Cold Hard Cash, Baby!

I hate doing yard sales.  

I love to GO to them...I just hate having my own.  It seems like it takes weeks to sort through all the stuff in our house while trying to find things to sell.  It takes even longer to price every single blasted little plastic toy.  And then....joy upon joy...I get to sit outside all morning while my kids wail, "NOOOO you can't sell THAAATTT!", I sweat in the sun, and I barely make enough to cover the ad I put in the paper.

So we've decided to just drop our used and unwanted goods at our church thrift store.  They can sell it, the money goes to a good cause, and most importantly...I don't have to do a yard sale.

But then there are days like today.

I've been sorting and cleaning and organizing the past few weeks.  Not to prepare for a sale, just to get our home in order.  I piled the stuff we've outgrown into plastic totes and stacked them in our bedroom until I was done.  The plan was to drop everything at the thrift store again.

But BOY, did that stuff pile up fast!  And it was really NICE stuff.  Clean.  In great shape.  Still useful...to somebody.

I found myself thinking a thought that makes my husband cringe with agony....

Yard Sale

I was determined to keep it simple.  

I didn't place an ad in the paper ($15, I don't think so!).  Instead, I placed a free ad on Craig's List.  

I didn't have a sale in the middle of the summer when everyone else is having their sales...the amount of traffic I saw was unbelievable! (thank you Lord, for clear skies and a nice day)

I didn't buy balloons filled with helium.  Luke found the sale signs from a couple of years ago, and we stuck 'em on the corner sans balloons.

I didn't mark each item.  I put everything out on tables and blankets in the driveway and wrote general prices for the whole table or blanket instead.  It took me no longer than 20 minutes to display and price everything.

I didn't commit to a 2 day sale (Friday-Saturday sales are popular here).  Instead, my goal was to get rid of everything NOW.  It was made especially simple because my older two hoarders kids were in school.

And...drumroll please...I had the most profitable yard sale of my life!  (and the most fun yard sale thanks to good friends keeping me company and my wonderful man bringing me a Big Mac for lunch).  

It's a revolutionary thing....yard sales don't have to be painful!  And most importantly, we're a couple of hundred dollars closer to our goal of being debt free.  

:-)

(That's me, smiling)