Garage / Estate Sale Prep and Shopping

This is gonna be a different kind of blog.  No pictures.  Well, at least I am not planning for any right now.  I want to talk to you about garage sale and Estate sale shopping.  How many times have you come home with nothing, spent way too much gas, and were exhausted!  There are steps that can be taken to keep some of that from happening.  Be prepared, this will not be in any particular order, and I am known to ramble.  You have been warned!

First of all, get on the computer and google or bing “estate sales”, be sure to add in your town.  Now, I like to go to more than just one, so if enough don’t come up…do another search and put in “garage sales”.  That should bring you more hits.  Oh, and it might be helpful if you put in the date that you are gonna be out and about. 

I have an inexpensive MIO GPS that is hand held that I keep in my purse.  Take it and click that you wanna plan a trip.  Start putting in the addresses by which are closer to each other and work from there.  Yes, you might have to go to mapquest to find out how to group them, but it is sure to save on the gas.  You might also wanna start on the furthest ones out and work your way towards home.  I like to get to all of them on my list and if I tire, I won’t get to all them if I didn’t start the furthest out first.  I do all this planning the night before!  There is also a listing of sales on craigslist that you can scour.  When you go to an estate sale that is run by an organized group, ask them to put you on their mailing list. 

Other things to do the night before…shave your legs.  Let’s face it, Summers in Texas are hot and if we wear our shorts and are more comfy we shop much better.  IF you are planning an all day shopathon with friends, take an ice chest with cold water.  If you are going by yourself, throw in some quarters for drinks sold by kids at some of the yard sales.  When I go by myself, I plan to be out shopping by 9am and home for my lunch.  Going with friends is a LOT more fun and sometimes we will stay out for lunch.   For an all day trip, eat a salad or sandwich for lunch.  The worst thing you can do to your body during the hot weather is to put hot food into it and get overheated and miss the rest of your shopping experience!  When a friend is driving be sure to offer to get drinks or a snack at Sonic during the ½ price happy hour. 

Another thing that needs to be done ahead of time is to lay out your shopping bags or crates.  Whether shopping alone or with a friend, it is much easier to gather up everything at the end of the trip if it is in bags or crates.  When you get home, you will be tired and not want to have to sort through everything that has been just junked into the car.

Make sure that you have sizes, color swatches, wall colors on paper and labeled, and a list of anything else you might be looking for tucked into your wallet.  There is another good thing to remember…your wallet.  Why carry the big purse if you can get by with just a wallet.  When I go out on my own, I take a tote bag to hold a drink, GPS, notes, receipts, baggies for small stuff I get, my wallet, bandaids, hand sanitizer,… but then I MAKE SURE that my shorts have deep pockets for my phone and my wallet!