The Junk - Hosting a Yard Sale

A few weeks ago we had a yard sale. We had collected enough stuff from around the house that we decided it was time to see if we could make some cash. Even some friends of ours donated some items that they didn't want and told us we could keep what we made. Now if that isn't a friend I don't know what is. The weather was rather chilly for June so that might have prevented some people from coming out but on the whole it was a successful day with a steady stream of people, at the end of the day we were $170 richer. That was enough to pay the piano movers to move in a piano the aforementioned friends were giving us (for FREE!). I am sad that my friends were giving their stuff away, because they are moving across the country and we won't get to see them as much. But, I'm happy I was able to sell their stuff! :)

So after slogging through my first (personal) yard sale these are the tips I have.

Tip #1 Set Up Early

Even though we had advertised that we were not going to start our yardsale until 8:00, we made our first sale at 7:50.

My husband and I woke up around 6:00ish and started moving tables out to the drive way getting the stuff out of the boxes and made sure we had good flow and placement of items.

Before the actual day we moved all the stuff we were going to sell into the garage and priced it all. That way all we had to do was open our garage door and move the stuff right out. That little bit of pre-gathering of all stuff for sale helped save us some time and hassle.

So setting up early on the day of is important but so is getting everything ready before hand. It takes an hour or two of time commitment but it is worth it.

me putting the finishing touches on

Tip #2 Price Everything 

While this may sound like a daunting task, especially if you have a lot, just trust me on this. While you may have a sign on the table saying "all books 25 cents" you will be amazed how many people will still come up and ask how much it is. So just hunker down and put a price on it.


For our yard sale I did not go out and buy special stickers or labels. I used a marker and painters tape. I have a lot of painters tape and it is easy to remove off the item once it is sold, so there won't be any residual stickiness.

And know that the price on the item may not be the actual price. While most people, in my experience, wont negotiate some will. So have this be your top price and leave some wiggle room for those who want to negotiate.

The only time that I wouldn't put a price on stuff is if you are having a charity yard sale. I have learned when you are raising money for charity just say "by donation". When they know of the cause they will usually feel more generous and give more then what you would get if you actually had a price on items. Yes, you will get some cheapskates, but they are few and far between and are more than made up for by others. Two months ago my friends and I had a charity yard sale to raise money for our friend's daughter who has a brain tumor and needed financial assistance. By saying by donation we were able to raise over $1000. Not to bad for a yard sale.

Tip #3 Be Ready to Negotiate

Before you start your yard sale you need to decide why you are having it. Are you having it to get rich or are you having it to get rid of junk. If you are having it to get rich you are probably better off to sell some of the bigger items on free sites like kijiji or craig's list or whatever may be in your area. People who go to yard sales are looking for rock bottom prices, at least I am when I go yard saling.

If things are priced too high people will not buy and you won't make any money. Also if you are looking to get rich you probably won't be willing to negotiate and that could mean not as many sales.

If your goal is to get rid of stuff and the extra cash is a bonus be willing to negotiate. At our yard sale I did not try to play hardball. If they offered a price I took it. Most people are reasonable and if they offer a different price than listed it is usually not too far off. Also if people wanted to buy a lot of stuff I would round down to the nearest dollar, or made it a nice round number thus helping the change situation.

To go along with negotiation, at the end of the day make everything 50% off. We did this with an hour to go. This did help motivate some people who were sitting on the fence. This is a great tactic if your goal is to get rid of the stuff. And believe me getting rid of the junk is great!

Tip #4 Make Sure You Have Enough Change

This is the trickiest bit about the yard sale. How much change is too much or too little. You don't want to run out, but then you don't want to be taking it all back to the bank either. We had $160 in change and that seemed to work out perfectly. We had $50 worth of $5,  $50 worth of twoonies (Canada's two dollar coin) $50 worth or loonies (Canada's one dollar coin) and $10 worth of quarters. We had lots of change and we didn't have to run to the bank to get more.

Most people who are seasoned yard salers will make sure they have small bills already so you won't be dealing with too many big bills and so that amount of change be excesive. But I was sure glad I had a lot of change when someone only had a $50 on them and the item they were buying was only $4.

Tip #5 Keep Signs Simple

You can buy signs, but I find them hard to read at times, especially when I am in my car driving by. I made my own signs by using bright pink bristol board (I think it is called poster board to those who are not up with Canadian lingo) and garden shepherd hooks that I got at the dollar store. Using my word processor I made big letters and then cut them out and then made an arrow and cut it out. If you have a cricut machine or something similar you can just use that. I then glued the letters onto my boards and then taped the boards onto the shepherds hooks.

These signs were easy to see were at a higher visual plane than other signs making it easier for potential customers to turn down the street and were cheaper to make than buying actual signs.

I kept the words simple. It simply said "YARD SALE" and then had the arrow pointing the appropriate way to our house. We had them at the main streets and where turns needed to be made. The uniform colour and printing made sure people knew where we were.

I even had matching duct tape on hand, what luck!

Tip #6 Decide What to Do with the Leftovers

No matter how much you might want to think everyone is going to want your junk, you will have things leftover. Decide what you are going to do with it. For us, somethings we were on the fence about. Those we decided to keep. Those items were mainly things that were our kids. Everything else we decided to get rid of. Most of the items went to a secondhand store. Other things like furniture and baby items we put up on kijiji.

If it is important for you to just get rid of the junk put the items directly in your car and take it to a donation centre. Otherwise those items will migrate back into your house negating all the hard work you did to make your house simplified.

Tip #7 Involve Your Kids

Involve your kids in not only contributing some of their stuff to the yard sale, but figure out what they can do to help. My kids are pretty young still, (my oldest is seven). Money is still a weird concept for them especially when making and understanding change. But, I also needed to give them something to do so they wouldn't be watching The Winx Club on YouTube all day. So, we let them have a lemonade stand. They loved it. They drank most of the lemonade themselves but they felt a part of what was going on. They probably would have made more if 1) it was warmer that day and 2) if they weren't distracted by other things and kept abandoning their posts, but when they were their they were quite the entrepreneurs. (People thought they were so cute they would give them money without taking the lemonade. I wished that worked for me!)

the girls at their lemonade stand. it was so chilly we had to find the winter coats

Tip #8 Have Fun

Make this a good experience. Put some fun tunes on, smile and enjoy the time in the sun. There are so many ideas you could do to make this a fun morning; have a friendly competition with your spouse, every hour do a sale, have a special item that if bought they buyer gets to pick another one for free, have your neighbourhood involved etc. You are only limited by your imagination. Think outside the box and have fun!