Friday, May 30, 2008

Friday Five: Garage Sale!

Welcome to your irregularly scheduled Fifth Friday Five, hosted by will smama and Songbird!Since will smama is preparing for a joint garage sale with her parents, and Songbird's church had a Yard and Plant Sale last Saturday, we have five enormously important questions we hope you will answer:
1) Are you a garage saler?
Not so much any more. There was a time when G&T and I used to garage sale for entertainment on Saturday mornings, but that was in a time of fewer responsibilities. After manBoy came with very little notice (less than 24 hours), we garage saled for baby paraphernalia.

2) If so, are you an immediate buyer or a risk taker who comes back later when prices are lower? Usually, I just buy right then. I don't want to have to come back. If it's a pricy item, I might go away for a while and let myself consider whether it's something I really want/need.

3) Seriously, if you're not a garage saler, you are probably not going to want to play this one.(That wasn't really #3.)

3) This is the real #3: What's the best treasure you've found at a yard or garage sale? A high chair for manBoy. We were at the stage when we needed one, but not in a place to spend retail dollars. We had looked at several places that advertised baby stuff, but alas no high chair. Then, at what we had decided would be our last stop there sat a wonderfully clean and in good condition high chair. It was almost all that was left at that particular garage sale. Definitely a God thing in my book. I also bought some leather boots for $5 more than 15 years ago. I still wear them in the winter.

4)If you've done one yourself, at church or at home, was it worth the effort? Well it got a lot of stuff out of my house before our last move, and a couple of times since then. It's a good way to get rid of kids stuff. I'm making my own bonus below that talks about this.

5) Can you bring yourself to haggle? Usually not, but if it looks like everything is priced high with the expectation of haggling, I'll bite.


BONUS: I'm creating my own bonus. When manBoy was 5, we had a big sale just before we moved to our current home. With a little sadness, I bundled up his cribset (dust ruffle, bumper pads, sheets, a new blanket, pillow, and mobile) and priced it at $20. We kept the real blankie, it's a long story how we had two, but that's okay. All day long, people came and went. I was a little relieved when the crib set didn't sell. Finally in the afternoon, a young couple came by. She was round with child, and they were delighted to find a complete set for such a good price. Their excitement suddenly made it okay to let it go. I remembered the excitement we had when we put manBoy's nursery together (after he was already here). I also remembered how glad we were to find the high chair, and stroller, and walker, and many other baby items we needed at other garage sales. I was thrilled this couple would have the same opportunity. So on that day, the answer to number 4 is yes, it was definitely worth it.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

What a sweet crib story!

DogBlogger said...

Good play!

Auntie Knickers said...

Love the crib story. We had a similar experience with my youngest daughter's first bicycle. Not that we weren't ready to let go, but that the little girl whose mother bought it for her was so, so happy -- just as Sisterknits was when she got it new.

Terri said...

Well now that story inspires me to see the real virtue of garage sales, which mostly escape me...good play!

PrJoolie said...

Great story. Perspective is so important!