So I was supposed to have a garage sale on March 7th. My whole complex was going to have one, it was supposed to draw a lot of people and be very profitable. After my EBay experience, I had decided that I should just garage sale stuff, rather than sell it on-line, as it would take less effort/time and yield similar to higher profits. Well, I now think I was wrong.
As the garage sale date approached, I gathered up a bunch of stuff around the house, and started counting up how much it would all be worth — in my head I had approximately $200 worth of stuff to sell. Then I began to think about what I would need for the sale itself:
1. Tables — I have none. So, I asked around and found several friends who were willing to lend theirs. Problem partially solved, though I would still need to buy a card table (more expenses).
2. Change — How do I get enough ones/fives/tens, etc for the sale? I would ordinarily say, “just go to a bank!” But I don’t have a physical bank — I do all of my banking on-line! Therefore I would either have to start hoarding ones and fives a couple months in advance or withdraw a bunch of money and pay a fee to get some financial institution to make change for me.
3. What to do with the profits? I wanted to put the profit from this sale towards my debt. Unfortunately, the online banking issue again comes into play. I have no way to redeposit the cash I took out to use for change or to deposit my profits into my bank account — with everything in cash, my guess is the money would just get spent, and quickly.
4. I need a box to keep the money in — preferably a lock box of some sort — another expense.
5. I needed some way to hang up clothing. My parents always hung a pole between 2 stepladders. I have neither pole nor ladders, nor space to store the ladders. Every other solution I came up with to this problem involved spending more money.
6. Most of the stuff that really sells at garage sales is furniture, housewares, and children’s stuff. I have mostly books, music and adult-sized clothing — none of which are big money makers. I have no children’s stuff or furniture, and very few housewares to sell.
The more I thought about it, the less profit I realized Iwas going to make and the more time and energy I realized I was going to have to spend. So, ultimately I decided it wasn’t worth all the time/money/labor to make maybe $50 at the end of the day.
My sister is supposedly having a sale later this spring — since she already has tables, a cash box, a local bank from which she can get change, a way to hang clothing, etc. I think I will just wait and take it down to her house to sell. In the mean time, I put a few more things up on EBay, which in retrospect now seems like a pretty reasonable way to make some $.
