Over the course of the past few weeks, Hubby and I have been reserving time each Saturday to venture out and peruse garage sales around town. Not only do we love the thrill of a good sale, but we also have many nursery things to collect as we prepare for the arrival of our little peanut.
We realize that we may inherit or accumulate many of the things we need from other people over the next four months. But if we can get a great sale on something, we aren't going to pass it up.
What kinds of things have we found? First before I start the list, let me begin by saying that we truly don't plan on purchasing many toys for our kid. We figure that he'll get enough toys from other people that we could concentrate on the necessities.
That being said, we did come across a Little Tyke car that I couldn't pass up. To add to the good finds, we got a Deuter Child Carrier (for hiking with a kid), booster seat, Boppy, and Baby Bjorn carrier - just to name a few.
We also have found some really great quality clothes for really cheap. Again, we haven't gone overboard in this department. But when we came across some really cute clothes at a great price we couldn't help ourselves. What were our favorite clothing finds so far? I liked the Polo bib overalls I found for $1. Hubby fell in love with a flannel shirt - which he has informed me is the type of shirt that should make up a majority of our child's wardrobe.
Many people have been asking us how we've scored such great deals. So we came up with a list of 5 easy tips for finding garage sale success:
1. Search your local online listings for area sales - and when possible use key words in your search to help narrow your garage sale options. We use online resources like ksl.com (UT news web site) and craigslist.org and then add a key word search for "baby" so we only visit sales that have what we want.
2. Shop in affluent neighborhoods. We may be stereotyping a little, but we have found nicer quality and less damaged items within these types of neighborhoods. But beware, they can also tend to charge more, so you need to be ready to haggle the price down, if needed.
3. Map out your route ahead of time. We take all of the sales we want to visit and map out our route on GoogleMaps or MapQuest, so that we have a plan of attack. At the same time, you'll need to be flexible within your route, as you will come across other sales that may have not been advertised well, but are totally worth the stop.
4. Start early. I'm not ashamed to say that we start shopping garage sales at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. The early sales are usually the best and getting their first means you'll have first dibs on the good stuff. Note: when mapping out your route, take opening times into consideration so that you can start with the earliest sales first. Also, don't plan on spending much time after 10:30 a.m. as most if not all the best garage sales have been picked over.
5. Always ask for a lower price. We've been surprised by the number of people that have been willing to cut the price on their things, just to get them sold. So don't be afraid to ask. The worst they can say is no.
Though I'm sure there are many more tips that are out there, these are the first that came to our minds when we started our garage sale adventures. Good luck on your future shopping efforts, and let me know if you come up with any other good tips.
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