about half of the extras I started with so it's worth the trip to hit the flea market and make a little more cash.  I just dread getting up at 4am to get there in time to get a spot to set up in.

Also, since the toys sold so well, I am pondering whether I should hold a Toy Sale the end of September before the weather turns bad.  I still have a LOT of toys in the storage unit and I'm thinking I can get people to buy for Christmas presents, as the end of September is close enough to the Holidays to get them spending on toys.  I'd prefer to do this in October, but the weather would be too awful by then.
Not having the Toiletries Stockpile will free up room for items in the garage as well as what I can put on the driveway.  I'm still indecisive on this idea though as it's a lot of work digging all the toys out in time and setting it up.  It's not like I don't have anything else to do with my time.lol

So the rest of Saturday was a couple of errands and a nap.
Hubs didn't do very well at his tournament unfortunately.  He usually wins them but not this time so he wasn't up for doing much that evening.

Sunday Hubs sat around and relaxed mostly.
Daughter got to drag my tired ass around stores for 3 hours, to start spending all that stockpile sale profit on college shopping.  Go me! 8-P
Though it rained most of the day, the sun came out long enough for us to take a dip in the pool later.

Today Daughter reneged on painting the powder room for me for pay.  She decided after sanding down one wall, she doesn't want to do the prep work(sanding, spackling, priming)on this massive 8'x4' room.
She only wants to slap paint on the walls.
So now the room won't get painted.
We'll have been in this house 11 years next week and this powder room is still the mess it was when we moved in.
Can you tell I am pissed?
I wonder if I return all the shit I've bought for her to go to college if she will find her passion for work again?

8 more days until she leaves.
And yes I AM marking them off on the calendar! ;-)

Sluggy

The Comedy of Errors Stockpile Sale.....The Results

Well, Hubs put out the signs(one at the main road and one at the end of our street)and I opened the garage door, just a tad before 8 am.

And there were 4 people waiting outside in their cars.  Local dealers is my guess since they walked up the driveway and scanned my 'spread' and walked back to their cars.

I guess they had no clue what a "Stockpile Sale" was(that's what my signs said)and it certainly wasn't old used stuff they could buy for a quarter and sell for much much more to someone else in their store or at the flea market or online.lol

We did a slow steady business until about 11 am, so 3 solid hours of buyers.  I made a point of asking how they found us since I had put 2 online ads up as well as the big signs on the road.  It seems most found us from the signs as a lot of the garage salers around here just drive around on Saturday morning looking for signs.  Luckily we are fairly close to the middle of town and on a main road.  If we were located farther out of town, the signs would have been less help getting us customers.
I am sure the horrible high temps also cut down on the garage sale shoppers last weekend.  Nicer weather would have helped the bottom line a bit more.

Only 1 of the folks I asked also checked the newspaper classifieds for sales so I am glad I didn't spent the $25 per day, per ad, they charge here for garage sale advertising.

I had a couple of stragglers between 11 and 11:55 when I closed the door for the day.   That seems to be the pattern around here, be it yard saling or flea marketing.....come early and finish early and get on about your other business for the rest of the day.

So with all the angst I had over this endeavor and the stops and starts, we came out with a $347 profit for the day.  Not great but worth sitting in my garage for a few hours.
I like this plan--sit in the garage and have people come give me money!  Nice work if you can get it.lol

The flea market is much more profitable as there are more potential buyers but it's also getting up before dawn(a BIG drawback for me!lol), lugging tables/shelves/products and waiting in line for hours just to get in.  I'm good with opening the garage door and closing it when done and being finished and home already. 8-)

Here are the After Photos....

Still looks like a TON of stuff, doesn't it?lol
Well it is!  But we did make a perceivable dent in the volume.  Maybe 2 whole Rubbermaid tubs worth of stuff.

I sold most of the few food items I had(those were some of the first things to sell!)from .50¢ to $2.  Also big sellers were toothbrushes($1), cosmetics($1 to $4), Olay items($8 for eye rollers, $3 for body wash), shaving cream($1) and batteries(came out to .25¢ per battery-assorted sized packages)
.
Good sellers were toothpaste($1Colgate to $2 Pronamel), dental floss($1), higher end shampoos(Nexxus $4, Tresemme $3, etc.), soap($1.50-$3), dishwashing soap(.75¢ to $1), feminine pads($1) and Viactiv calcium chews($2).

Less good sellers were deodorant($1 to $1.50), body wash($1 to $3) and lotions($1 to $3)
.
What I couldn't give away......mid priced shampoos(Garnier and Herbal Essences($1.50), even Pantene($2), which usually sells out!), Gillette Razors($3), Airwick Spray kits($2 small/$4 large), Hair coloring($2) and Listerine mouthwash($2), Contact Solution($1) and Diapers($4).
$11 Gilette Razors for $3, Hair Color for $2.....C'mon!lolol

The funniest thing were the Duracell batteries.  Long dated packs of 4 AA batteries for $1 and 20 AA packs for $5.  Both deals come out to .25¢ per battery.   People would buy 5 packs of the 4 batteries instead of 1 pack of the 20 batteries.  Why buy 5 packs of one rather than 1 pack of the other if it's the same price in the end?lol

All-in-all it was worth doing. But I still have a LOT of stuff left!  Daughter said she'd help me do another garage sale when she gets home from her camp job.  I am thinking instead that I'll pack it all up into the Rubbermaid tubs by price and let her and her boyfriend do the flea market next month for me.
I'll make a deal with her that I'll use the profit from what they sell to put toward buying her some clothes and supplies for college.  A couple of hours selling toiletries with her BF in exchange for some paid for shopping will get her interest. ;-)

Next stop is to let BIL go shopping in the garage today, then pulling out a load to take to the Food Bank on Friday.  After that, everything gets packed up for the Flea Market and stacked in the corner so I can use the garage for a staging area to go through my storage unit boxes and begin the Great Decluttering of '11 again!
Yes, more Decluttering P*rn to follow sometime next week....WooHooo! 8-)

And I also need to get the glassware and furniture items up on Craigslist to sell. 

We also need to sell the dog run/kennel out back since our beagle girl doesn't like being out there anymore.  I think it's a combination of our boy beagle being gone now who always kept her company in there and her just aging and not liking being out in the heat as much.  Use to, she would spent the whole day out in the run, sitting on the doghouse like Snoopy from the comic strips(yes, beagles actually do doghouse sit!)

Sluggy