Yard sale

We've been having a yard sale this weekend. It's been really hot today, so I'm inside now, keeping an eye out the window for customers. I haven't had a yard sale in years--the last time I had one I made a whopping $17. But we live in a really good spot for a yard sale now instead of in the boonies like we used to, and plus I actually had a decent amount of good stuff to sell. It's taken quite awhile to build up this amount of good stuff, because I am not a packrat. I tend to throw or give away things when I no longer need them. I hate clutter and I hate picking it up off the floor, so whenever I can get a bag full of broken toys and lost puzzle pieces together and leave it for the trash man, it gives me great joy to know that I will never have to pick up those items off the floor again, ever.

Part of the reason we had so much to sell this time is because of Erick's elbow surgery. There are tools that he has that he can no longer use without hurting his elbow. He's never going to go back to construction now--he can't. So there's no point in having all of the tools he has. I've also decided that canning produce is probably not in my future. I've gravitated towards tiny gardens that give me some fresh produce but not enough to put up. My canning jars and Squeezo, my water bath canner, even my cherry pitter are no longer anything I plan on using.

Yesterday I sold most of what we had in the first couple of hours. We did great business. We sold the old laptap that the battery went bad in, all of the canning supplies, Erick's roof jacks, some leftover retaining bricks from building our flower beds, the entire table of books, and more. We made close to $400 yesterday.

Today I've sold much less. I think I've made $4.75 so far. There just isn't that much stuff left. All of the good stuff is gone and we're down to the boring things--some little glass items, shoes, clothes, stuffed animals, etc. Most people stop, look around, and leave.

I take that back. I just sold Erick's chainsaw finally, for $130 dollars. Erick originally was asking $200 for it, and today we lowered the price to $150. I had about five people offer me $100, but he said no. I had a guy offer me $125, and so I texted Erick at work to ask him, and he said he wouldn't go any lower than $130. So it's sold, finally. Now I can probably close up shop and be done with it, because there is nothing else out there interesting. All morning it's been more like show and tell instead of a yard sale, with the stream of men coming over to play with Erick's chain saw. They'd look at it, ask if had gas in it, fire it up and make it go "Vrrrroom! Vrrrrooom!" and then they'd offer me $100 for it. Yesterday a guy thought the tag said $20 and offered me $15. <roll eyes>

We made a really good profit overall, enough to do all of the things I was wanting to do with the profit--buy socks for the kids, buy the items they needed for 4-H, and buy school supplies for the fall.