I had a pretty fun Saturday morning. It was kind of rainy again though, so some of the community sales that I thought may be bigger did not have as good a turn out.
One of the best yard sale tips I have is to start early in the morning (I know I hate that too, I like to sleep in but with two early risers in my home that doesn’t happen much anymore.) I look online the night before and take pictures on my phone of the ads of the yard sales I want to check out. I also check the addresses on google maps so I have an idea of which ones are closest and where I want to go to first and in which order. After you have been yard-saling for a while you will get to know your area better and which areas typically don’t have the best yard sales. For example I have gone to yard sales in retirement communities and there’s nothing I really need there. I find better deals in areas with more families because I am looking for more kids items.
Here are a couple of my finds this week. Two gumball machines and a another water dispenser. It’s kind of funny that I bought one last week because I haven’t seen them before. This one was also $1 and I liked the beehive shape. The gumball machines were $5 and $3. I bought them because I knew right away I could flip them. I sold them the same day for $40.
Now comes the next question I’m sure you have, how do you know what you can flip?
Here’s my advice. Stick with what you know. I flip a lot children’s/baby items, because I have kids right now and so I know their price range. So when I see kid’s items and know they are a good deal I will buy them and resell them. I also follow quite a few yard sale sites on Facebook and as I browse I will take mental notes of what items are selling for so when I see things at yard sales I know if they are good to flip. In the case of the bubble gum machines I had seen those sell fast before and ironically about 20 minutes before I posted mine someone sold another one in a few minutes.
Some other things I saw, some cool old vintage windows that were $20, another Ikea shelf, a bench and a cute little tikes car.
I was wondering if you were flipping items. I’m a buyer on Ebay and such, but I’ve never sold anything (Hubs has done a few things on KSL). I’m too lazy to sell, we generally just donate to DI rather than having a garage sale either. I bet we could have sold a bunch if we’d taken the time and effort.
We had a standing gumball machine for a long time … probably gave it to DI at some point 😉
Jen you should try selling sometime! All the work is really in gathering stuff and if you already are going to make a DI run might as well make a few extra dollars 🙂 KSL is nice since it’s local so no hassle with shipping.
I love finding treasures at garage sales. The water dispenser for $1 is awesome! I love the garage sale tips.