Mauie Flores

If you're looking for extra income, you can start looking inside your closet or up in the attic and see what you can sell. You'll never know, your garbage may be somebody else's lifelong find. Here are some tips in setting up your own garage sale.

Photo: “Garage Sale” by Sandra Cohen-Rose and Colin Rose, c/o Flickr. Some Rights Reserved

Select and collect

Gather the items that you are willing to sell. This should be done a month before your planned garage sale. Usual items include clothes, books, baby items, toys, electronics, and kitchen appliances. If you haven't been using the item within the past year, then, it's time to let it go.

The family that sells together, earns together

Encourage family members to add their own items to your inventory. Just log everything in a record book and pay them a sweet commission for each sale. You may also ask your friends if they have items that they would like to sell. Who knows, you may just have a buddy who has a Fender telecaster for sale.

Price it right

People flock to garage sales because they expect to buy something cheap. Collectibles and items that are almost new should definitely be the ones that are priced higher but my rule of thumb is to never go beyond 50% of the item's original price. For clothes, I can give as low as 20%. Besides, I hold a garage sale to get rid of clutter and earn a little on the side. It's still better than just giving them away, right? Label your items accordingly and, at the same time, record each item with their respective prices.

Pick a date

The perfect time to hold a garage sale is an ordinary weekend right after payday so your potential shoppers have extra money on hand. Avoid long holiday weekends so you'll have more people visit your sale rather than being in a weekend getaway with their respective families. You must also take note of events that may tighten up your potential buyers budgets such as school enrollments and graduations.

Promote, promote, promote!

Advertise your garage sale at least two weeks before your sale. You can make posters from scratch or even have them printed on tarpaulin so you can reuse it for your next garage sale. Don't forget to harness the power of Facebook and Twitter, too. You can set up a Facebook event and invite friends and family. You can also post pictures of some of the things you are selling.

Hope you have fun setting up your garage sale! Let me know how it goes by posting a comment in this post.

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