Extended yard sales: sign of the times?
October 6th, 2009 | by mbhunter |In better times, a yard sale is a good way to clear the junk out of the closets and make a little bit of extra money. And what doesn’t sell will find a good hope at the Salvation Army thrift store or something similar.
This past weekend there was a yard sale that was initially advertised for Friday and Saturday. The folks taped over the sign the next day: “Sun.” So we stopped by there after church, and bought a couple of things. I recognized some of the collectible plates they had as being at the previous day’s flea market.
On my way to work yesterday, they had replaced the taped-over sign: “Mon.”
This morning: “Tue.”
That’s not normal, but even more so, there was another yard sale just down the road that also had had their stuff out for five days.
What’s up?
It could be a number of things:
- The weather is getting colder and they’re taking advantage of it before they have to wait until spring to sell their stuff again like this.
- They really like running yard sales. Hey, nothing wrong with that at all!
- They own a business (maybe an eBay business) and they’re trying to unload some inventory at more reasonable prices, without making the buyers pay shipping.
- They are just selling off their stuff because they need to. If it were just to get rid of stuff, there was a thrift store just down the road where they could have dropped it off. But that’s not what they did. They tried to sell it, five days in a row.
In any case, these are all great things to do, and I’m not to judge these folks or what they’re trying to do. If the reason they’re selling their stuff this way is because they need the money, then it’s probably a sign of the times: People have bought more stuff than they need, with money they didn’t have, and now need the money more than the stuff.
There will be a whole lot of liquidation before the economy turns up again.
One Response to “Extended yard sales: sign of the times?”
By VT on Oct 7, 2009 | Reply
It also could be that the yard sale is their business. There are folks out there who dumpster drive, “curbside shop” or take advantage of the free/cheap stuff that can be had with coupons, then turn around and sell it.
Only issue is that some cities have limits on how many sales a household can have and how long they can run.