The best day for a garage sale

A big part of downsizing is finding new owners for your no-longer-needed items. These items are still fantastic. Many of them are little treasures. It's just time for them to find a new home.

For tips on online selling, grab my free e-book Less Clutter More Cash.

Today's topic is garage sales. Are they worth it and when's the best time to have one?

They do take some work

Let's be frank. Garage sales can be a bit of work.

Moving all your items to your garage or driveway. Pricing the items, or arranging them in boxes or on tables according to price. Promoting the garage sale to your neighbours - either online or with cardboard signs around the neighbourhood. Sitting around for hours on the day (not really hard work but time-consuming). Packing up after it's all over.

Are they worth it?

Garage sales can be worth it. If you have a lot of items to sell and they are fairly mainstream items then a garage sale can be worth the time. It's still a lot of work but there's a good chance to move some items.

The best day of the year?

If you are ever going to do a garage sale, do it during the annual Garage Sale Trail. This year it is the weekend of 20-21 October.

Garage Sale Trail is an Australia-wide initiative to promote garage sales and buying second-hand. More than 400,000 Australians participate.

We've occasionally done a garage sale on another weekend, but never as successfully as on Garage Sale Trail weekend.

Why is it better?

In short - less effort, more sales.

Register your sale online and it goes on a map where keen buyers can add you to their "sale trail". The people at Garage Sale Trail also promote the national day. Together these two things mean that you can get people coming without doing any of your own promotion.

You can also list your items and post pictures to the Garage Sale Trail website. Because people can see what's there before they come, the people who come along are more likely to be interested in what you have. Also people who are after something in particular (eg Elvis records) can search the website for sales that have those particular items.

Any other tips?

Make use of the time. Take photos of your items while their out on display (if you haven't already). If they don't sell at the garage sale, it will be quicker to put them online later.

Show all you've got. If you are already selling items online (and following my tips in my free e-book) then you can also add the web address of your online list to your Garage Sale Trail profile.

Even if your garage sale profile is just a basic one, you can show people where to find your complete list of items. You might even make some extra sales in advance.

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