We have been having yard sales pretty often over the course of my lifetime. The last time we had one was at Grandma Karen's house August 2012. We did it in her yard because it was visible from Vail Cut Off and she had a pretty good yard for it. Plus, most of the tables and yard sale items were in her shop. We tried not to tell Grammie about our yard sale because she would come over and buy stuff and she didn't need anything else. She did eventually find out and she did come over and buy some stuff. It was a running joke for the next couple of years.
Life between 2012 and 2019 were very busy. Dad's surprise quadruple bypass heart surgery to working my life away at a hotel for a year to losing Grammie to moving Erika back home from Nevada, helping Doug figure out his life to Mom trying to keep stuff organized with her job and all the busy stuff in between. Life just got away and it was very unfair for a while. Then stuff started to turn around. We all got pretty good jobs, we all moved a few times, everyone got healthy and all the annoying stuff that was dragging us down everyday seemed to get better with time. We didn't have time for any yard sales at this time.
Dad has been wanting to do another one so we planned on doing it the summer of 2020 and then Covid hit so it put us back another year of having it. That year instead I went through a bunch of my stuff and organized it because we weren't able to travel or go anywhere. I was stuck at home so I got a lot done while I was patiently waiting to get back into traveling. Waiting was the most difficult thing I had to do because we didn't know when we were going to be allowed to do anything again. There was no set date or schedule. I was mad and frustrated because life was put on hold.
Dad had been collecting stuff over the past few years and keeping it boxed up and dry in Grandma's shop up on the hill. Dad had also been going through Grammie and Grandpa's stuff since Grandpa moved out of his house fall of 2020. Dad said that being in the house and going through their stuff is one of the most hardest things he's ever had to do. It is very depressing at times but there are a lot of memories packed in that house. He hates getting rid of things his Mom collected and loved over the years. A lot of it is junk without a purpose but some of it is special and holds memories to different people. I was able to go in there a few times and grab some stuff that meant something to me. I now have some of it displayed in my house because it makes me smile.
We planned on having it one of the last weekends in June and we were going to do it at my house because I am in town, more people would come by and check it out, my front yard is big and flat and I have a way to store some of it in the side yard behind the fence. Dad started bringing stuff over early that week and we placed it in the side yard and stuck a tarp over it. We then saw the weather was going to be really hot and decided to postpone it because no one is going to come to a yard sale when it is over 100 degrees outside. It would have been miserable.
We ended up choosing August because it wasn't busy that weekend and I decided to take that Friday off so I didn't have to work and I could help out. We talked Grandma into coming so we could get her out of the house for a little bit. Plus, she had some stuff in the yards sale so she could make a little bit of money. August as a whole, was super busy for me. I was getting really nervous about my trip to Peru in early September. I really thought the Delta variant was going to ruin my trip and it would get canceled again because of stupid people. They won't get the vaccination and they don't want to wear masks when they are around a lot of people. People are keeping Covid around and I don't understand why.
Dad brought more stuff over the weekend before up until the day of so we had plenty of stuff to sell. We brought over the signs on Sunday. Monday we didn't do a whole lot and Tuesday I told him I was going to be busy so we reconvened on Wednesday. After work on Wednesday, Dad came over and we put the tables together which took a while and then put the white butcher paper on top of it to make it look uniform. I had Ben bring home KFC for dinner and we all took a dinner break and then went back out. When we were done, it pretty much took up all the evening and Dad went home and I started to get ready for the next day.
Thursday after work, Dad came over again and we spent time putting the stuff on the tables and pricing them. I spent some time posting our yard sale to Craigslist and on Facebook Market Place. I wanted to make sure we had a bunch of people come buy our stuff. The more exposure the better. We did as much as we could so we didn't have to work as hard the next day when we opened at 9 a.m. I told Grandma if she wanted something to do for a couple days that she could come and sit with us. She said she would come by around 8:30 both days. Our neighbor Rhonda, gave us a couple more tables and a Cougar pop up just in case it rained or was really hot.
I got up around 8 a.m. on Friday and went outside to start getting ready. I took some more stuff out and put it on the tables. Both Dad and Grandma showed up around 8:30 and Dad picked up the signs and put them out on the highway so people knew where to go. He was gone for about 10 minutes while Grandma and I set up the two tables Rhonda let us borrow with clothes. Let the junk buying commence!
It was fairly busy in the morning and kinda tapered off around lunchtime. Then it got super busy again for a couple hours and then got slow around 4, which was good because we were done sitting around and wanted to cover up stuff for the next day. I made sure to bring the money box into the house to count money. I had a couple of people interested in the Escape but no one wanted to pay for how much I had it listed. I wanted to make at least some money off of it and not just give it away for practically nothing. Erika came over and brought more stuff for the tables and she stayed for a couple of hours. Mom came over after work and hung out for about an hour or so.
The next morning we did the same thing. Dad and Grandma came over around 8:30ish, Dad put the signs out and Grandma helped me put the clothes out again. It had rained over night and everything was wet. It sucked trying to get some of the stuff wiped up. I wish we were able to put tarps over everything but we couldn't. No one was going to want the stuff. Lame. I tried drying some of the stuff off with towels but some of the items looked bad, especially some of the books. As the day wore on and it got warmer, some of the stuff dried off.
Ben came out and took his tires out and his Ninja motorcycle just to see if someone was interested in it. We had a few people look at it but no one wanted to take them home. Ben went with a guy who was interested in the Escape and took it for a test drive but when they came back he said he would have to think about it. Later on an older gentleman came by and pondered the Escape pretty hard. I gave him some information with my phone number on it just in case he changed his mind. He thanked me for the information and paid us for the stuff he bought. It was a little slow that afternoon but picked up just before it was time to close up. I was done sitting in the yard and was happy to start closing up and putting stuff away. I was curious on how much we made because it didn't seem like we sold all that much.
I got everything counted and separated it out for everyone who made money. We made $348.16 total for both days. I couldn't believe the amount because it didn't seem like we sold that much stuff. I had to count it twice because I thought I counted wrong. Nope, that was correct. We must have sold a bunch of junk. I distributed money to those who sold stuff. I made about $20 but Dad gave me some more for hosting the yard sale.
The next day we took stuff down and put it back into the side yard until we could get to it. We covered it with a tarp. We took down the tables and put them back into the trailer. Dad had to wait a few days to see if his friend in Tumwater wanted to borrow them. The yellow trailer sat in my yard for about a week. Dad took it home the next weekend. Turns out Dad's friend never got back to him about their yard sale or using the tables so Doug helped Dad unload them back at Grandma's house where we kept most of our yard sale stuff.
I kept some stuff that I thought I could sell on OfferUp. I did sell one item and hoping that my other stuff would sell at some point. We will see.
**Dad came over on 9/25 to load up the stuff we've been keeping in the side yard since June. It is now inside the trailer, the tarps are all folded and it is now sitting in Grammie and Grandpa's yard until we can distribute it accordingly.**
Next Adventure: Farewell Red Escape
No comments:
Post a Comment