Garage Sale Pricing

Pricing for a garage sale can be hit or miss these days so it’s always important as a buyer to keep your eyes open to score a great deal. Now that the sun is out in full force It’s that time of year again where garage sale signs are popping up all over the neighbourhoods.

I urge you to keep in mind the garage sale health Canada warning of what you can and can’t sell to the public at a garage sale when pricing your garage sale items.

A garage sale might even be on your agenda of “things to do” if you want to get organized and downsize items from inside your own home. I always say, “Out with the old and in with the New” but there’s not much in with the new in our house. If it hasn’t been used in 6 months to a year we may sell it or  give it away for free.

Pricing is one of the toughest tasks when it comes to having a garage sale, especially if you are looking to make a decent profit. We have also been to garage sales and talked to sellers who get items for free using coupons  such as shampoo, deodorant  laundry soap, body, toothpaste etc and are reselling them to make a 100% profit.

Don’t dismiss used products either because we have noticed half used products with price tags such as perfumes, test tube perfumes, body shop and bath and body works products. If it can potentially sell, someone will sell it. Store closings are another popular way to sell products for reduced prices at garage sales in mass quantities. We once went to a dollar store garage sale where products that were once $1 were now $0.10 each.

As a seller you want to make sure what you are placing on your tables for sale are adequately priced for the nature of the item. If your goal is to have a successful garage sale, meaning all the items are gone than you have to plan your garage sale in advance.

Holding a garage sale takes time and for many homeowners and renters lots of effort goes into the planning stages from pricing to advertising a garage sale online, in newspapers and going street to street, intersection to intersection and taping Yard Sale or Garage Sale signs to utility posts.

One of the worst things you can do is advertise your garage sale online and forget to put the address, time or date. Here is a garage sale ad example that is easy to market and will potentially get you traffic. Don’t be shy to add a bit of humour into your post so the buyers know you are welcoming and friendly.

What else do you think should be in this garage sale ad?

Garage Sale Ad Example

Moving Sale

Your City-Huge Garage Sale, Saturday May 19, 2013, rain or shine beginning at 7 am running until noon on My Street Crescent. It is located in the South end of the Your City. Attached please see the Google Map.

Items for sale range from baby clothes for girls  1x-6x and boys infants to gardening tools, home decor, books, large rugs, king size bedding etc. No Early Birds, or I’ll have to cage you and sell you for a negotiated price! Bake Sale being held by our children with chocolate chip cookies for sale so bring your appetite. Everyone Welcome!!

Who Goes To Garage Sales?

Garage sales are for everyone and the “poor people” stereotype that we sometimes hear is the wrong attitude to have. Remember you can’t judge a person from their clothes, their car and where they shop. You shouldn’t judge people, period.

You do get the odd snotty homeowner who looks down at you but who cares, not like you will ever see them again. I surely don’t give a toss what anyone thinks especially if they are selling me something for a good price.

People of all ages and incomes are going house to house in a mad dash to grab the good stuff before it’s gone. Home designers, home staging professionals and those that just want to hunt for items that they don’t want to buy new are coming out to join in on the action.

Even when the homeowner states “no early birds” they always seem to make their way to the sale before it opens. Why? We want in line before the next people get there and to scope out what items are on the table if even from a distance.

There are also people who pick up free stuff on the side of the road or from freecycle and resell it at garage sales. The theory is if the original homeowner didn’t want to sell it, someone else will if they can make a buck from it.

Garage Sale Pricing

In all honesty there is not a garage sale pricing guide set in stone that you can hop online and research. That guide would be the biggest consumer guide to ever land on the planet earth. It’s up to you to make your own garage sale pricing list as it will be customized to the items you have.

Price garage sale items according to your knowledge and don’t try to think you can get all or most of your money back for items because you will be sadly mistaken.

People don’t go to garage sales to pay near full price, they want bargain basement prices, so discount, discount, discount. If that means you haggle (which is almost 100% going to happen) then negotiate towards a price you are both comfortable with.

No one says you have to accept an offer but if you’re like me you sure as heck don’t want to lug all that stuff back in the house waiting for the next garage sale that you host. Negotiating doesn’t sound so bad after all now does it. What many people do is in the last hour or so of a garage sale they deeply discount items in hopes to move them faster.

It’s important to be realistic about the items you are selling because most homeowners know how the product was used or handled. You also know how old it is, how much you paid for it and how long ago you purchased it. If you are selling items that are ancient history (no longer manufactured) consider a very reasonable price as the buyer likely can’t get parts or they will be costly.

Garage Sale Price Tags

If you are looking for ideas on price tags to use you can buy stickers at your local dollar store which helps ease the pain when people ask you how much you want for an item.

You can also colour code the items with round stickers using blue for $1.00, Red for $2.00 and so on or you can write on them like in my cover photo above. You will see the investment book I bought “The Rules Of Wealth” listed for $2 written on a sticker. If you feel better holding on to a master list in case stickers tend to fly away or rub off that might also be a good idea.

The last thing you need while people are trying to hustle you for a deal on something is an item that is not priced and you are left guessing what price you had it listed at. You don’t want to lose money so be prepared.  Alternatively I’m sure you can find some free printable garage sale price tags but I’d still hit up the dollar store, less effort, time and ink when it only costs $1.00 at the shop.

How To Price Garage Sale Items

Let’s just think about this for a moment. If there really is a someone who has a master list of garage sale prices how on earth did they come up with those prices. Pricing for products differ all over the world and in some cases city to city, province to province, state to state. Some people pay taxes on items others don’t.

What one person values an item at another won’t see it’s worth, better yet they may and you might not if you aren’t on top of your game. I would think it’s near to impossible to figure out pricing for garage sale items but there are a few things you can do in order to figure out the average garage sale prices for something you might want to sell.

1. Research

What I would suggest is if you are concerned about a specific item, then do your research. Say for example, if you have a bunch of items on a table that you no longer want and you were given them as a wedding gift. You likely have no idea what they cost because you didn’t pay the bill for them.

Look them up on-line to see if you can find any pricing information on the product. You can also search Kijiji, Craigslist or EBay to see what other sellers are selling the product for. You can average your garage sale prices that way if it makes you feel more comfortable.

2. Price To Sell

From our experience with garage sales is that if you want to get rid of the crap that you have no space for or is collecting dust, price it to sell. The minute you start thinking about how much money you are losing is the time when you will be hauling all that junk back in your house.

I say junk because to most homeowners it is junk unless they are selling it to make more money to buy more stuff or they in fact need the cash to pay for the bills. We sold a load of flowers for example last year and that money is going towards our landscaping project.

Everyone knows that stores and grocery stores market products to customers in such a way that they think they are getting a better deal. Let’s see.. an example would be 2/$1.00 or 1 for $0.75, immediately you would say, hey, I’ll take 2 then, it’s cheaper. Use the same marketing as the big guys with items you have to move them out faster.

If you paid $20 for an item and it’s well used then sell it for a reasonable percentage of the original price. There are no hard, fast and steady rules when it comes to pricing,  it’s your choice. You can use the percentage rule according to ehow, meaning price garage sale items at 10% of the original cost. Again, it’s not written in stone.

3. Ask Someone

If you aren’t sure where a product has come from or you don’t know what it is or it’s age don’t be shy to ask. I’m sure there are many online forums you can take a picture of the item of and post it for feedback. It doesn’t hurt to ask because you never know what you are holding on to and if it’s worth money.

How many times have we heard about people scoring a great deal at a garage sale only to find out it was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Don’t make that mistake, especially if you are sitting on a gold mine. Worst case, don’t sell it until you know all the facts.

Garage Sale Season

We happen to love other people’s junk at garage sales and find some spectacular deals starting from the May two-four weekend right up until October when most pack it in for the season.

Here are a few items we picked up this past week …. including the cover photo!

The Rules of Wealth finance book (ya, told you I would read one this month) was $2.00 and I negotiated $1.00 which was still great considering the book price is $19.99 and it’s never even been opened before. I know I could have rented it from the library for free but consider my time and petrol to pick it up and return it and the fact that it’s not mine.

I can take all the time in the world to read this and then raffle it off for a fan to enjoy!! Well worth the $1.00 investment if you ask me. The plant stand cost us $3.00 down from $5.00 and the other thingamabob was $0.50 which we use in our kitchen to put our scrub brushes etc in on the counter.

Money Tree

A Succulent Money Tree for $0.50 for Charity

Large Wicker Basket

This wicker basket went for $10 but he originally wanted $20 until we bundled up and bought a few other items.

Vintage Bowl and Candle

This Vintage Bowl and Candle Cost us $4.00 with the candle sticker at $9.99 underneath but who knows what they paid for it originally  Still a good deal if you ask me as we couldn’t buy this for $4.00 anywhere new and that’s what it pretty much is, new.

If you are still unsure how to price items for a garage sale then don’t sell them until you know. If you won’t be able to sleep at night knowing that you sold an item that might be worth money… keep indoors. If you have a set price sometimes it’s better to sell on Kijiji, Craigslist or EBay as you might get what you want for the  item.

You can sell items any time you like at a garage sale or by using online  sites like Kijiji, Ebay, Craigslist and other forums but you can’t get the item back once it’s gone.

Don’t be afraid to have a garage sale especially if you are not sure how to price garage sale items. Just take your time, plan it out and smile because every customer likes a homeowner who is friendly and ready to conduct business. If you have kids get them involved too by making and selling baked goods at a garage sale or having a juice stand for your customers while teaching your child about money management and small profitable business ventures.

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Eating Too Much Food Grocery Game

When I started The Grocery Game Challenge last year we were stocking up on lots of food and soon realized that we were buying too much food. If you stare at the food in your house and know that it’s been there for ages, you’re likely buying too much.

If you are a regular reader of my blog you know that I quit smoking as well last year and since then we’ve learned lots about our eating habits. Different people require different foods depending on their personal circumstances.

We can easily see grocery budgets go up in expenses but with time we can also see that if we stop eating too much food we can further reduce those costs. Purchasing groceries on a budget means you will plan what you are purchasing and learn how to effectively use the foods you buy to create meals to fit your lifestyle.

Just recently with the wife going on a  low GI diet we both noticed that it wasn’t so much what we were eating as we generally eat very healthy. The problem was more so in the fact we were eating too much food. In a conversation with our friend who is also a doctor he explained that many people tend to more than their bodies need.

He also went on to say that people who go on low-fat or fat-free diets may eat too many carbohydrates that the body struggles to process. He’s been helping my wife by answering questions she may have as well as offering suggestions such as not using EVOO to cook but if we do to add a knob of butter.

He suggested using coconut oil which we already do and find the Grace Coconut oil to be the best brand so far. We picked that up at the Bulk Barn using the Spend $10 save $3.00 coupon which makes it a great deal.

He has suggested to eat portioned amounts of butter, bacon and sausage as the body processes proteins but limit the carbohydrate intake as we simply don’t need to eat that much food. Portion sizes are critical to eating the right amounts of food and if you don’t believe me you would be shocked to see what a portion size really is. You know those lean cuisine meals? Although I’d never buy TV dinners or prepared meals the nutrition label tells is like it is.

We started to find that when we would eat too much food we would feel bloated and just not an overall sense of happiness even though I would work out every day. It’s easy to get caught up in good food when it’s all around us but we have since learned we can eat it, just not too much of it.

Some other effects of eating too much food for me was acid reflux especially if I ate too much spicy food. I find that I am not taking my medication much now since we have changed how much we eat and what we eat.

If you remember our friend Bonnie who got fit on a budget and has lost a significant amount of weight by including   walking every day as well as portioning her food while making healthy food choices. Her results speak volumes for anyone who wants to lose some weight or simply stick to a healthy eating regime for life.

What are Good Foods To Eat?

Healthy Foods ranked by Nutrition

Good Question and for us it’s anything that is not processed. I found a great photo the other day on Pinterest. I found it on Tracey Bregmans Pinterest (yes the lovely Tracey from The Young and The Restless) who is also a vegetarian. It ranks te top 20 fruits and vegetables by nutrition which I thought was lovely. We certainly enjoy many of these foods in our cooking.

Eating Too Much Food

When you read the calorie count, fat count and other nutritional information and then look at what you get for all that you likely sink in your chair. You already feel like you will be starving and that you won’t even feel like you’ve eaten anything at all. The reality is that we should be consuming enough food in accordance to what our nutritionist and doctor recommends for our body type, activity level, health and Body Mass Index (BMI).

We have started to weigh and measure our food so we get a better understanding of portions and how much we should be having. I found out some of my meals contained enough food for 3 people to eat. I’m a healthy eater but I’m also very active. I can stand to eat more calories with the amount of daily heavy lifting I do and exercise but that doesn’t mean I have to eat enough to feed 3 people.

 If you are not sure where to begin, talk to your doctor which I highly recommend. The more carbs we eat the more work we have to do. We also see a spike in our insulin levels as well when we eat too many carbohydrates. Eating has been a challenge since we quit smoking but we vow to get back on track to healthy eating because eating too much food is simply not good enough for us.

What food challenges do you face in your diet?

Grocery Game Weeks for May

If you missed grocery game posts for this month just click on the links below and post your shops in the comment section.

Grocery Saving Tips

Free Money Saving Downloads just for YOU!!! Get organized with a freezer inventory, meal plan, shopping list, price comparison list and much more!!! Click, Save and Print.. It’s that easy~

What’s In MrCBB's Shopping Cart

Food Basics

  • Head of Lettuce Reduced $0.69
  • Irresistible Bio Quinoa $2.67 (first time buying or trying it)
  • Red Seedless Grapes Sale $0.88lb $1.96
  • Astro Yogurt x 2 Sale $1.88 Organic Plain and Vanilla
  • 1 Whole wheat Pita Sale $1.00
  • Premium Bananas $0.57lb $ 1.29
  • Radishes $1.50
  • 2x Seedless Cucumber Sale $0.88 each
  • 4x Glad White Garbage Bags reduced $0.99 each

Total Out Of Pocket $18.85

Yearly Grocery Budget For 2 : $2819.38
  • Total Grocery Budget for the Month: $235.00 or $78.33 week with one no-shop week per month or $58.75 for 4 weeks per month. (During the months with 5 weeks we just make it work)
  • Total Budget For May: $72.26
  • Total Coupons Used this Week : $0
  • Total Discounts this Week: $0
  • Total Gift Cards Given Used this Week: $0
  • Total Rewards Points Used: $0
  • Stockpile Budget: $20.00 Used: $0
  • Total Spent This Week:$18.85
  • Total Spent So Far for (May): ($162.74)+($42.23)=$204.97
  • Total Over/Under spend this shop: $ N/A
  • Total Over/Under spend for the month of  (May): $N/A
  • Total Left to Spend for the Month: $11.18
  • Total Coupons Used This Month :$6.00+$0+$0
  • Total to Carry Over Next Month : ($ 162.74 has been carried over to May from April 2013)
  • Total Spent To Date This Year: $206.95 (Jan)+ $160.77 (Feb) + (March)$169.62 + (April)$397.74=$935.08
  • Rendezvous Account: $65.38 (this will be used for a date night or a summer holiday)

Weekly Overview:Well it seems we only needed vegetables and fruits this week so it helped keep the budget down. We are really working on eating what we have in the house to help the overspend from last month.

Canadian Coupons Found This Week

We didn’t find any manufacturer coupons this week although we only went to one store. I’ll keep my eyes peeled though.

Frequently Asked Questions

Grocery Game Challenge RULES….. Read the rules first and if you have any questions email me or comment on this post with your question and someone will answer you as soon as possible. 

  1. Do I have to be Canadian to post my Grocery Shop? No, you don’t have to be Canadian to post your shops only to win a monthly prize. We have a few players from around the world.
  2. When does the Grocery Game Close each month? The Grocery Game Challenge Closes at Midnight of the last Sunday of the last post for the month. You can post your shops all month-long.
  3. Does Your Grocery Budget Include Health and Beauty and Laundry? Yes our Grocery Budget includes such items as shampoo, conditioner, laundry soap, fabric softener, dish soap etc. We don’t mind stockpiling items that won’t be effected by expiry dates or have long expiry dates but not so much food any more. It’s just one way to help cut your budget to save money.
  4. Where can I find Canadian CouponsHere are your latest Coupon Match-ups  of the week including Checkout 51 from 25 Newspaper Inserts around Canada compliments of Save Big Live Better that you can use to help you save money in the Grocery Game Challenge.
  5. How Do I Know what stores accept coupons? You can find all your store coupon policies here. If you are not sure it’s always best to call the store and ask.
  6. How Do I Grocery Shop?- I can tell you about grocery shopping and what we do in terms of shopping to save money and how it works for us. There are no wrong or right answers, just smart choices. Over time you will gradually learn where you should and shouldn’t go in the grocery store or at least how to say no, I’m on a budget I don’t need to buy this or that. You may also substitute items in order to stick to your budget to make it work.

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