My Post-Season Yard Sale Confession
Now that yard sale season is over, I have a confession to make. This year, I didn’t shop via yard sales hardly at all. I did browse the ones in my own neighborhood the weekend we had our big annual association yard sale, but only because it was fun to take a walk with my kids and do so. I also went out to yard sales the weekend my parents were in town, because my mom and I have fun together motoring about for deals. But otherwise, I didn’t go out a single weekend and brave the yard sale frenzy that is my city of residence.
I used to be an avid yard sale shopper, and have sung the praises of the ability to find great deals by combing the yard sales, so what happened? Yard sales are still a great place to find bargains. But it just lost its appeal this year. Basically there were three reasons I unplugged my yard sale habit.
It’s a lot of needle in a haystack hunting.
Although fun, yard sales are a hodge podge of whatever the people had lying around, and I had specific items I was targeting. As my kids get older the chances of finding them clothes at a yard sale, at least here, diminish significantly. And since the kids also grow slower, the clothing gets a lot more use from the first owner than they did when the kids were babies.
I could find as good (or close to) deals elsewhere with attention and effort.
Shopping the clearance aisle at the appropriate stores didn’t always yield as good a deal as I could find at a yard sale, but often if I paid attention, it could come close. And it was one-stop shopping. I didn’t have to drive around an entire neighborhood (or several).
Gas is expensive, and I had to cut costs.
Driving around several neighborhoods this past summer each weekend could easily have added an entire tank of gas per month to our costs. And when a tank of gas is $50 or even more, that’s a significant cost to find bargains.
I still find yard sales fun, and I may do some yard sale shopping next year for sport. But as my ability to shop effectively at retail stores increases, the bargain side of yard sale shopping diminishes. Although if I still had a tiny baby - I’d probably hit up a yard sale. 90% of yard sales here have baby clothes. 
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December 3rd, 2008 at 9:45 am
I have made yard saling a sort of girls day out thing. I have a special frugal friend that I try to schedule something to do with every couple months. We generally go to things like auctions, thrift stores, yard sales or a salvage yard or craft show or garden show. She is a big time yard saler and is scheduled to work late on saturday mornings so she can hit the sales first–here in the south they are early in the morning before the heat. I don’t do it much–just when I go with her. We usually split the gas, and have a semi-frugal lunch somewhere along the line–splitting a bbq plate or a sub sandwhich. Its our ‘frugal date’ What’s funny is I don’t buy much usually I just enjoy the outing with my little friend.
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:56 am
I didn’t stop going to sales altogether this past season, but because of gas costs, I did try to go to neighborhood, subdivision or citywide sales (in the case of small towns). That way I could go to many, many sales in a small geographical area. Saves both time and gas.
I agree, though, that for some items, scouring the clearance aisles is almost as cost-effective.
BTW, garage sales are still going here.
There aren’t many this time of year, but I’m still seeing at least 3 or 4 a weekend here in my town.
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:24 am
We don’t do yard sales, but go to the weekend peddlers fair at the old movie theater every weekend. One stop and a TON of “venders” But as you said…its hit or miss…one weekend we walk away empty handed and another we have the trunk packed!
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:47 am
I have found that by not shopping unless I truly need something (whether at the stores or at yard sales) I have bought much less.
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:03 pm
I think yardsaling, unless you’re extremely disciplined, can cost you more than you save. The temptation to buy something just because it’s cheap can be overwhelming. When the kids where young we’d go to one or two: they would take a dollar or so and have the fun of searching for a treasure. THAT was fun!
When selling, we saw lots of return buyers (we were part of an organized group and advertised). They tended to be parents with kids slightly younger than ours, and I think they knew there was a good chance there’d be clothes/toys to pick up cheaply.
December 3rd, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I had better luck at local consignment sales…not the store but the large baby/kid consignments or home consignments sales that local churches or counties offered. I even found things for a good deal and resold them on eBay. ha!
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:01 pm
We only have one store here - so shopping clearance racks is really not an option.
I garage sale 1) for the fun of it. 2)socialization - run into friends there - small town. 3)I don’t have a specific agenda usually - but as all my grandkids are under 9, I am always looking for new or nearly new birthday and Christmas gifts - and again this year, found all that I needed.
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Hmm… That’s pretty much how I feel about yard sales, too. However, estate sales are a different matter.
Estate sales are run by businesses, and some of those outfits are well organized. You can get onto an e-mail information list where they will send you notices of pending estate sales. Many of the outfits running the sales will post photos of the loot, so you can look at what’s coming up and get an idea whether it’s worth driving to the event. The organization that makes these notices possible is called “EstateSales.net”; if you go to that site (www dot estate sales dot net), you’ll find an interactive map of all 50 states. Click on your state and you can see if anything is up. That way you don’t have to subscribe if you don’t want a weekly notice to clutter your in-box.
Personally, I’ve found a lot better loot at estate sales–pretty well furnished my son’s house and also got some nice tchochkies for my own shack. It’s rare around here that you find anything in a yard sale that’s not pretty well worn out.
December 4th, 2008 at 9:02 am
I also neglected the yard sale circuit this year. I honestly don’t know why–I usually find amazing bargains on items I’ll actually use around the house at least a few times a summer. But I just kept putting it off (I think gas was on my mind, too), and then sale season was over before I knew it. Maybe next year!
December 7th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
I didn’t go to any yard sales this year or last. We moved to a TN last year and while there are sales almost year round, I’m just not in the mood to pick things over,lol. Strange, I used to love it but now in our new house I don’t feel like bringing things in as much. Out of all the previous sales I’ve been to over the years, only 5% were really worthwhile and I still own and love those treasures.