The Great Purge... De-Crappification 2013: Part 6

All of this time I have been purging and tossing and recycling, I have also been keeping an eye on a section of my garage that has been harboring a potential money maker for my family. The stacks of boxes and odd shaped things that would not quite fit into boxes were neatly and patiently waiting for me to get around to handling them. 

Most of it, about 90%, is the stuff that did not sell at our unbelievably massive garage sale last summer. Okay, I know what you're thinking. No, it is not crap that is not fit for a thrift store. We don't try to yard sale or donate any junk.. that stuff is in the trash where it belongs. What actually happened was that after our very successful money making sale (yay!!!), we sorted the stuff out that simply were worth way too much to just donate. Most of it was boutique clothes that yard salers won't buy because they are looking to spend 50 cents on a Hanna Andersson dress or "high end" wooden toys and so on. (Umm no thank you, I'm not a fool.) The donate stuff went in several van loads to the donation drop. The boutique type high end stuff went into my special stack to await the local consignment sale. As I have been purging my home, I have added the top drawer type stuff to the stack.

Every decent size town has a consignor sale. At the very least, a consignment store. We have a few around these parts. Do a quick search on the net for your area. Most sales, you will find, charge the consignors 35% of their take plus a "building rental & advertising" fee. The one I chose only takes 30% and has a $12 fee. Higher than I prefer, but better than other sales AND the sheer number of customers looking for exactly the kind of stuff I have will be there, with cash in hand. People wait in long lines to get in.


If you want to do something like this, there are some things that might help you decide if you have the potential for making your time worth it.Your items for sale must not be recalled or have noticeable wear or stains, of course. The pricing can be the easiest part. The hanging your items as per the rules and the cataloguing/printing/hanging tags is the real pain in the hiney. Not to mention, time sucker and living room messer upper. Then you must bring all your goodies in, usually at a pre-arranged appointment. They will check your stuff to make sure it is acceptable. (The check in gals told me usually 25% of the items submitted are rejected. I only went home with 7 or 8 things, so they kept making comments on how nice my stuff was. Made me feel good!) The appointment times fill up as soon as the sale gets posted pretty much, so register that part asap after you agree to their terms.

All told, I spent three days preparing for this sale. When I say three days, I mean 7ish am to 7 or 8pm. My item count was around 325. That's twenty "banana" boxes full of clothes on hangers and toys. My dollar amount if everything sold and I did not have to pay any fees was $1100. While the sale is going, you can monitor the progress of your items being sold online at the end of each day. Kind of a nice feature. I'm not sure how many consignment sales can do that.

Now that the sale is over, I am happy to report I sold 265 of my items! Yay! All of my toys sold. Wow! Now I just wait for my check to come in the mail a couple weeks from now. 

BONUS! My house has a lot less stuff in it and I am "free" of it. Not to mention, I made some serious money off of it!

I will keep purging my home and continuing this project of de-crapping. I have far exceeded my goal of getting rid of 30% of our stuff. I am very pleased with myself. It's a good thing for me and my family and... my house is cleaner.