A Guide to Increasing Relocation Budget – How to Have a Successful Garage Sale
Posted in How-to,Moving Tips & Tricks,Planning the Move on August 24, 2022
Relocations can prove to be quite expensive, especially when we’re preparing for moving across the country. But getting rid of all the excess stuff can help you lower the costs, and selling some of it can even contribute to the budget. Learning how to have a successful garage sale can help you make quite a bit.
When you plan to relocate, one of the wisest things to do is take notes on how to prepare for a garage sale. Successful sales include several steps, and the key to them lies in good organization and planning. While it’s essential to pick a date and ensure it’s on a weekend, it’s also important to categorize the objects you plan to sell, price them clearly, and later advertising your sales.
Why It’s Important to Know How to Have a Successful Garage Sale Before Cross-Country Moving
So, you’re about to move. We all know the feeling – it’s got you both excited and weary. Well, why wouldn’t it? On the one hand, there’s so much ahead of you – a prospect of a new job, thrilling new surroundings, and some new friends. It all makes your heart flutter. But on the other, there are just too many things to worry about, like who to notify that you’re leaving, packing, and how much cross-country movers cost. And an abundance of stuff that will tire you out.
The costs of cross-country moving services and all the expenses that you’ll have while you prepare for the move are high on the list of things that bring us stress and anxiety. But, there are certain moving hacks that can help you add some funds to the relocation budget, and those include yard sales.
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Earn Some Money and Lower the Costs of Your Move
In order to manage moving cross country like a boss, you’ll need some smart moving tips. They can help you pack dishes almost as good as professionals do, without fear that your packed fragile items will get messed up during the trip. But good tips can also help with saving money and lowering costs, which can be exorbitant. And one of the most important pieces of advice you can get is to sell some of your possessions.
This helps in two ways. While selling items you don’t need will add to the budget you’ve set for different services (such as packing services or perhaps moving insurance,) you’ll also have fewer things to transport. And since long-distance movers usually form the price on the number of possessions they are handling (among other stuff,) downsizing for a move will help you lower it. So, if you’re looking for ways to save money to move, yard sales are your answer. Now, you just need some good tips for a successful garage sale, and you’re good to go.
Earning money from your sales will help you move without hassle
Start by Picking a Date
If you plan to move in the summer, you are among the majority of people that relocate. This is the most popular time of the year to change your location because the weather is nice, the kids are out of school, and you’ll get settled before the fall knocks on your door. Summer is many things – a great time to plan a new life and even greater to host yard sales. But even if you’re relocating off-season, if you plan it right, you will be successful.
Begin by picking the right date when you’re free of other errands. First of all, ensure you’re not doing everything last-minute. Secondly, ensure it’s on a Saturday, as it has proved to be the most popular day to host or visit flea markets. And thirdly, plan to start as early as 7 am, so you can set up everything and have the whole day ahead of you.
Plan to Host It for a Whole Weekend
If you want some additional garage sale tips that will help you make the most of your sales, it’s to try and host it for a whole weekend. This can give you more time to get rid of as much of your possessions as possible and for people to hear about the sales so they can come to visit. So, while you’re making an effort to organize your move, the best way to host a market with success is to reserve one weekend for it in your schedule.
Remember to write down the date in your schedule
Decluttering Goes Hand in Hand With Sales
Once you’ve planned the date, written it in your calendar, and placed it in your moving binder, you can carry out other preparations. In order to find the items worth selling, you should rummage through your home and set aside the stuff you believe it’s not worthy of taking with you. You can do this room by room or make any other strategy that can help you do it systematically. Decluttering your house is among the things you may forget to do when you move, but it can immensely help you in lowering the costs.
First, Decide What to Get Rid of and What Should You Not Sell at a Garage Sale
In order to move fast through your possessions, it’s best to sort out what to get rid of first. It’s the easiest category to make, and it should contain all the objects that are beyond use. Anything that has been sitting for ages in some corner, broken and unrepaired, should go into the garbage bin. The best places to start your purge are the attic, the garage, and the tool shed, as we all tend to stuff everything we want out of site in these areas. You can also contact your long-distance moving company and find out which items movers won’t move so that you can get rid of those, too.
Leave Some Stuff for Donations
Once you’ve filled your garbage bags with all the possessions that were bound to end up in the trash anyway, it’s the right moment to sort out what’s left. Decide what to keep and sort the rest in one room. You can then double-check those discarded things and see if you can donate anything. You can donate various stuff:
- You can pack some kitchen items, dried foods, and even appliances to give to a donor kitchen or other charity place.
- Many charities look for some sort of entertainment for their users, so it’s a great idea to pack some books you don’t plan to take with you and donate them.
- If you have kids, you can ask them to help and pack all the toys they don’t play with anymore.
- Personal items such as blankets, linen, toiletries, and shoes are all great for donations. Also, ensure you pack some clothes, too.
Search for a charity nearby and give them a call to agree on the pickup time. There’s a high probability that there’s a Salvation Army or Goodwill location somewhere in your vicinity.
As the Date Draws Near, It’s Time to Plan the Hell Out of It
So, by now, you have the majority of stuff sorted, and it’s the right time to create a foolproof plan. A good garage sale organization will include a well-planned date and at least a whole day for the sales to be successful. But a great organization will include some additional hacks that will help you achieve fantastic results and earn as much as possible.
Prepare the Pricing Tags
When we look at the statistics regarding yard sales, we can see that almost 80% of people frequenting them mark clear and visible pricing as one of the key factors that will keep them interested. So, in order to be ready for your big weekend, you should print out enough pricing tags, cut them and write down the prices.
Stick to Fair Pricing
Additionally, while you’re preparing your tags, you should think about pricing. Selling objects at a fair price will help you clear out most of the stuff you are planning to get rid of. A fair price shouldn’t be formed based on how much you love an item or how much you originally spent on it. It’s worth only what someone else would pay for it. You can go as low as 50 cents to a dollar, and that way, your visitors may easily decide to buy bulks of different objects.
Write Short Descriptions
If it’s not clear at first glance what an item is for, ensure you write a short description that you’ll place next to it. This is especially true for some kitchen utensils. You can write descriptions that are witty, funny, or simply informative, and it can help to sell the item. If you’re wondering, “What sells best at a garage sale?” – it’s the objects that are well placed, clearly priced, and that draw attention. And no better way to draw someone’s attention than by making an item stand out with a description right next to it.
Bulk Items Into Categories
While you’re sorting through the things you plan to put on a display, you should sort them into categories and price them similarly. For instance, you can bulk various toiletries and other bathroom objects and add the same prices. It will help avoid awkward situations where people seek you out to ask you about pricing, and the sales can go as smoothly as possible. Pricing objects in a group is one of the best garage sale ideas that actually work.
Before You Display Anything, Ensure All the Items Are Clean
If you’re still wondering, “How do I make a good profit from a garage sale?” – the next step is to ensure all the objects you are about to put on display are clean and in good shape. No one wants to buy dirty or damaged stuff, and cleaning each item is the best way to check them once again. Clothes should be washed and dried, so they smell fresh, and other objects should be cleaned with warm water and soap solution. If a customer sees one item that is dirty-looking, they are going to assume it’s the case with everything.
Ensure each item is thoroughly cleaned before you display it
How Do I Succeed in a Garage Sale? Advertise With Signs and Posts
Advertising is important in order to earn as much cash as possible, and earn cash. This is easy to understand – if people don’t know about your sales day, they won’t come and make purchases. That is why it’s important to put up signs everywhere near your home, with clear directions so that anyone can find them easily. If your kids like crafting, you can include them and let them design the signs.
Social media networks are also excellent ways to pass the word around. You can also take some photos of nicely arranged objects you plan to sell so your post has better reach and visibility. Also, if you require some more advice, you can also see additional tips in the following video.
Get Rid of as Much as You Can, and Add Cash to the Relocation Budget
Decluttering, donating, and hosting a market is not important only when we move. Although you can thin your household inventory list and thus lower the price of your move significantly, you should also consider doing these steps after your move, too. Not only does it relieve us of about 40% of the housework, but it can help us save money. So, regularly purging your house of stuff you don’t need is a healthy habit and helps us live with less stress.
