Friday, December 14, 2007

Garage Sale Treasure Hunts


I posted yesterday about treasure hunting and the head mistress over at http://exoticeatingexperiment.blogspot.com/ commented on garage sales being her treasure hunt. I, myself, find it hard to concentrate while shopping garage sales because I've always got my kids with me and I always seem to end up in front of the beanie baby box with them begging and after one or two stops they want to go home.

How do you all successfully garage sale? I always hear of wonderful finds but I have yet to discover any. I'm thinking that, for the up coming season, that I will make lists of things for my kids to search for at garage sales- not for them to buy but just to keep them busy- like a scavenger hunt. Any one have any great tips on finding the right stuff, the right sales, the great price and doing it with a handful of kids? Please chime in!
For more frugal talk pop over to www.biblicalwomanhood.com and check out Crystal's blog.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

When I have had little ones I did better at rummage sales because they happened Sat. AM when DH could watch them or thrift stores because there is a cart to put them in. I also would give them a set amount, $1 or so to spend and when they spent it they were done.

Edi said...

I too tend to leave my kids at home when I go g-saling... The kids actually hate going with me, b/c of course I want to hit as my sales as I can within an hour or so.

Sometimes I will only take one of the kids w/me and that helps.

I'd nix the idea of the kids trying to find something at g-sales, it will only slow you down!

If I drive by a g-sale and it doesn't look good from the road - I keep driving.

G-saling really is best done alone - so much getting in and out of the car - and if the g-sale is bad, the kids are only out of their car seats for a minute - and a pain to keep strapping them in.

If you don't have the option of leaving the kids at home - you can still do it, but you want to minimize your hassles and maximize your time.

Map out your g-sales ahead of time so you are not driving back and forth to the same areas. Don't wait until 10 am to go out - the good stuff will be gone.

B/c it's not an unusually fun event for the kids - you can make it more fun for them by stopping at the park afterwards or picking up a "new" book for them or letting them buy something with their own money.