Yard sale help

[daystar]

Hi,
I have read alot of threads about yard sale and how people put their money away for their disney trip.....Well my husband and i were talking we have a huge attic filled with stuff of our boys who are now 12 and 5....I saved everything from when they were a baby till now, i guess i really need to down size since i'm running out of room.....I guess i'm a pack rat....Also we could put money away for our next trip....
Here's my question, i have never had a yard sale before, so how do you know how to price your items???Also how do you know what do you want to keep??I have a hard time with that i know i need to get rid of this stuff but i would just as well keep it all....All of my children stuff from clothes to toys are in good shape.....I take care of everything and when i pack it away it always cleaned and then packed away, boxed and then bagged.....
Also how many people out there actually saves all there baby stuff for your next if your not sure if your having anymore????I have doubles, triples of baby stuff and my husband would just rather get rid of all of it but even though i don't want another child now, maybe sometime down the road i might....
Any suggestions on how to get a yard sale going would be great help...................Thanks

 

[winniedapooh]

I just did this and what I did was really think about what was really precious and things that I would not want to part with. I still have 10 bins saved but I took out 12. It did not make sense for us to save everything because it did take up a lot of room. We kept the crib, the high chair, and the changing table.....Grandchildren someday? As for clothes, when the kids move out and have families of their own they will each have a bin or 2 to do what they want with. I sold a lot at our recent yard sale and refused to put it back for another one-my goal, so yesterday we brought it to a local shelter and gave what was left of toys, bottles, and clothes to them. I thought of ebaying like a lot here do, but got a good does of reality this week and knew the shelter was the way to go for us. Hope this helps.....an almost recovering pack rat!

 

[kilee]

Only you can truly decide what you'll want to keep. Realistically, the clothing from your 12 & 5 yr olds are probably not very in style anymore. So, even if you had another baby in a year, probably 1/2 of it isn't really what you'd want to use. The flip side, is that it also means it's not going to sell as well if it looks dated to the mid 90's. My MIL saved all DH's baby clothes and gave them to us. Well 29 yrs later, the stuff looked ridiculous. We didn't want it, we couldn't sell it (it was just to outdated). So here she stored dozens of boxes for 3 decades to only have it thrown out in the end. Keep anything that is sentimental (coming home outfits). Then try to get rid of the rest.

As for pricing: make sure all items are clearly marked or the prices are posted. Personally, I will leave a yard sale if there are no prices on items. I don't want to have to ask nor haggle. Be reasonable. I went to yard sales all day today. I seen 2 places that had tons of clothing left and it was the end of the day. The problem-- they wanted $3-10 per item. Granted they were brands like Abercrombie and Nautica. But, they aren't gonna move at a yard sale. If you want high end used prices go w/ ebay. Otherwise try to stick to $1 or less on all clothing. We did this last summer-- we sold all but 7 things (we had over 100 items of clothing).

The more items you have-- the better. I usually skip the sales that only have 1 little table of stuff. I just keep on driving.

 

[bigbabyblues]

I had my yard sale this weekend, and most of it was baby stuff. There were a few outfits I'd been holding onto from ds1 to keep, he's now 3 years old. I looked at them again, and only kept two, one was one he came from the hospital in, the other was just special. I also had two from ds2, who's 10 months old, and I kept those. The rest I donated most of, then kicked myself when I decided to have a yard sale.

As far as pricing stuff, that's the really hard part. I had 2 exersaucers, 2 bouncy seats and a swing. The swing and seats weren't that hard, but the saucers were. I looked on ebay to see what similar ones or identical ones were going for, and priced them close to that. Of course, didn't sell them the first day, so this morning I marked them down $5 more. Didn't think they were going to go, people looked but didn't make an offer, nothing. Finally one lady came and was looking at it, and asked if I'd take less. I said I'd take $15 and she said $10, and I said $12 and that was it. She bought it. My original price was $25, but I wanted to get rid of it. Was I dumb to go so low? Maybe, but we will be moving in a few months, I'm not having any more children, and I don't want to store it. Figured $12 was better than giving it away for nothing. Some people disagree, but even though I was out to make money, I also wanted to the stuff gone! I sold the other one for $12 also.

On the clothes and things, I tried to separate myself from the and see them as clothes, not treasured possessions my babies had worn, and tried to think how much I'd be willing to pay for them and price them that way. No one complained about the prices (except one lady today who complained about something that was 25 cents, lol), but today was our second day and I lowered all the prices this morning before we started. Just keep in mind people will try to get you to lower the price on some things; decide ahead of time how far you're willing to go, and if it doesn't sell, then you have to do something else with it.

A tip I read somewhere (think it was another yardsale thread here) was to sort clothes by size; this seemed to work really well. I also marked the size on the price tags of most things, especially ones it wasn't clear what the size was. I borrowed a clothes rack from a friend to hang the clothes I could hang up, and it worked well. I hung the outfits that were nicer, and sorted them according to size then season.

Good luck with your sale, if you have any other questions, post them, and someone can probably help! That's what I love about these boards, lots of knowledge and advice!

Steph

 

[ceecee]

I had three large tables of clothes...neatly seperated into size, season, etc. within minutes of opening, it was one big pile! Now I don't spend nearly as much time sorting all of it out, I just make sure it is clean and has a price.