So yesterday, my friend Jenn and I decided to indulge our latest fun hobby and hit the yard sales bright and early.  Well... early.  Maybe not quite so bright. (I admit, I all but dragged myself out of bed.  It was so worth it though!)

Fifteen yard sales and a few thwarted attempts later, we called it a day.  Man.  We were SO exhausted.  Who knew that so many people wanted to set up tables to sell old random stuff from their houses on Saturday mornings?  We just kept seeing them everywhere! 

We definitely found a few fun and unique deals and interesting items.  Jenn bought an antique bone glove-stretcher that basically looks like a hair clip for 13 cents.  I bought a brand new, still-in-the-box George Foreman-like grill for $5.  Early in the day we went to a woman who had her own scrapbooking business who was selling all kinds of high quality paper (including vellum) for a dollar an inch!  You could easily pay a dollar for two SHEETS of vellum in stores!  Between us we also got a couple games, some jewelry, and other random assorted stuff. 

At about midday, though, Jenn and I decided that we were going to give each sale a grade, since we'd had so much exposure to them.   So generally, here's the criteria/helpful guide to yard sales that we came up with:

1.  Signage.  Signage, signage, signage.  Don't assume that people know your neighborhood.  If it's way down some random street, you need to put signs up telling people that they're still going the right way!  Oh.  And along those lines, also not cool to put signs like 5-10 miles from the sale.

2. Advertising.  Use craigslist, the newspaper, above-mentioned signage... the whole point is that you want people to come, right?  But be honest.  "Huge"= at LEAST 6 folding tables (the big ones) worth of stuff.

3. Decide beforehand whether you are doing this yard sale primarily to make a few extra bucks or to get rid of crap around your house.  Don't change your mind halfway through and try to squeeze out a couple extra bucks just as people are paying.  Lame.

4. Group appeal.  Plan in advance, and get others in your neighborhood to go in with you.  It's way more effective and more appealing to potential buyers to have at least a handful of decent stuff to look through, and it's way more fun than sitting outside by yourself for 6 hours.

5. Lemonade.  A very nice touch.  Loved it.  A+.

6. Organization.  If you're not even willing to dig through your own crap, what makes you think that anyone else would want to?  And while ok, some things may have been in storage and therefore may be a little dusty... if anything is just gross (I saw mold, nasty goopy stuff, and tiny bits of leftover food stuck on pots and pans)... that's not fun.  On the other hand, when people can see things, they're way more likely to buy them!

7. Markdowns.  After a certain point, 1/2 off or "stuff a bag full for a dollar" (both approaches we saw yesterday) vastly increase your chances of getting rid of all your extra stuff.

8. Friendliness.   People are more likely to buy from someone they like than someone they don't like.  (Although you might also want to avoid the other extreme, which is hovering.)

9.  Consider the environment you're creating.  Jenn and I left one sale almost immediately because several people were smoking and it just made it pretty unpleasant.  Another woman literally left a sale running because the lady's dog had gotten outside and she was severely allergic.

10.  Timing.  Saturday mornings are best, because you'll catch people in yard-sale mode.  It'll be harder to get people to stop by on a Friday or a Sunday, because most likely they're doing something else.

Overall, though, it was a blast.  I still didn't spend much, but I came away with all kinds of goodies.  Yay for yard sales!