The Yard Sale Weekend

The yard sale happens once every 5 years or so. It takes me that long to forget the hassle involved with it and how it's kinda really not worth the $100 I make. I mean, $100 is nice to have and I'm certainly appreciative of it, but egads the work I do for it. I'm pretty sure it amounts to about 13 cents per hour for the time that goes into it.

The things I sell are kids clothing, discarded household things, Christmas castoffs, and other things found in every yard sale. My goal is to get rid of them while making a few dollars, so I price things to move. A quarter is pretty much my favorite tag, and a $5 one is reserved for Great Big Huge Things. People walk out of my yard with five bags of awesomeness for $3 and we both think we've won. For the first time ever, Sam had a few things in the yard sale. I want to go on record as saying that men spend bigger than women. I have proof. The man sold 2 items and made $225. I sold approximately 1,387,291 items to get $122 out of the yard sale. His things just cost more originally. A LOT more. So I'll be bringing this post up next time he complains that I've spent too much on something. Ahem.

So we spent Thursday setting up and laying out our wares on the lawn. Micah had no clue what was going on, but wanted in on the action. He brought out handfuls of his own things. Dress up clothes, favorite toys, his shoes. We took them back in as fast as he brought them out. If we accidentally sold one of his beloved possessions, things would be ugly for everyone concerned.

The morning of the big event came and Micah realized that the Power Chair was the one I was sitting in. I was in charge of bagging and the money bag. He wanted that power. He traded me chairs when I got up to get a drink. He was giddy with excitement when a customer came to his table. After diligently bagging their goods (after I noted prices), he reached into his money bag and handed them a dollar.

Dude, we save that kind of bribery for the last hour of the last day. You take money, you don't give it.

Micah helped with a few more customers before getting bored with the whole thing. He then realized that there was a whole table full of items he didn't know existed. Said items were a friend's discards, and she has boys with fun toys. Micah made a choice and stood in line, waiting his turn to check out. He knew the drill. You bag your toy, you get a dollar, you take it home and call it yours.

I figured the last thing we needed was a toy in the house that we should be getting rid of, but if it entertained Micah for the day it would be a dollar well spent. Micah played with that toy for a good hour before coming back outside. He perused the table again, and made another choice. He went inside, brought out Toy A, traded for Toy B, and brought it to my checkout table. I had to give him a dime before he was satisfied that the transaction was complete. He was quite proud of his purchasing power.

Toy B was eventually traded for Toy C, and then for Toy D. In the end, we would up with a new-to-us video game for Luke's gaming system.

Poor Luke, however, didn't fare so well. He had grand plans to sell lemonade and frozen snickers to make a few dollars of his own. I will always support my kids in entrepreneurial endeavors, so I fronted him the Snickers and lemons. He sold one candy bar to his friend that brought over his toys to sell, and we pretty much just ate the rest of his goods because by Day 2 they needed to move.