Pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters

Yesterday and today, we had the long awaited yard sale. I can't tell you how glad I am that it's over. But, then again, if you've ever had one, you know. The clutter factor is not as low as it could be in the house, but I gained an entire closet and a bit of cash. Can't complain about that.

When pricing everything, I wanted to make sure it would move. I made the pact with myself that anything I did not sell would be donated. I swore it would be done before sundown tonight. So, I kept prices quite low. All baby and little boy clothes were fifty cents each. Cloth diapers were a nickel. Most toys were fifty cents, a quarter, or a dollar.

We had very few big ticket items. I sold two car seats for $20 each, one for $10, the baby swing for $20 and two barely working lawn mowers for $10 each. That's only $90. We ended up making $340.

There are some things I wished I had priced a little higher. Before we could even get open (dang car port! If I had a garage, I could've ignored the sharks that got here just after 7am on Friday) the dealers were all over us. I know that most of the people here before 8am have booths at the local flea market. The first lady jumped on the entire box of shoes and took it out on the lawn to check them out. They were all in great shape and went from first booties to the pair of Cars light up shoes we replaced just a couple of weeks ago. She didn't even attempt to haggle. Hmm, must have been a great deal.

I figured I had the car seats right when the dealers wanted to get me to take $10 for them. I suspected that it meant that they could sell them for $20 at the flea market. One lady was very, very mean about it. She thought she could intimidate me! Right on my own front lawn? Yeah, right. She finally backed down. I think she realized she was only amusing me.

The only other mean haggler we had was a woman who wanted to haggle over a fifty cent pair of short overalls from Gymboree. Um, hey lady, if you don't want them, don't buy them. I kept thinking I could get a lot more at Once Upon a Child or even eBay, but that wasn't all the yard sale was about.

This yard sale was also about lightening the load and letting go. Poor Hoot learned that when he peeked out the front window to see an old dinosaur toy being carried away. Now, he hasn't played with that dinosaur in ages, but he knew it was his. Oh, what a fit. DH kept him away from the house most of Friday.

For the longest time, we couldn't decide if we wanted to sell the Cozy Coupe play car or the Little Tikes table and chairs. Poor Hoot, he loves the Cozy Coupe, but he's so tall and his legs are so long, he never gets inside anymore. At 3 1/2, he's mentally into the car, he's just too big for the car! The table and chairs set he has never, ever sat at. He only used them to climb things and they kept going to "toy jail" because he began to stack the chair on the table to reach the ceiling fan chain. We decided to put the table set out, but kept the Cozy Coupe in the house. Alas, we didn't sell the table and chairs today. But, we had lousy weather today as we woke up to a wet, cold morning. I broke my oath of donating in both of these cases. I figure I can put them on Craig's List later.

A lot of shoppers bought bags and bags full of clothes. It was totally awesome. I had a big box of clothes in each size from newborn to 3T. (Great garage sale tip here: We had so many people rave that it was sorted by sizes!) When we packed up the clothes to donate, I only had 3 boxes left. As we were closing up, I packed a half of a box full of the best stuff and dropped it off at Once Upon a Child. I'll go back tomorrow to see what I get from them.

My biggest excitement was over how quickly those pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters added up! I made $250 on things priced a dollar or lower. Wow. It re-affirmed to me that it all adds up. Making money or spending money: Every single penny counts.

On the homefront:
Can I go back to work yet? I need a break from my vacation.