Yes, indeed, the garage sale season has begun. I was looking through our local paper this morning and there are about 30 sales this weekend, good for this town.
Before I went back to school/got pregnant/had Mr W, I would hit the sales most Saturdays during the summer. While I am not a freakishly organized person, I had my street map and different colored pens, and I would map out my route the night before so as to maximize my efforts. I would usually stop at the bagel store after a sale or two for an egg and cheese bagel, and be done around 11:00 am. As I write this, I see several things around that I've picked up from garage sales: lamps, an old school desk, TV table, clothes.
The appeal for me is getting a good deal on stuff that I could use. This doesn’t always happen of course, but that pile in the basement is pretty small. There are some sales where the people think their junk is worth a lot more than other people's junk. As in asking a dollar for a used magazine. Sometimes I'll offer less (always nicely) if I think the item isn't worth the asking price, but I usually don't haggle at all. That's not part of the fun.
The qualifier to garage sale enjoyment is time. I have to feel like I've got the time to spare on such folly. When Mr W was young and I was in grad school, I could take a couple of hours on a Saturday, but always felt like I should be doing something else, which sucked the joy out of the whole thing and I stopped going.
Thankfully, I'm at a point where I can carve out a couple of guilt-free hours AND I can take Mr W along on weekends when he's with me. Yes, I've enticed him with the possibility of cheap toys to make the deal sweeter, but he's pretty willing to do that kind of stuff.
If the weather's nice tomorrow morning, I'm hitting a few and then going in to work.
image from www.nataliedee.com
Before I went back to school/got pregnant/had Mr W, I would hit the sales most Saturdays during the summer. While I am not a freakishly organized person, I had my street map and different colored pens, and I would map out my route the night before so as to maximize my efforts. I would usually stop at the bagel store after a sale or two for an egg and cheese bagel, and be done around 11:00 am. As I write this, I see several things around that I've picked up from garage sales: lamps, an old school desk, TV table, clothes.
The appeal for me is getting a good deal on stuff that I could use. This doesn’t always happen of course, but that pile in the basement is pretty small. There are some sales where the people think their junk is worth a lot more than other people's junk. As in asking a dollar for a used magazine. Sometimes I'll offer less (always nicely) if I think the item isn't worth the asking price, but I usually don't haggle at all. That's not part of the fun.
The qualifier to garage sale enjoyment is time. I have to feel like I've got the time to spare on such folly. When Mr W was young and I was in grad school, I could take a couple of hours on a Saturday, but always felt like I should be doing something else, which sucked the joy out of the whole thing and I stopped going.
Thankfully, I'm at a point where I can carve out a couple of guilt-free hours AND I can take Mr W along on weekends when he's with me. Yes, I've enticed him with the possibility of cheap toys to make the deal sweeter, but he's pretty willing to do that kind of stuff.
If the weather's nice tomorrow morning, I'm hitting a few and then going in to work.
image from www.nataliedee.com
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Hi, sorry to make the humans do an extra step.