... That is the Question.
The rummage sale occurred this last Easter Saturday. There have been a LOT of events going on in March and April, and this was the only weekend that we were otherwise NOT committed out, but would still be early enough in the year to avoid a scorching day. As you may have read in my previous posts, Mark and I have spent quite literally four months of Saturdays cleaning, pricing, and organizing our junk (treasure!) in preparation for the sale, only to be followed up by me dragging out more and more bins to add to the pile. It got so bad that I had to call in reinforcements to help manage the booty!
Thanks to the help and dedication of three of our "work" friends, Mouseketeer Trish, Mouseketeer Sheri and Mouseketeer Jen, we pulled it off and pocketed a sweet $500 profit! Just for fun, I took a few photos at different stages in the day:
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This close-up of just one table is to illustrate how our buyer's shopping habits were that day. We had a few items that I consider high dollar figure items (such as 3 pairs of vintage metal roller skates, an accordion, an antique wood carved Asian table, a large propane BBQ, and a stationary bike with a broken pedal), but for the most part we were selling items between $1 and $4.
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The morning started off overcast, even though the forecast was for a bright sunny day, with a high expected to hit 91 degrees (!). Turns out that for the most part of the sale time, it remained breezy and perfect. It wasn't until 1 or 2pm that we felt the full heat of the day. We were very thankful.
The shot above shows most everything pulled out and displayed by about 7am, although we still had several bins of items needing to be priced. Mark is wearing the skeleton shirt in this photo.
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Look at the camera and smile Mouseketeer Mark!
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Oh, Mousekteer Trish is back there, too! Thanks for all your help, Trish.. you, with the dusty butt! (from sitting on the grass, cleaning and sorting CDs and DVDs).
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We decided to use the neighbor's driveway for our truck bed to display the 50 or 60 puzzles we were selling. The house has been vacant for 10 years, so we knew the owner would not show up. There were another 30 board games that we displayed on the ground here, and 9 banker's boxes full of books of all types (there were approximately 250 books). Books, puzzle and games are the staple of my Amazon bookstore at Amazon.com and these were ones I had tried to sell for a few years, but they never moved for one reason or another. Nobody bought the 1980's vintage Maniac game! WHAT???!!!!
We had a few kooks show up (I guess this is the kind of event that draws them). One guy sat on the driveway and scanned the UPC bar code on every single book, obviously trying to find those with value on some resale website. I could have told him that they were the books with no resale value, but I was enjoying watching him far too much.
Several friends showed up from our Facebook blasts. It was nice to see Frank and Patti and their daughter, my actress friend Darcy, and several members of Mark's family. I think his Mom, brother and cousins left with more than anyone else that came to the sale! They even bought the BBQ, one of our highest priced sales of the day at $40!
My initial goal was $1000 (and had we sold the Asian table, the roller skates and a few other key items, we would have met that), but I am NOT complaining.
In context of our Move to Disney Budget, that $500 from the rummage sale fully covers the cost of one Florida Resident Premium Annual Pass to Disney World!
If you don't count the Annual Pass charge in the moving budget, $500 covers the full cost of lodging and food for the four-night drive from Phoenix to Orlando.
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At 4:45, one of the shoppers from earlier in the day drove up as we were breaking down the tables and asked if we would sell the stationary bike for $10 (we were asking $20). Considering I was going to drag it to the driveway and leave a "FREE" sign on it, I jumped at his offer! That last ten-spot brought our profit to that $500 total.
Except for a couple of larger items, the two photos above show what everything boiled down to at the end of the day. Just imagine two or three times this amount of stuff filling your garage and closets. What a relief it is all done.
At 5:30, I had closed up the bed of the truck with the puzzles and filled it to the brim with the remaining board games and dropped them off at Goodwill.
An hour later, I was loading up the book boxes and we drove them over to the Lawn Gnome Bookstore, an independently owned bookstore in a converted historic house in the downtown Phoenix arts district.
http://lawngnomepublishing.com/ I discovered the bookstore a few months ago, had met the owner Aaron and mentioned that I was looking for a place to donate my books. He was very appreciative of even the thought of it.
Now, we are left with the items in the photos above, which will be picked up by the Valley Big Brother/Big Sister organization on Wednesday morning. I used to volunteer as a Big Brother 15 years ago so I am happy to support them further with the donation of the rest of our junk (treasures!)
One more shout out to our friends Trish, Sheri and Jen. I hope we thanked you enough for your help!
Comments are welcome. Positive feedback encouraged!
Mouseketeer Ken
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