Advertising is key to having a successful garage sale. You can have the nicest stuff in the world to sell, and it might be all nice and clean and even fairly priced. If you don’t advertise the sale correctly, you could wind up with few customers and more stuff that you counted on to put away at the end of the sale. Here are some of my favorite tricks, techniques and tips for advertising for your garage sale.

* Use lots of signs. The more the better. Place them on the side of the road that the cars are traveling. Place two outside your neighborhood, once faced one way and the other faced the opposite way to pull traffic from both sides.

* Be sure that all of your signs look the same or at least have common similarities. Many people just “follow” the signs, and don’t have time to jot down address’, etc. Make it easier for them by helping them to see your signs.

* Attach balloons to each sign. I recommend helium filled because they won’t get in the way of the words written on the sign and they are easier to spot. You might use seasonal colors. But make sure all the balloons are the same color, again to make the uniformity of the signs.

* Try craigslist. If craigslist has a section in your area, definitely place an ad. They are free and you can say whatever you want. This is the first garage sale I have ever used craigslist, but I have received a huge response. It has done me well.

* Use the library bulletin boards, grocery store, college campus (especially if you have items that a college student might be interested in), newsletters for church or school, etc. to place ads. Most places will be fine with you posting an ad, as long as you remove it at the end of the sale.

* Take out an ad in your local newspaper. In our area, an ad costs $15.00 and runs in three area papers. The cost of the $15 is quickly made back, because anytime I have placed an ad, I have had dozens of people at my door the moment I am ready to open my sale. If you don’t want early birds, be sure to specify that in the ad. You might still get a few…. die-hard garage salers are relentless. LOL

* When creating signs for the garage sale, write big and bold and legibly. It is important that it be read from a distance.

* When you have placed all your signs, drive by EACH sign and double check that it can be seen from the car, and if need be, move it as quickly as possible.

* A new idea I was just told about for this sale in particular, was to send out invitations. On the invitations, request that your friends spread the news about your garage sale. Even invite them to throw some stuff into the sale if they would like. Remember that word of mouth is a great advertising technique for anything. I modified the invitation idea, and sent out an email to my local friends and family with a brief list of what I was offering, and the dates, times and locations. I encouraged them to forward the email to their local friends and family members, which I hoped would continue to circulate until the date of the sale. I also included a link to my address on mapquest which I figure took the guess work out of it for anyone they forwarded it to. Plus my address in unincorporated so its difficult to get to come up on mapquest and other map sites. This made it easier.

What are some of your favorite tips for advertising your garage sale?

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While there is certainly no right or wrong way to organize your items for a garage sale, there are a few things that you can do, which might help you keep yourself on track. Keeping organized during a garage sale, is almost imperative to a successful and profitable garage sale.

To begin with, sorting through each room on an individual level should come first. In each room, be sure to look inside every drawer, every closet, every cabinet and underneath and on top of every single surface. Closets should almost be considered rooms in and of themselves, because they usually contain the most that you will be putting inside your sale. These are the things we tend to hide away.

When going through clothing, put anything in your sale that doesn’t fit, you haven’t worn in at least a year (discounting seasons) and throw away anything with holes, rips or missing buttons. If you have pieces you have been holding onto, until you could match the perfect shirt/skirt/pants to, and it still hasn’t happened, assume now that it probably never will. (either that or use your garage sale income to get the missing piece to the outfit)

With toys, be sure to clean them and check for missing parts. Nobody wants to purchase puzzles, only to complete the thing and find its missing a piece or two. Check that batteries inserted into items make them work again. You might also want to be sure that you have batteries on hand the day of to test out items. Run an extension cord from an outlet inside the house to test things that plug in.

When you are getting ready to price the items, be sure everything is neat and clean and sorted by the general category it fits in. This will make set up much easier the day of the sale. Keep watching for more great tips and tricks for garage sales.

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There are two really popular times for garage sales in my area, and it might just be the same for you as well. When? Spring and Fall. In particular, during weather that is not too cold, and not too warm, since those climates tend to make it impossible to enjoy the task of either running or visiting garage sales.

I’ve spent the past week or so, sorting, organizing, cleaning and planning for a garage sale I am hoping to have next month. I forgot how much work is involved to get one ready as it has been a couple of years since my last one. It also makes me sad to realize how many things we have accumulated in that short time period that must now go. Our “stuff” is taking over our lives, and if I am vowing to live a more simple life, than I need to vow to remove all this clutter and STUFF (because really that is all it is) from our lives.

I have written HUNDREDS of articles over the years on organizing your items, sorting through stuff, getting rid of unwanted junk and hosting garage sales. I plan to share with you along the way, what I am doing and how it is going. Cross your fingers, but we are hoping to walk away with a whole lot of money at the end of this sale. I’ll show you how as I am going.

What are garage sales like in your neck of the woods? Do you enjoy hosting or would you rather visit one looking for treasures?

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I know my site is really dedicated to living a more frugal lifestyle, and not so much on the issues that large families face, but I couldn’t resist sharing this information with my readers today. We have a large family – five children (not to mention 5 dogs and a cat!). This isn’t the only reason I am frugal by any means, I think I might have been born that way. But at any rate, adjusting to having such a large family, definitely meant cutting costs and learning to live on a more frugal budget.

Recently, I have gotten to know a few of my readers more personally, and was surprised to learn that a few of them also have large families. I recommended another site to them so they could check it out, and thought perhaps if I have other readers who just don’t comment, that have large families it would be helpful to you as well.

This site is great for tips, money saving advice and easy ideas for organizing such a large family. I’ve been loving it for a couple of years, (it used to be part of two separate sites, but they combined them) and figured it was time to spill the beans.

www.lotsofkids.com – A place where families with 4 or more children can find, friendship, fun, and support. They also welcome those who are thinking of having a large family, or who can’t but love the philosophies of large families.

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There is one thing I miss on television, more than just about any other show. I would even be content to watch repeats, but they are scarcely, if ever, even on. What show is that? Do you recognize that guy over there? Yes, that’s Eric Stromer and I adored the show Clean Sweep (yeah and Eric was nice to look at too!).

I was channel surfing a few weeks ago, and came across two shows that were desperate attempts to be “clean sweep” oriented, but no such luck. One of my favorite things about Clean Sweep (besides the fact that I used to get useful tips on storing and purging things) was Eric’s ability to create these really amazing storage pieces, out of practically nothing or on a very tight budget. Guess what? The average person has a pretty tight budget, so this show was right up my alley.

Whenever I am cleaning any area of my home, I now use the Keep, Sell, Toss method of organizing the items, and I also know to pull everything out of the area before putting it back together. While I am not even going to pretend my house is all clean and organized (hardly! I have five kids!) it is definitely better than it ever has been before and there are two things that have contributed immensly to this – Clean Sweep techniques and the fact that we are living a more frugal, sensible, simple life! I love it!

Do you miss Clean Sweep as much as I do?

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What is my deal? For some super odd reason I was born with some twisted gene that makes me like to organize. Come on, isn’t that a tiny bit strange? Anyway, every once in awhile I will get into a rut. It isn’t that I don’t want to organize or get clutter out of an area, it is usually that I have trouble figuring out what I want to do with an area.

Right now, that’s my scrapbooking area. I’ve got certain aspects of it organized, and those are working for me. I have SO much stuff that I am just not willing to part with, that it makes it difficult with my space to figure out how to store things. I am contemplating building shelving units to put below a few of my tables to at least hold my large amount of scrapbooking books and magazines.
Pens are another issue. I have dozens of brands, and they almost all have different uses. It’s kinda pathetic when you get right down to it. My favorite area in the whole house and I have so much trouble getting things organized and stored within the space.

Do you have a trouble spot in your home? If so, share what it is.

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