How to Plan a Neighborhood Garage Sale

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By Lila30
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How do you know when it's time to throw a garage sale? Is your basement bursting at the seams with old lamps and neglected bicycles? Do you want to make some extra money to pay for your summer vacation or to buy something nice for yourself? If so, it’s time to plan a garage sale!

Getting people to show up at your house for a sale is sometimes a challenge. An idea that will get people coming in droves, is to have your entire neighborhood in on the sale.

If you want to make some extra money by selling things you no longer use, consider planning a neighborhood garage sale. By making the sale large, it will entice people to come and shop several sales at once.

Here are some garage sale tips sure to make your garage sale a success.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Step 1

Decide how much area of the neighborhood to include in the garage sale. How many blocks do you want the neighborhood sale to encompass?
Step 2

Make a flyer to tell your neighbors about the garage sale. Example wording might be: Hello neighbor! I am planning to throw a neighborhood garage sale on Friday, May 7th and Saturday May 8th. The sale will begin at 8am and end at 3pm. If you want to clean out your closets and put out your goods for sale on those days please do! Feel free to advertise the sale in any way you wish. Let me know if you plan to participate by May 1.”
Step 3

Pass the flyers out to all of the neighbors in the area you identified in step one.
Step 4

Talk to the neighbors who are going to participate. Once you get neighbor responses meet with them or talk via email about an advertising plan. Some ideas to advertise your garage sale include: signs in your community, ads in the local paper, and a Craigslist listing.
Step 5

Prior to the day of the garage sale be sure to organize all of your items and price them. Also get change and be sure you have enough tables/racks for your items. On the day of the sale be set up and ready at the advertised start time.

Tips & Warnings

An extra money-making tip: Offering an extra item, such as bottled water or cans of soda for $1, is a good way to get the customers to keep going from sale to sale throughout the neighborhood.