When the weather starts to warm up we spend every friday and saturday morning at yard sales. They have them all year round but now is the time when the neighborhood yard sales start coming. Neighborhood yard sales are the best because you can see bunches of sales in one area, saving time and gas.
My wife is going to England for a month so we've been concentrating on finding clothes for her grandkids. It doesn't take long to get a suitcase full of clothes, many still with tags on them. I happen to like Ralph Lauren polos (although I think their newest ones with that huge logo are UGLY!!), I picked up 2 new colors this weekend for $1 each. One of my wife's daughters likes to sew and do crafts so we found 4 boys size 12 RL button down shirts for 50 cents each, with a little bit of time on the sewing machine they make really cute peg bags she can sell at craft fairs. We also look for vintage handbags, haven't found anything real fancy yet but my wife did find a nice D&B for $1 about a month ago. There were a few Coach bags and another very nice D&B yesterday but it had a torn strap (not the carrying strap, that's easy to replace, the loop where a strap would be attached) so we passed on it, other than that it was perfect.
Next weekend it really starts to heat up, there are 3 major, affluent neighborhood neighborhood sales. 2 of the neighborhoods are right across from each other and they are good-sized neighborhoods so you could see close to 100 sales over the course of 2 days. I work 2nd shift and my wife is SAH so we have a big advantage of being able to spend fridays shopping while a lot of others have to wait until saturday.
If you've never looked at yard sales (car boot sales are more common in England, I'm not sure how other countries work) now is a great time to consider trying them out. Look on Craigslist and your local paper for listings. Start planning early, know by wednesday or thursday where you want to go to. If it says a sale starts at 8am be there by 8 at the latest, the pros will be there by 7. If you're not an early riser you can still get deals if you wait until closer to the end time, you just won't have as much selection. The upside is that if it's still there then the seller will practically give the stuff away. Bring plenty of dollar bills and change, the sellers aren't professional retailers and will appreciate exact change for an item. Don't hesitate to ask for a lower price, it's expected and most times you will get it, especially later in the day. It helps to know brands and prices so you can tell if a deal is really good. It also helps to realize that, if something looks brand new it's probably because the owner thought it was a great idea, used it maybe once or twice then it just sat there. Odds are the same thing will happen to you, I lost track of how many Pampered Chef funny-shaped bread tubes I could have picked up this weekend. Wine bottle openers that were designed by NASA scientists may look cool but the one sold by Avon still works the best for us. Try to stay practical or be prepared to hold your own yard sale to get rid of your excess "treasures". Happy hunting!
My wife is going to England for a month so we've been concentrating on finding clothes for her grandkids. It doesn't take long to get a suitcase full of clothes, many still with tags on them. I happen to like Ralph Lauren polos (although I think their newest ones with that huge logo are UGLY!!), I picked up 2 new colors this weekend for $1 each. One of my wife's daughters likes to sew and do crafts so we found 4 boys size 12 RL button down shirts for 50 cents each, with a little bit of time on the sewing machine they make really cute peg bags she can sell at craft fairs. We also look for vintage handbags, haven't found anything real fancy yet but my wife did find a nice D&B for $1 about a month ago. There were a few Coach bags and another very nice D&B yesterday but it had a torn strap (not the carrying strap, that's easy to replace, the loop where a strap would be attached) so we passed on it, other than that it was perfect.
Next weekend it really starts to heat up, there are 3 major, affluent neighborhood neighborhood sales. 2 of the neighborhoods are right across from each other and they are good-sized neighborhoods so you could see close to 100 sales over the course of 2 days. I work 2nd shift and my wife is SAH so we have a big advantage of being able to spend fridays shopping while a lot of others have to wait until saturday.
If you've never looked at yard sales (car boot sales are more common in England, I'm not sure how other countries work) now is a great time to consider trying them out. Look on Craigslist and your local paper for listings. Start planning early, know by wednesday or thursday where you want to go to. If it says a sale starts at 8am be there by 8 at the latest, the pros will be there by 7. If you're not an early riser you can still get deals if you wait until closer to the end time, you just won't have as much selection. The upside is that if it's still there then the seller will practically give the stuff away. Bring plenty of dollar bills and change, the sellers aren't professional retailers and will appreciate exact change for an item. Don't hesitate to ask for a lower price, it's expected and most times you will get it, especially later in the day. It helps to know brands and prices so you can tell if a deal is really good. It also helps to realize that, if something looks brand new it's probably because the owner thought it was a great idea, used it maybe once or twice then it just sat there. Odds are the same thing will happen to you, I lost track of how many Pampered Chef funny-shaped bread tubes I could have picked up this weekend. Wine bottle openers that were designed by NASA scientists may look cool but the one sold by Avon still works the best for us. Try to stay practical or be prepared to hold your own yard sale to get rid of your excess "treasures". Happy hunting!
You can definitely find some awesome deals at yard sales if you play your cards right. 
