Saving Money at Yard Sales and Garage Sales
Strategies to Make Your Bargain Hunting More Efficient
Jun 9, 2009
Times are tough, and everyone's interested in saving money. One of the best ways to stretch the family budget is to make use of the most common and available bargain hunting resources, garage and yard sales and flea markets. Here are some tips gleaned from a lifetime of experience to make your yard sale bargain hunting more efficient and fruitful and have more fun while saving money too.
Garage Sales Start Early
First, if you’re serious about finding great bargains or the best antiques and collectibles, you simply must start early. You’ll find the competition is fierce, what with all the retired folks and housewives doing the same thing. Most sales start about 7:30 AM so be up and ready to go. It’s best to plan your attack the night before by perusing the listings in your local paper and then laying out your strategy with a map of you area.
Of course there’ll be many days when you’ll simply drive around leisurely spotting targets of opportunity, but you’ll find that can be quite frustrating when the sign you followed is for a sale that is already over, and spend a lot of time on wild goose chases.
Be Choosy About the Yard Sales You Target
It pays to be discriminating about which sales you actually stop to check out closely. One can often tell on a slow drive by whether a sale is likely to have the type of items you’re looking for. For instance, if a sale just has a table with a few items, or if a lot of baby clothes and toys are apparent, you’re not likely to find much in the way of antiques and collectibles, and you can move on to the next sale.
As a general rule, newer housing additions, with young couples just starting out and not having had time to acquire much of anything will be where you find the baby stuff, clothes and Home Interior decorations. Of course, if that’s what you’re in the market for, that’s where you’ll want to be. The older neighborhoods, even the run down urban ones, seem to be better hunting grounds for antiques and collectibles.
More Yard Sales and a Strategy Equals More Bargains
Once you’ve found a sale that looks like it has potential, approach it with a search pattern. Start on one end and work your way around, quickly scanning the tables and shelves. With practice this becomes second nature. The more sales you can hit in a given day the more bargains you’ll likely find, so be efficient with your time.
Be Ready to Haggle
Once you’ve found something you desire, don’t be afraid to ask the seller if he’ll come down on the price, unless it’s absurdly cheap already. Most sellers expect people to haggle over price, and won’t be offended by it, so don’t be afraid to ask. Most sellers will come down on the price, and if they don’t want to they’ll tell you so.
Some Final Considerations
Another thing to consider is the type of vehicle you use. If you’re looking for furniture, for example, a pickup truck is almost a must. And you never know when you’ll unexpectedly come across a deal on a large item even when you’re not looking, although most sellers will hold an item for you till you can arrange transport.
Lastly, make sure you have plenty of cash, you won’t find many sales that will accept your MasterCard. And, though this article has focused on yard sales and garage sales, these tips will serve you well at flea markets too. Now that you’re armed with the fundamentals, get out there and find that stuffed caribou head or that old baseball card collection or your entire summer wardrobe. It’s all out there waiting for you in the garage sales, yard sales and flea markets of America.
 |
