Yard Sale, Second Edition

Once more, with gusto

Lots of customers at 8:00 a.m.

Keely and I had a yard sale today -- an encore performance of last year's event.

This time, we advertised the sale in the newspaper as well as posting lots of signs. I think the $14 ad was worth it, even though Keely has an excellent location that attracts drive-by customers. We made a little more money this year than we did last year, even with fewer "big ticket" items for sale. Quarters and one-dollar bills, in quantity, can amount to a surprising sum.

Customers began arriving at about 6:30 a.m., even though we had advertised that we'd be open at 7:00 a.m. Between that time and 11:00 a.m., we were very busy. We had a dozen shoppers at once, several times, and we almost always had at least one or two customers.

In the crowd, there were a few familiar faces. Some were friends making a planned visit to our sale, and some were friends who just happened by and were surprised to see whose sale they were attending.

The hot weather made us think about closing early, but we resisted temptation and stayed open until 3:30 p.m. During the last three hours, we made an additional $50, despite marking down many items to half-price or even cheaper. There were two benefits -- the extra sales, of course, and also, the fact that other people packed our stuff away, so we didn't have to cope with it.

When we closed, we saved out a few items and took everything else to Goodwill. It wasn't a total "clean sweep", but very close to it.

About 2:00 p.m., with much less merchandise!