Leslie and I are taking part in a community garage sale next weekend and I feel sort of stupid to admit this but I'm clueless. I've sold lots of my stuff on Ebay but I've never had a garage sale. How do you price stuff? Do you leave room to come down if people want to haggle with you?

I finally decided to basically get rid of absolutely everything I don't need. I'm selling a lot of old stereo equipment, extra DVD players, even some of my extra photography equipment including a complete camera and lens set up. I still have original manuals for everything. It all works perfectly but its old. Should I check Ebay to see what similar stuff sells for or just slap a price on it that I think is fair?

I had no idea this would be so hard. We've got a complete set of bedroom furniture, wicker outdoor furniture, three strollers, two car carriers, a complete set of stoneware, lots of small appliances… its overwhelming.

What about clothing? In the past we have always donated clothing. However, the satisfaction I get from knowing I did a good deed will not put gas in my 30 gallon tank so we're selling it. We have every piece of clothing that Noah has ever worn since the time he was born. A lot of good, name brand stuff….no clue how to price it.

Any tips???

My wife and I did a yard sale the first summer we were married.  How you price things depends on your motives.  We had just gotten married - combining two households plus a bunch of new stuff from wedding gifts - so we just wanted to get rid of stuff.  We priced most things to sell, not so much to get rich.  Some friends of ours also put some stuff in the yard sale.  She was interested in making a boatload of money, he just wanted to get rid of stuff.  She overpriced, and a bunch of her stuff didn't sell.

My advice, price what you think is fair, but don't be surprised if people ask you to come down.

For the clothing, since you were going to donate it anyways (read: no $$ in your pocket) I'd keep it simple and charge the same for everything.  We just put out a table of clothes and charged the same price for each item.  All shirts were 50 cents, all jeans were $2, etc.  It was much easier than tryinh to price each item, and paying was a lot easier for the buyers because you just had to count the items.

We did the same thing for CDs.  All CDs were 50 cents, all videos were 75 cents and all video games were $3.

The key is to keep it simple.  And don't be offended when people try to offer you less than you ask.  It's part of the game.  If you stand firm, sometimes they'll buy anyway, sometimes they won't.

BTW, after our sale was over, we had made close to $1000, and still had a truckload and carload of stuff to donate to the Salvation Army.

I am a garage sale veteran, but I still don't have any really good pricing advice, but I'll give you what we typically do.

For clothing, you have to be realistic. Kids stuff are going to sell for for like .50 cent to $ 1 for a shirt or pair of pants. Unless its something special.

Your and Leslies clothes…probably in the range of $ 5 bucks for a really nice dress shirt or pair of pants and most likely the same for a dress or sweater.

People will haggle with you. Guaranteed.

You really have to look at the items and guess on what it sold for and what it is worth. People are pretty picky about price. Alot of it is really guesswork.

As for your equipment, don't be surprised if it doesnt sell. Unless you specify in the ad that you have it, most people are not looking for that kind of stuff. But you might get lucky.

Oh and make sure you have a price tag on EVERYTHING. People dont like to ask, they'll skip it if its not priced.

Have plenty of change and bags to put stuff in.

Fleck has great advice… I wouldn't compare to Ebay prices because things on there are typically a little higher priced; garage sales are notorious for cheap prices and if you ask too much you run the risk of stuff just not moving.  Sometimes people will get disgusted if your prices are too high and not even look much at everything you have. 

Thanks guys.

I have found that Leslie is wanting to price things higher than I do. That's the impression I'm getting from the eyerolling when I suggest a price and then find it stickered higher. I think what we might have to do is see how Friday goes and if stuff isn't moving maybe change things on Saturday. I REALLY don't want to have to deal with all of the leftovers.

Since its a community sale I think we'll get a lot of traffic. It's not our community but one just down the road where our friends live and we're bringing it all over there and combining with them.

If you guys don't do this, then you should have grabbed the GPS, the Paper and drove all morning checking them out.

Like David, I LIVE for this season.  I get up early on a Saturday, grab the family, run to the Quickie Mart and grab a paper….then plan my route by what they have listed.  Program them in the GPS and go.

Remember, people go to yard sales for CHEAP stuff.  DO NOT PRICE things for what they go for retail.

If you're trying to do that, then save yourself the time and put it up on Craig's List.

Like they said…clothes pretty much always for for a few bucks.  Baby clothes are around 25 to 50 cents each…or maybe a buck or two for outfits.

Furniture is hard….but that stuff, depending, will go for short money. But like Jen said, keep it simple.  People will think that it's a joke if the first thing they see is a 200 dollar chair…most will just walk away thinking that it's all going to be like that.

Try to keep things under 10 bucks…unless it's something that's very collectible, or hard to find.

Kids toys, 5-15 bucks.

I got a Little Tykes Jeep for 30 dollars….300 brand new.  I got our bike trailer for the kids, 35 bucks, used in this condition is 250 dollars EASY.

Get ready for games…when we have them…we get people that play tag team.  One pretends that they don't speak English, the other tries to get the price.  Get ready to turn people away if you really don't want to let it go for that price.  Don't get upset when people offer you WAY below what you're asking.  More so if Leslie is over pricing.

David is right, if you can, go to the grocery and put in a stack of plastic bags in your bad when you check out.  Go to the self checkout lane.

And yes, get change, LOTS of change.  Pretty much ones and fives, and at least a roll of quarters.

Try not to price things in weird increments.  Keep them to dollars and quarters only.

Do a lot of, "one for two, three for five" type of deals.

And the most important thing, HAVE FUN!

best advice I can give is.. price it for what $$ YOU would pay for it at a garge sale…..

and people will give you a lower price.. the object of garage sale'ing is getting something good for cheap!!

Like David, I LIVE for this season

Um….I am a veteran of HAVING a garage sale.

I've never been to another person's garage sale..except maybe a neighbor or two.

When the kids were young, Jodi would go this the garage sales for clothes and I would watch the girls.

LOL

I miss going to garage sales. Once I started working for the community I live in…suddenly, I saw clientele EVERYWHERE and I just can't go to a client's house and rumble through their junk. I have to fix their messes as it is.

The funniest thing that happened was when I was *already* working with a client/family and they put up a yard sale and told me that I could have the "discount price" b/c they needed smokes.

That's a story that I still tell lol

<in my best Steve Martin voice>

Ok David…well…

Exxxxccccuuuuuuuuussssseeeeeeeeee MEEeeeeee!!!

well…I did not want anyone to think I was some kind of expert at finding treasures.

I'd love to have the time…maybe now that the nest is empty, I should check it out.

I'd look for guitars and antiques.

My cousin Jane goes to local garage sales and puts the good stuff she finds on Ebay and makes a killing.

I thought about selling my old Fender Talon in the sale but man does it need some work. It's got a Floyd Rose tremolo that needs some tweaking (it is freaking hard to string) and everything got a little corroded during all the years of storage while we lived at the condo. Even the gig bag got some mold on it. I think I paid about 400 for it in 1994. Great guitar for metal, though…double humbuckers and really fast playing.

Back around 1998 to 2000 I used to hit garage sales and find stuff I knew would go good on Ebay and make huge profits but I've found that its a lot harder to do now. That ship seems to have sailed…at least the last time I tried it I barely broke even.

It's G-day!!!

I just ran home for a bit to work out since the ladies seem to have everything under control.

In the first three hours we've made a few hundred bucks I think. You guys were right…people are wanting to make offers on EVERYTHING.

I made out today..

I found a Food Dehydrator for really short money.  Now I can save money on snacks for the kids and dry out my own fruit..and make my own jerky.  WHOO-HOO!

I found a purse that Hadley really liked…and she needed a new one.  Her old one was falling apart…and she's earned a lot of money.  She's been saving it up for some Polly Pocket stuff.

And Hadley found two Disney Goblet thigns that she wanted to buy for her and her sister.

It was a good day driving around at Yard Sales.  Or Tag Sales as they call them up here.

So, are you going to update how it went…

Stories, funning things? Anything weird happen?

It went great! We sold all of our big items including all furniture and all of the electronics I took. It was unbelievably hot but we had tons of traffic.

Toward the end I was pretty much taking anything anyone offered just to get rid of the stuff. We also sold Noah's old Little Tykes playset from our back yard and we are taking the money we made from the garage sale to build a big wooden playset to replace it. We're planning on doing it Saturday.

Sweet, I love our wooden playground.  The kids do as well.

Hey Sean,

I know some time has passed, but if you still have that Talon, I'm willing to buy it…

Email me at

yootzsuk at yahoo dot com