Garage Sale Survival Guide - Part 1

Posted by Nostalgiaholic | on July 24, 2008

Part One of the Nostalgiaholic Garage Sale Survival Guide - The Hunt for the perfect sale, the virtues of getting up early, planning ahead, and forgetting your wallet. Plus, how to identify members of the Yard Sale sub-culture.

Sunday mornings are wonderful things. Morning Coffe and newspaper

No work for the working, no school for the schooling, maybe some church for the errr…. churching, but for the most part it’s all pretty laid back. A time to enjoy your coffee a little longer, sit out on the patio if it’s a sunny day and browse through your local newspaper. Now flip to the local advert section and grab a big ‘honkin red pen for highlighting, ’cause Sunday mornings are also the perfect time to take part in that most nostalgic of summer rituals, the garage sale… Just remember to put pants on before you leave the house.

Whatever you may call ‘em ; yard sale, garage sale, rummage sale, junk swap, it’s all part of the same monetary-based social phenomena. It’s truly amazing. When people unfold a couple ‘o ping-pong tables full of junk in their driveway and staple cardboard signs with arrows on ‘em around the neighborhood… we will come… oh yes, we will come to rifle through their used and abused bits of personal history, and maybe score a little nostalgia for ourselves.

The Hunt

One way to enjoy this celebration of summer is to just drive around in the morning looking for signs and hoping you get lucky. Of course, if you’re serious about rocking the garage sale scene like a pro (more on them in a bit), the best way to score a juicy deal or two is to plan ahead of time.

Survival Tip #1 - Newspapers Are Your Wingman

In most cases, sellers advertise a sale the day, or the week before a major yard sale. The biggest and the best sales (ie. group sales, charity sales, and property liquidations) usually have big ads detailing what you can expect to see out on the tables, which will help you sort out what to hit, and what to avoid. By selecting in advance what sales you want to haunt you can make the most of your morning and even plan out a route through your town to save some gas.

Yard Sale Sign

It really doesn’t take that long to scan the newspaper ads, do it the day before and get back to watching the Saturday afternoon Jaws movie marathon… And now that you’ve got a plan a day in advance, you can relax and prepare for Sunday morning with the coiled posture of a deadly thrift store rattlesnake (a rare variety of viper, noted for it’s love of weakened prices). Just remember to set your alarm, ’cause you want to be up early for the hunt.

Survival Tip #2 - Sleep Is For The Weak

The early bird gets the 1970s patio set, it’s absolutely true! If you’re up at 8:00am you’ll have enough time to leisurely sip coffee and watch the news before you hit the streets. Most Garage sales have a narrow window of existence between 8:00am - 3:00pm (on average), but by noon all the good stuff will be gone, SO GET OUT THERE !!!

Don’t worry if you haven’t had time to get pretty, or your socks don’t match, everyone you’ll see during this critical morning hunt is gonna look the same way. It’s part of the ritual to wander around town with a coffee to-go and your hair all over the place… It’s the eye of the tiger so to speak, the way you’ll identify other professional garage sale stalkers.

The Culture

As you head out into the dewy morning, and along the route you’ve planned in advance you’re going to notice lines of cars parked along the road as you near the first sale. Don’t worry, you are never going to be the first one there, someone out there is always a wee bit more obsessed than you. These people are fellow yard sale addicts, they are your kin, and in some cases, your competition.

Morning Yard Sale The call of cut-rate used clothing and paperback books draws many types of people out on a Sunday morning. Some are just out for a stroll or a drive (morning people… ugh), some are looking for nostalgia, or additions to their collections, and some are a more determined breed of “all or nothing” junk traffickers. Everyone you meet at yard sales have interesting personalities, even the sellers. Something about these red-eyed, unshaven Sunday mornings can turn even the most mild-mannered suburbanite into a howling street vendor from Calcutta.

You can easily identify the castes of people who frequent yard sales while simultaneously sorting through shoeboxes full of vintage buttons. I like to separate them into four groups based on key habits:

The Strollers : Morning people can be so weird. Just out for a walk with their dog or partner, Strollers really just happen upon yard sales by chance (sometimes without any money at all). Casually glancing around and rarely touching anything, Strollers present little to no threat to more experienced yard sale hunters.

The Browsers : One step up from Strollers, Browsers arrive as a family unit and tend to scrounge just about everything at a yard sale without actually buying anything. Tending to differ to a patriarch or matriarch for advice on purchases, the lower level Browsers just run around, touch stuff and make noise. Watch the alphas though, they typically have a pretty good head for haggling and may snatch up a potential deal before you can. They prefer to nab furniture, appliances and clothing.

The Scroungers : Also known as “Collectors”, this strata of yard sale lover is all about those big cardboard boxes fulla records, action figures, or comic books tucked underneath the tables. Scroungers have very selective and erratic tastes and will typically buy only to increase a personal cache of certain items. They do tend to haggle a lot, and enjoy knowing what items true value is (even if it’s only in their mind). Scroungers sometimes hunt in packs, during which they communicate through an almost constant stream of sarcastic pop culture criticisms (ie. “Gawd, look at this gem from a dead era !!! How did people think shag was hip ? A fan ? Not really, I only listen to their early stuff.” etc.)

The Pros : The kings and queens of the yard sale jungle are the professionals, identifiable by their cold stares, hard haggling techniques, and abillity to rifle entire boxes of records with one hand. Some run consignment stores, some re-sell on eBay, and some just really, really like mountains of junk. Whatever the reason, pros come to yard sales early, grab anything they can get their hands on, get the very best price they can and leave as fast as their Chrysler LeBarons can take them. Of course, not all pros are heartless haggle machines, some make the rounds because they love the culture. Check out the brilliant Yard Sale Bloodbath Blog for a loving pro’-eye-view of all things with a price tag.

The yard sale culture is out there waiting for you! But before you lock up the car and saunter on over to your first garage of the day, there’s one thing you should do… you’ll thank me later.

Survival Tip #3 - Forget Your Wallet Pt. 1

Leave your wallet in the car… I’m completely serious. Take out a couple ‘o bills, shove them in your back pocket and just leave the rest. No-one at a yard sale is gonna take plastic, don’t worry. This simple act will allow you a couple of important psychological defenses against the onslaught of serious yard sale haggling. The first of which is the limit that you just put on your spending for this particular sale. Ten bucks will get you a ton of swag, and help you sort out what is just impulse buying. The other benefits of ditching your wallet will be discussed later…

Continue on to Garage Sale Survival Guide - Part 2

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