Yard Sale Finds

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
I haven't had an over abundance of luck this year in this dept. Hit some not too bad ones........but nothing like a normal year.

So this morning Travis and I go out to pay bills. I spot a sign.........not a bad sale. Spot another sign.............. Now I don't like to pass up thurs sales because if you want the good stuff, you need to hit a sale on the first day. That was at 9:30am.

I found brandon his very own big boy bike with training wheels for 5 bucks. Connor a fisher price version for 4.00. Went to a swap shop that easy child never wants to visit, and found the boys 2 steel Tonka jeeps that originated in MY childhood, both huge and in good condition. They're going to freak! lol Also found a cute plastic lawn mower for them.

I found Aubrey a anatomically correct newborn that hit the market when easy child was about 5-6 yrs old. Then stumbled onto a sale that had like new beautiful newborn girl things for .15 ea! So she not only got the doll but a wardrobe to go with it that is real and cute and can be washed.

This, of course, was when I wasn't even looking for them. But sometimes that is how it happens. I also tend to stop at all sales, while if it doesn't look good to easy child from the street she keeps driving. Now I've found some awfully nice treasures in some of the poorest neighborhoods at sales that didn't look like they had anything to offer. One example is the name brand school clothes entire ward robe for Alex a couple of years ago that I paid 10.00 for! So, no. I don't pass those up.

So today seemed to be vintage toy day I guess. But I LIKE that swap shop. Reasonable prices, unusual items and if easy child is smart she can buy Darrin's video games there for a steal.

Tickled with my finds. The grandkids are going to be thrilled with them, especially the boys. :)

Anyone else having any luck lately?
 

everywoman

Well-Known Member
Jana and her boyfriend's mom hit a sale Saturday. She bought Vi a table and chair set for $5. The table is a flower, the chairs are butterflies. With a little paint, a perfect gift. She also got a frame with a flower and butterfly. Painted the same color, with a chalkboard, and Vi will have a cafe to serve tea. She also bought a leather trunk, a log table for me (haven't seen it yet). Her boyfriend's mom is a serious yard sale buyer.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
I hit one about three weeks ago and got a brand new black and decker rice cooker, $40 new around here, for $5. husband had somehow messed his up and he seems to think he somehow needs one instead of a pan on the stove (you have to pay attention to the pan and not the computer so clearly you 'need' an appliance to cook rice with-o burning it - grrrr but it was $5). Jess had been admiring a lamp at Walmart that stood on the floor and had four separate bulbs each with a colored shade around it. It was $19 at wm the night before and I talked the guy down to $5. I also got a big wooden shelf to hang on the wall for $3, a set of rubbermaid canisters - only 3 of the 4 in the set but they were all never used, with lids, and the entire set was 25 cents, plus some other little things for a quarter total. One will make a great 'what's it?' present for a family gift exchange IF I can figure out what it is. It is labelled 'wax whacker' but from what I can find out about the name that is a piece of leather designed to help you wax the bows for your arrow. THis is a little metal spoonlike thing maybe 3 inches long.

but I haven't gone to many sales this year. We did find an amazing couch at our Habitat Restore about a month ago. I just can't get out and around with my back and knees the way they are.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
I rarely go to yard sales anymore. I do go to jockey lots where people take their old stuff to sell and have found some good stuff though but never as cheap as you get. I got a few things for Kenzie about a month ago like one of those push behind walker things that convert down so she can sit on it and ride it too. I also found a lovely blue and white urn to put my mom's ashes in. My mom collected blue willow dishes and this looked very similar so I think it is fitting.
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
Awesome!

I bought difficult child a collared, soft polo shirt yesterday, faded khaki green like a guy would want. $7. I am not buying him anything expensive for reasons you all know.
HE HATES it.
"I only wear neon colors now. And I don't wear collars!"

I wonder if bare skin is better than a faded, collared khaki shirt ... ;b
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
Oh, I had gone into a new place around here, Plato's Closet, to try to sell some of easy child's clothes. Of course, I found stuff to buy ... :) They did not take anything. Said it was too formal and they were only looking for casual wear.
Onward and upward, or something ... somewhere else ...
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
Be cautious with Plato's Closet and Once Upon a Child.

The ones in our town are super-snooty. Onyxx likes to try to take her stuff there to sell. They take HOURS and maybe buy one item out of dozens. Mind, the stuff she is trying to sell looks just like the stuff they are selling. And too formal? Ours loves formal stuff (and trashy stuff, too, in my opinion). Ugh.
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Another FYI, Once Upon a Child doesn't pay squat for clothing either. You're better off doing a yard sale or selling online. I get the whole need to make a profit thing, but they are ridiculous. I buy at those places, I do not sell to those places.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
Maybe Once Upon A Child is different up here than in the States. We found that "next to new" stuff, they paid enough for that it wasn't worth the hassle of selling it ourselves. But once it shows signs of wear... they really don't want it, which is why they don't pay much.
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
IC, here.......at least in this general area, which would be cincy / dayton, it doesn't make a difference. I've taken in expensive designer clothing with the tags still on and it's the same way. Which is actually what really made me angry.

I could get better deals selling to the local varieties of such shops, not that I would because quite simply if you eliminate the middle man you get more money. We do have one shop here that does their best to be fair on both sides. Due to this they have a booming business and a community that loves them. I shop there often, it's one of my fav places to go. If I didn't just want the stuff gone after the yard sale (and I've done it before so I know that is how I"m going to feel) I'd sell to them what didn't sell for us and be happy to do so. But what we don't sell will be donated somewhere. Probably a lot of it to special olympics, then to goodwill. (I'd do salvation army but there are none close enough) Because I'm not letting a single item back into the house. lol
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
I hate Once upon a child. I went in there the first time to sell a bunch of clothes Keyana had outgrown. Now I always had very nice stuff for her and they got ticked off because I didnt have the appropriate blue containers. They made me go out and buy the right ones. I did and came back. Then they looked through the clothes and said "I think I see spider eggs in these so we cant take them." Uh, unless those spider eggs came from the blue containers I think not. I had just taken all those clothes to a laundry mat and washed and dried them myself. Then I folded them, put them into plastic bags and straight to the store.

While waiting for them to look through the clothes I wandered around the store to see what clothes I could buy for Keyana. The prices were just about as high as in Walmart. Pants for 7-10 bucks. Shirts for 5-10 bucks. I said no way. And things like swings and equipment was at most 10 to 15 less than new. Not worth it at all.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
When the kids were small, the best shop we had was a consignment shop - they didn't buy the stuff at all. They did check it - no stains, no repairs needed. It could be "worn" - that affected the price. If you didn't agree with how they priced any item in your "stack", you got the item back. They kept 20% of whatever it sold for if you wanted to be paid in cash - 10% if you took store credit. We both bought and sold through that one.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Plato's Closet is the biggest rip-off joint around. Once Upon a Child was sometiems useful if we had time to really really browse. Generally the tax write-off for a donation was worth more than the amt OUaC would give for the item. With both of those stores the amt you get for your items depends FAR more on who you know than what you have to offer.

If you want to be serious about yard sales, I have some tips. First, get a good map of where you are generally yardsaling. Have it laminated. It will be worth the investment. Get a water-soluble marker or a dry erase marker Use these to write on the map. Either Fri night or around 6 or 7 on Sat morn, pick the sales you want to go to out of the paper. Find them on the map and mark them. I gave each place a letter (a, b, c etc...) and put the letter on the map by the location. On paper I wrote out the address, the letter name and the start time. If I was wanting to ask about osmething specific listed in the ad, I wrote that down too.

Then you look at the map and figure out the easiest route that will take you past the sales you want to visit. It sounds like a hassle but really takes very little time and it can save you a TON in time and gas from driving across town to go to a sale and then one on the other side of town and then back to this side.

I used to get up by six every Sat and go to yard sales. For YEARS. This tapered off when my body got all cranky, but it was a lot of fun. It also got my kids into the "you pay retail? Are you an idiot?" mindset. NOT that we EVER said those words, but they saw us buying close to new items for very little money and the saw/heard classmates talking about paying twenty five bucks for a shirt or pair of shorts and would laugh and laugh. They truly thought it was hysterical. My kids all think retail is fun to look at and maybe buy on clearance, but NOT for buying new.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
My kids are the same way. We window-shop retail to know what's in etc. - and then go get the stuff "elsewhere" at 10 cents on the dollar or less... They know very well that we couldn't afford most of what they have in terms of activities etc. if we had to pay retail for clothes and household stuff.
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
It also got my kids into the "you pay retail? Are you an idiot?" mindset.


LOL! I even had a manager at one of my retail jobs tell me, "Never, ever EVER pay retail for anything!"

Just try telling that to a man on Christmas Eve.:devil:
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Susie I've lived here long enough that I have a yard sale plan, a specific route that hits the major roads into town (which also go through town) where people put up their signs.

When my kids were young enough I was still buying their wardrobes..........I pretty much knew which families lived where that had kids about a size or two up from mine and when they usually held their yard sales LOL No one ever suspected the kids wore 2nd hand clothing. Retail was mostly for xmas, and well using the mega sales at the outlet mall.......even that wasn't anywhere near retail. The girls try to do this with the grands, but Nichole is going to have to learn her new location and easy child is going to have to go more regularly if she's going to notice a pattern to the yard sales per clothing sizes ect.
 
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