My Last Yard Sale ... Ever

Well, I made it through our yard sale yesterday but decided it will be the last one I hold. With the time spent sorting through everything to decide what to sell, packing it away, hauling it to storage, moving it from one storage unit to another, hauling it home, going through it all to decide what to keep with the RV plan scratched, pricing it all, hauling full buckets of dirt into the yard to make tables with scrap plywood, making good signs, roping off the drive so people wouldn't drive into the "orchard" area, hauling the stuff outside, setting it all up, my sweetie putting up the signs, holding the sale, packing up after the sale, and hauling the leftovers to a local charity, I think I made about 25 cents an hour. Maybe. Might have been less.

And that doesn't include the cost of an extra storage unit for a couple of months to store it nor, of course, the original cost of the stuff. That part is never included in yard sale calculations because after all one presumably got use of the stuff before deciding to pitch it to the curb. In any case, the yard sale was definitely not worth it from a financial angle.

Now, in the past - more distant than recent - I always enjoyed the actual sale. As an extrovert, being around people generally energizes me. At least it used to. I have found myself moving more and more towards the introvert side of the sociability scale in the past few years. Being around lots of people has become more draining than energizing and by the end of the sale yesterday, I was totally wiped out.

It didn't help that despite anticipating some problems and heading them off by, for instance, roping off where the driveway was so people wouldn't drive into the "orchard" area to turn around, people still managed to astound me. As indicated by my sign, many chose to park on the road. That was fine. What was surprising was that most of these people then chose to cut across an unstable slope littered with holes from the ground squirrels and lined with poky acacia bushes rather than walk an additional three feet on the road to come down the driveway. Thankfully no-one twisted an ankle or fell down! Despite bright yellow rope dividing the yard from the house (and back gate), a number of people headed for the back gate to get in to the yard. Uh, no. Controlled access and exit is important in a yard sale so the back gate was locked. People got a little huffy that they had to walk around. Geez, it was sooooo far.

Can you tell I'm losing patience with people these days?

I specifically said in my ad that we had no children's stuff for sale, hoping to head off crowds of kids. Not that there is a problem with kids; the problem is with the adults. They don't supervise the kids and we had tables full of SHARP-edged and pointy tools. I put warning signs on those tables as well as one on the entrance, yet still had to point this out to numerous parents whose children were left unsupervised.

When I price for a yard sale, I put very reasonable prices on stuff. Past sales have attracted dealers (antique, stores, etc.); these dealers haven't quibbled over cost because they know a good deal when they see one. For a dealer NOT to try to bargain you down means your prices are damn good. So...when people try to grind me on price, it irks me. I don't mind someone throwing out a quick, "Would you consider less?" Sometimes I'll budge, other times no. But to continue to grind me, or to flat-out lie, pisses me off. I'd rather donate to a charity than accept $10 for something priced at $20 when it really is worth $30 in yard sale dollars! (And then to follow up the $10 offer because "that's all I have" with "Would you take $11?" - no, don't do that.)

I did give some great discounts yesterday. Do you know who to? A neighbor. The only neighbor who bothered to show up. I'd really hoped my neighbors would see the yard sale as a great neutral way to have an excuse to come by for a quick hello and visit, yet only one showed up. She's probably got the least money of all my neighbors so I gave her some great deals. Then she called up her mother and sister who live nearby and got them to come over. I was about to close up due to the wind coming up but waited for them. They took a lot of what was left, for pretty good deals. They appreciated it and I appreciated that they took the time out of a busy day to come by.

All that's left to do now is break down the set-up outside, recycle the signs and collapsing boxes, and try to sell a couple of things on craigslist that might be of interest to someone in town. I'm also going to post my remaining yard sale supplies - posterboard, price tags, hanging price tags, and King-size Sharpies (for sign-making) - on craigslist. I'm not doing this again. Anything that doesn't sell easily on craigslist is going straight to charity.