I don’t read many blogs. The ones I do read tend to be rather science-y and avoid such frivolities as “This is my new blog!” This blog isn’t about science. This blog is about garage sales. I feel an introduction discussing my qualifications as a garage saler is important.
One important thing to note: I will refer to the act of going to garage sales as “garage saling” in this blog. Why? Because saying going to garage sales is too cumbersome. Garage selling is misleading; it sounds like you’re the one having the garage sale. Garage buying just sounds weird. Hence, garage saling. Those who partake in garage saling frequently are garage salers.
I started garage saling my senior year of high school (that explains my tag line). My friends and I were having a Christmas gift exchange. Gifts could cost a maximum of something on the order of $2. Deciding we didn’t want to spend our money at the dollar store, some of my friends and I decided we were going to go garage saling to acquire gifts for each other. We had talked about garage saling in the past but had never gotten around to it; the gift exchange was our excuse. We had fun and wanted to go again. Really, we — or at least I — were addicted from that first time.
I don’t remember what I bought that day. The first item I do remember purchasing at a garage sale is the first season of the Simpsons on DVD: $2. At the time I thought that was a great deal. Now I think I overpaid and I know I could have gotten it for cheaper, but I’ll come back to that another time.
I made my first garage sale purchase resale my freshman year of college. I had wanted a metal detector since I was six and obsessed with finding lost change; I finally found one at a garage sale for $0.50. To this day it remains one of my best purchases; a true steal even by my admittedly cheap standards. Anyway, I bought it and took it with me to the beach that day and quickly realized I hate metal detectors. They’re boring and hard to use; I found more change walking around the beach without the detector than with it. So, I put it on Craigslist and sold it two days later for $50. I got ripped off but this experience will be discussed more another time.
Since then, I’ve gotten serious about selling garage sale purchases on Craigslist. I average about one sale a week and make enough to cover all my garage sale purchases. A typical sale is $20-$30 — not bad when I usually buy items I intend to resell for $2 or less — but I have sold items for as much as $75 each.
I intended to follow with a discussion of some of my historic best purchases (just an excuse to brag, really) but I think I’ll save that for another post. I may tie it into my planned series on different bargaining techniques I have learned as an example of how the techniques work. I’ll also post some of my more exciting future deals and any bargaining techniques I used to acquire such deals so you, the reader, can live vicariously through me.
Anyway, here are some topics I intend to cover in the near future: bargaining techniques (including tricks for those who feel uncomfortable bargaining), when and where to go, reasonable prices for items, tips for reselling items for a profit, mistakes to avoid while bargaining, and tips for success at your next garage sale. If this sort of thing interests you, please, keep reading this blog. After all, garage saling is fun. What other hobby lets you make money and accumulate unnecessary junk?
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