Garage Sale...in this economy, more and more people are shopping at them

I am going to have one huge garage sale in a couple of weeks


In my city, I see a lot more volume than I used to when I go garage saling

Some big ticket items will be Tenor Sax and a Trampoline



I am going through my entire house and getting rid of anything I haven't used or touched in a year

"We'll soon find out whether an organism the size of the United States can run an economy based on one family selling the contents of its garage to the family next door."

and never used...

such a waste of money




tomorrow, going through my kitchen

I have lots of old tupperware

coats, clothes house hold stuff

scrapbooking


and hubby has a lot of old computer parts and tools ect...

I am hoping we make quite a bit of money

Many years ago I went to a Mary Kay party and she put something under my eyes that was fantastic and really covered the dark circles. I swear it was white, but I can't remember what it was and the local Mary Kay lady doesn't know either. You have anything like that?

I bought the entire package of stuff about 350 bucks...

only used the cream to powder and the blush and lip stuff


the other bottles stayed in the make up bag case

I probably wear make-up five times a year, but that particular product was awesome. Good Luck with your sale!

ETA, I inherited dark under-eye circles from my dad. I've dealt with them since I was in my early/mid twenties.

but my dark circles have improved considerably since my thyroid got under control. People probably get sick of me going on about my thyroid, but so much of my health was being damaged by it.

Anyways, I'm currently using a Merle Norman product. It's a stick tube like your picture, with a compressed stick of dry cream buff color that you dab on and then spread. Is that what's in yours?

It has a little brush on the end that you dab it on with, then blend gently with a sponge or fingertip. It dries quickly without drying out my skin at all (I'm 40) and it doesn't feel oily either. It covers well without looking like it or feeling like greasepaint.

I've accumulated a lot of stuff I'll never use again and I have about 7 years to get rid of it all (retiring and moving out of the country in 7 years).

Good luck!

and your house gets really clean and organized

Garage sales are good things. I have a few vintage Beatles items, and a Harley Davidson belt buckle from the 1920's that's worth about $1200 bucks. All came from garage sales. They bring communities together. I can remember two cul-de-sacs I've lived on that had BLOCK SALES, organized by a few residents that nearly everyone on the street participated in.

I see your point, but think that in the long run, folks suffering from the bad economy are helped by garage sales.

I regularly stop in at the Goodwill store, or the Value Village store to see what kinds of goodies they might have. My knee length wool London Fog overcoat with the zip in liner came from one, fits perfectly, and cost less than $20.

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!

It's absolutely true that all of that stuff would probably go to waste if nobody takes it.

I'm also damn sure it's absolutely true that you're committing breaking and entering and theft.

The back door of the house is also open, and also the door to the garage apartment. Plus a LOT of the stuff is simply strewn all over the yard.

I did have a small problem a couple of weeks ago, when a very aggressive young woman yelled out to me as I was going in through the side gate. She informed me she was "from the bank" and that if she saw me entering the property she was going to call the police. "Why?" I said. "All of this stuff is only going to be thrown away anyway."

"That's true," she said. "But if you enter the property you are trespassing."

But even after that they STILL didn't secure the property! Both gates are still open, the back door to the house is still open, etc.

It's almost as though they WANT people to come and salvage, because the more we take the less there is for them to throw away. It's like the message is, "Just don't let us catch you doing it."

However, people a lot more brazen and destructive than I am are vandalizing the house. I can't understand why they do that, and why the bank doesn't secure the property for that reason alone. A couple of days ago for example someone took a chisel to the door frame around the front door lock and absolutely destroyed it. There were splinters of wood all of the front porch and the door was standing wide open. I can't imagine why anyone would do that when it's so easy to get in through the side gate and the back door. It just looked like wanton destruction to me.

It's a Frank Lloyd Wright house too, as the previous owner informed me and another neighbor later confirmed. So it would be nice if people had a little respect for its intrisic value, regardless of who owns it. But I guess I'm the only rag-picker who knows that.

Does it look anything like this:



Made out of cinder blocks?

If so, you can go to the link below and report it to the foundation. It looks as if there mission is to save these houses.


http://www.ennishouse.org/htmls/photo_page.htm

It's very strange but there are TWO Frank Lloyd Wright houses in my area of North San Bernardino, exactly a block away from each other. They are modest tract houses made of stucco and wood. Strangely enough, the other house is vacant too, and has had a "for lease" sign there for months. There's also a garage apartment in the back and someone was living in it awhile back, but I don't think anyone lives on the property.

I'm going to take some pictures of both houses in the near future. They may be useful someday as part of a "before and after" story--I hope so anyway.

This used to be the "nice" part of San Bernardino and I guess in some ways it still is, but the number of foreclosures lately is absolutely heartbreaking. I've been keeping an eye on the situation for about a year, and it just seems to get worse all the time.

I've seen so many around my area lately.

As an antique dealer, I've been going to yard sales for years and years. I expected because of the lousy economy, there would be tons of sales this year. It's so weird - just the opposite has happened. There have been hardly any sales at all. I'm going to have to expand my territory I guess.

I really noticed it this past weekend while out riding my motorcycle. There were so many more than usual that it was very noticable. It could be that past bad weather (its been raining here for a month) has held folks back and they broke out the card tables and signs on the first sunny weekend, but even that would be hard pressed to explain how many if them I saw.

Now this may be interesting too. Normally I stop at a few of them, but I was so broke that there was no good reason to so I kept on riding.

And will probably need to do another one at the end of the summer.

BTW, we shop at garage sales, thrift stores and pick up stuff from people's garbage quite often.
As long as it can be repaired and cleaned up it is fair game, IMO.

I've bought a brand new Cuisinart ice cream maker for a buck, a really good and also unused mandoline, a really nice leather handbag, a coleman camp stove, a kayak skirt and several other things. I've spent under 20 bucks.

it looked like it was expensive

as my sons has left home and I was in this huge farmhouse with tons of stuff..I just decided, thats it. So I called my friend, who does estate sales, and she and I gathered it all together and I sold just about everything I had. even my library of books. everything but a few family possessions that were handed down, went.
I was left with a very meager amount of living stuff, and it was the best thing I ever did.
I moved to a small house and now have just what I need, no more.
Its a cleansing experience to do it. just get rid of it.
now someone else can read the books and enjoy the stuff.
and I dont have to concern myself with it.

to start filling the nice empty space with more stuff again.

When Mr Pip and I moved from our big house to this little one 13 years ago we had a garage sale (they're called "tag sales" here) and we got rid of lots of stuff, although not quite enough, so some of it ended up in the barn.

Over the years we've managed to fill just about every corner of this house PLUS add to the growing pile of stuff in the barn.

He's an incurable pack rat. And he's proven that nothing is ever too worthless to throw out by finding stuff that he's saved from the early 1970s that he didn't have to go out and buy because he already had it.

Right now there's a big dumpster out in the yard because he's "going to clean out the barn".

Hah.

I don't like a bunch of stuff cluttered




even going to get rid of daughters "china" dolls

she collected them when she was younger but now doesn't want them.