Shopping at Garage Sales

Today was another lovely day in Anchorage. The reason I haven't been updating much is that I've been enjoying the sun. This day was a little overcast, but light, fluffy clouds in a blue sky with moments of shade. My daughter and I have been trying to take walks daily, and today I suggested "Let's look for garage sales!" - not the way my husband does it, which is to ask me to look at the paper, find the ones we should go to, then working out the most effective route. We just picked a direction and started walking.

Some tips on walking around for garage sales:

• Wear comfortable shoes and socks. Seriously, I have a blister on the bottom of my foot. 
• Bring cash, in singles and fives
• Bring a bag!
• Dicker! Part of the fun of garage sales is dickering. Remember, people want to get rid of the stuff, and are usually willing to dicker.
• Carry a list of sizes for people in your family- I do this anyway because I'm the primary clothing/shoe buyer for my whole family, and you never know when you're going to find a great deal on something just right.
• Think seasonally- just because it's 75 degrees out, if you live in Alaska, at some point, you're going to need sweaters.
• Look at crafty possibilities
• Don't buy just because it's a great price.
• If you see something you just can't carry home but you have to have, ask if they are willing to hold it for you. 

We found two garage sales. One of them had an unused hot water bottle in a cute teddy bear cozy. The people holding that sale thought it was hopelessly old-fashioned, and it had been a gift to them. Just so happens, we've been planning to buy a hot water bottle.

The second one was the bonanza for my family.  They had lots of DVDs including seasons of shows we didn't have and do enjoy. I found a copy of Jack of All Trades for my husband. It was the only Bruce Campbell show we didn't have. TG was thrilled to find Star Trek: The Animated Series. They also had partitioned trays for kids meals in great, super cute shape (I like them for bead projects), and a cute, small pink knitting loom set. Just as we were leaving, we spotted a steampunk looking little cricket sculpture for my son. We wound up with 1 movie, 5 tv seasons, 3 trays and the knitting loom kit  and the cricket for $22.00. Yay! Since Jack of All Trades was something we were planning to buy anyway and it's about 20 dollars on Amazon, it was a great deal.  

When it was all over, we had walked about 2.5 miles, got some good exercise and had a lot of fun together. We stopped at the coffee stand by our house on the way home, where a bikini clad barista made us perfect iced lattes. 

Here are some printable signs for your own garage sale in 100 dpi jpg format. They can be colored in, or you could print on Astrobrights paper. The image at the top of this is also in 100 dpi if you want to click on it to print a larger version. Because garage sales are awesome!