I declare our garage sale done and very successful. In the end, we made about $300! I think about $120 belongs to our girls. They are quite the entrepreneurs! In addition to selling their old toys, their perler bead creations and rice krispy bars were a huge hit! Who knew!! Both of these were kind of last minute thoughts, but many people bought them! The girls made some of the perler beads into necklaces for little girls, one lady bought them as prizes for her math students, and another couple bought five of them to use as coasters! They also sold 16 rice krispie bars. We started with 21 and had five left at the end of the day. Even though they were begging the whole time to eat one, we said they had to wait until the sale was over. They sold quite a bit of their old play jewelry. There is still some left, but not near as much as when we started!
Matt also ended up selling a couple old laptops, a mower he fixed recently, a trimmer, and an edger, along with the inner tube we used behind the jetski. This turned out to be a significant amount of money AND more space in the garage. (I don't know what is more important to Matt- money or space in the garage?)
I am pleased with the garage sale overall. I probably had fifty pairs of shoes out and we maybe sold ten. I wish some more of them would have sold. I also wish the dress up dresses would have sold. I wonder if I had them priced too high. Many people looked at them, but nobody bought them.
I also had a whole container of candles that I put out. Sorry, whoever gave me candles. I don't mind them here and there, but honestly, I am not a candle person. I think they are dangerous. I ended up selling all but three of them. I told Matt that if candles are that popular, I should hit up a sale and buy them really cheap and then sell them for profit at a garage sale!!
Many of the baby items that I had set out did not sell or even the TV that Matt put out for FREE! It works, but is not a digital TV. We aren't quite sure what to do with it. Nobody takes the old tube TVs anymore, so he may just put it in a dumpster.
We also had a neighbor bring up an entertainment center, golf clubs, a window air conditioner, and some shoes. Everything of his sold except for the entertainment center. I wish it would have, he and Matt loaded it back into his car and he took it back home. I think he was going to try to sell it on Craigslist sometime. Another neighbor brought over a baby swing and that sold within an hour.
I think the girls learned a huge amount from the garage sale! We had to take quite a bit of school off to put it on, but I think it was worth it. We gave 25% off everything the last two days, so Megan had to figure that amount out. I also had her count change back to everyone. What great life lessons! I told her I learned to count back change when I was 14 and was making ice cream cones for a job. :)
I asked the girls if they wanted to do another garage sale and they both said, "YES!!" They thought it was a very positive experience! I think they loved seeing everyone and watching them come and go. I sure did! I wasn't always out there though because I was often changing or feeding Micah. I did miss some of their old toys, such as their kitchen set and a cheerleading outfit, being sold. They were pretty excited about it though. I am glad they aren't too attached to these items. I totally felt like I was selling their preschool years this weekend, but I have to remember that it is only stuff and I cannot store it forever. I loved it when another little girl got so excited about a certain toy (like one of their old baby strollers) and then bought it. I don't mind passing stuff on when I know someone else will love it. I just wonder where all our stuff ended up. What kind of homes did it go to? Who is playing with it? What happened to it??
Maybe my girls should start on more perler bead creations to sell again next year!
Now, what do I do with the leftover items? Matt says we should just load it all up and donate it to the Open Door Mission, but I don't want to yet. Some items are worth some money. Maybe I will continue to try to sell the items or just put them back where they were. Some of them I don't mind keeping (such as a high chair you attach to a chair at a table) or some girl puzzles and games. I don't want to get rid of all my girl stuff incase we have friends over to play.
I am really anxious to get life back to normal. After a pretty intense week of painting the entire upstairs and now the garage sale, I can finally pick up the pieces and get life back to normal again!
No comments:
Post a Comment