I am anxious to visit my first garage sales of the Spring, look through other people’s stuff and get some shopping done. I usually look for children’s clothing and small househol
d items, but sometimes our hunt includes other things, such as a snowblower or particular toy wants from the kids.
Since I have all of this downtime before anyone around here has the confidence of hosting a yard sale without cold or snow, I’m going to be using that time to get my yard sale list together. The list will have any wants or needs on it, including the clothing sizes and types that I am looking for (hello girls summer dresses in size 7).
The list helps keep the focus on our purchases and prevents many spontaneous purchases. Of course making those spontaneous purchases can be part of the fun of shopping at a yard sale, so I do make some allowances.
You never know what you are going to find at yard sales. Unfortunately, this also means that you may wind up hitting a few really bad yard sales, where the selection is poor and the prices are high. Those sales are just a waste of time.
To reduce the number of bad yard sales we visit, I look for community-wide sales that feature multiple houses in higher-priced neighborhoods. This gives me a chance of shopping multiple sales at the same time, increasing my chances of finding something good. I also look for sales that have a list of specific items that match the things I want. This way, I don’t wind up with a sale selling mostly collectibles when I need those children’s clothes.