My Garage Sale Experience

My Garage Sale Tips

1. Prepare early. Two weeks before the sale, I went through every cabinet in our apartment looking for stuff I can sell. I then sorted the items and carefully packed them in boxes. Come Sunday morning, the day of the garage sale, I was relaxed and in a happy mood.

That's Jody's table being swarmed by shoppers. She was selling her kid's Crocs for only P150.







2. Let go. True to my hoarder genes, I started reclaiming stuff from the box a few days before the sale. I'm still stuck with this big server plate shaped like a fish. It comes with 6 matching fishy mini-plates.











Letting go does not end with the firm decision to sell the item. It extends to pricing. I was selling my tops (blouses, button-down shirts, t-shirts) for P25/$0.50 each. I used to just give away my clothes so I had no problem selling them at a very low price. However, when one woman started to show interest in my K & Company blouse, I started having second thoughts about selling it. I wore that blouse only once, during my husband's birthday. Why was I selling it?!?!? My heart was pounding! I wanted to snatch it out of her hands. I was tempted to answer P500/$10 (I was selling my Crockpot for P400/$8.00) when she asked for the price. Aaargh! In the end, she got it for P25 but she had to stay and listen to the history of the blouse and a reminder to love and cherish it for the rest of her life.

3. Think out of the box. The sale started at 10 AM. By 11 AM, most of my stuff were already sold. I was getting bored and so I decided to sell the remaining items in bulk -- P200/$4 for one box of clothes and P100/$2 for one box of magazines. 15 minutes later, still no takers.

A woman selling crabs approached my table. Since I haven't sold a thing in the past 15 minutes (an eternity on a hot and humid day), I was in no mood to buy anything. Good thing Mrs. Crabs was in the mood to shop. She was interested in my shoe racks and offered to pay for it in crabs. SOLD! I offered to give her the rest of my inventory in exchange for another bag of crabs. SOLD! She left with 7 shoe racks and a box of clothes (she didn't want the magazines) and I with around 3 kilos of crabs. Everybody happy.

I remembered to take pictures of the crabs only after we finished eating.







I was back home by 11:40 AM.

Note: I joined the garage sale Ting organized in Mabini Hall, Quezon Memorial Circle. Thanks, Ting and Cesca!