Reply #10: I only made about $30 at my yard sale a couple of weeks ago [View All]

but I didn't mind because I'm always broke before I get my SS check, and it was pretty good for the little bit of stuff I was able to get together. I actually organized the sale for my neighbor, who has been refinishing furniture and selling it at her yard sales for a while now. My location is a lot better than hers, though--I'm on a corner lot on a busy street.

She made about $500, but kept complaining that she still didn't have enough to pay her bills. Maybe she didn't want to make me feel bad because I made so little? It's weird because I was quite happy with the little bit I did make. It was a really encouraging experience, because I knew that if I had more stuff I would have sold more. Most of what I made was on my tomato and rosemary plants, and plants are definitely a renewable resource!

Also, for the past two weeks I've been scavenging at a house that has been foreclosed, but neither the house nor the yard nor the garage apartment on the property have been secured. The people who lived there were pack rats, and even though they did a lot of yard saling themselves before the foreclosure, there is still stuff strewn all over the yard. I've been picking through the dishes and pots and the fabric and sewing stuff--TONS of it! If you sew or do any kind of crafts, I don't need to explain what a stash is. So that's what I've been doing the past couple of weeks--going through somebody's fabric stash in preparation for my next yard sale.

It's a lot of work because what didn't get strewn all over the yard by other scavengers was stored very badly for a long time. A lot of the fabric and lace has dirt and mildew stains on it. So I've been doing a lot of pre-soaking and scrubbing in the hopes of rescuing as much of it as possible. If I can do that, there is enough stuff to practically open a crafts store in my front yard!