Garage Sale!!!!!

Bonnie made the last post so I figure that now it is my turn. Even though the garage sale actually happened several weeks ago I decided that I had to post on it. We sat down with Bonnie parents towards that end of May and came to the conclusion that we must have a joint garage sale and we must have it soon. So we set the date for June 13 and 14 and began the process of going through all of our possessions.

So for Bonnie and I this process took about, I don’t know, 3 or 4 hours one afternoon a couple days before the sale. For Jerre and Mike (Bonnie’s parents) this was a completely different story. I would conservatively estimate that it took them close to 30 to 40 hours of work to go through their house. Now to be fair they have been living there for 15 years and still had boxes they had not unpacked. (Dog head not for sale.)

To make a long story short between Bonnie and I liquidating a ton of our possessions and the unpackratting of Jerre and Mike’s house we had one heck of a garage sale. As many of you know I am a big fan of garage sales. I go to them regularly and shop mainly for books to stock my now steadily declining book business (so sad). Well, as much as I like going to sales I think that working them is like 10 times better.

It was so fun to haggle with people. Friday morning I had a guy offer to buy my old Nintendo and Atari for $30 combined when I was asking $20 for each. I said, “Well, seeing that it is still 7AM on Friday I’m going to stick to $20 each.” His response was to walk away. Nobody even looked at them the rest of the day. At this point I’m second guessing myself. Saturday rolls around and first thing a couple of kids come and buy them each for $20. Take that Mr. Walkaway!

It was also a lot of fun to watch what people bought. Some people buy the most random stuff. Like a garage door opener. Maybe the dude thought it still worked and he could come back by later… Or a cell phone that was probably 10 years old. I don’t even know if it can be activated anymore… How about a half working toaster oven? This was a wedding gift that Bonnie and I received that crapped out after a year or so. The bottom heating element still worked but not the top one. The guy was foreign. I tried to explain but I’m not sure he understood.

All in all it was a great experience. When everything was said and done we ended up making over $1000 between us all. Bonnie and I have used our cut to eat out a lot and take vacations. I hope there are garage sales in Korea…