Yard sale success

We held a yard sale last weekend.

Actually, it was a block sale. I was dubious about this at first... thought the other folks would draw away customers and money and actually cost us. But, I like our neighbors, and thought is might be worth a try.

Boy, am I glad! Sold almost everything we wanted to, most of it junk. Many more people came by for the sale than would have come for a single yard sale, and the stuff each home was selling was diverse enough that we didn't confuse each other. Because we all chipped in, we could also afford much more expensive ads, which in turn probably drew more people. I recommend it to everyone who wants to do a sale.

I also spent a lot of time the night before putting out yard signs. I kept some old yard signs from the recent election, turned them inside out, and printed out full pages, one word per page, Block Sale, then a big arrow pointing one way or the other, and stapled them to both sides. Eight in all. I set them on all the major intersections for each street.

The two most interesting things to me:

1. How few people haggled. I set the prices higher than I really expected, and was willing to come down on almost everything, but people bought most of it at full asking price. I think only 5 people asked for less, and then not as much as I expected. I was so relieved that I said yes almost instantly to everything.

2. The junk people bought! Some people even paid full asking price for items I told them didn't work. I asked one guy if he knew how to work on TVs when he tried to buy one I had marked all the way down beause it didn't work. He told me no, but he bought it anyway!