8 Yard Sale Tips for an Easy Day

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Full disclosure: I am not a fan of hosting a yard sale to get rid of stuff and make money…

UNLESS:

You have a date on the calendar for when your yard sale will be — otherwise you’re just holding on to tons of stuff for an undetermined amount of time.
You have a lot of stuff to sell. I know it’s hard to let go of stuff you paid good money for, but the time and effort that go into a yard sale aren’t worth it for a small-medium amount of stuff.

Well, this year, I met both of my criteria for a yard sale!

My parents’ neighborhood has a yard sale every year that gets tons of traffic, so I had a date on the calendar. We’re planning to move later this year with very little stuff, so we had a lot to get rid of. So I broke down and had a yard sale!

It went really well because of a few things that made it all so much easier. So allow me to share my yard sale tips for an easy, yet profitable yard sale.

I took exactly one picture on the day of our yard sale — Mozzie relaxing in the middle of all the action!

8 Yard Sale Tips for an Easy Day

1. A Neighborhood Yard Sale Event

Having your yard sale during a yard sale event makes your job a lot easier! You’ll get much more traffic and have to do less work advertising your sale.

My parents neighborhood has a big yard sale event every summer that draws a lot of shoppers. Even though we live in a pretty busy area, I knew I’d do better hauling my stuff to their house for this event. I didn’t have to make any signs or advertise online for my sale because of it, which erased some extra work I would have wanted to do for a successful sale at my house.

If your neighborhood has a yard sale event, take advantage of it! If you have friends or family that live somewhere with neighborhood sales for one weekend each summer, it is worth the extra effort to haul your stuff to their house to have your sale. Take advantage of that built-in traffic!

2. Deciding Everything Must Go

Another thing that made the yard sale easier for me was my decision that everything had to go. This was a pretty easy decision since we’re planning on moving and can’t take it all with us, but an important decision to make.

There were two expensive items I had for sale that I pre-decided if they didn’t sell, it would be worth me trying to sell them online. For absolutely everything else, I had decided that if it didn’t sell, it was getting donated.

This made my yard sale easier because I didn’t have to stress about haggling with people or debate if I should hold out for a better price. I had essentially decided that it was all leaving no matter what, so any money I made from my sale was the “cherry on top.”

I didn’t even let anything come back into our house. All of the items that didn’t sell got loaded into our car immediately after the sale and dropped off at a donation center.

All yard sale decisions were much easier to make since I knew from the very beginning that everything had to go no matter what.

3. PrePrinted Price Stickers

I ordered yard sale price stickers off Amazon (these ones) that had prices preprinted on them and they were fabulous!

The morning of my sale, I set everything up on tables and then was able to super quickly walk through it all slapping stickers on everything. Pricing my items would have taken 10x longer if I had to write out each price. Seriously. Buy the preprinted stickers.

Other pricing supplies that were helpful to have on hand:

Scotch Tape
Duct Tape
Thin and Thick Sharpie Markers
Rubber Bands
Card Stock Paper

4. 25 Cent Price Increments

Everything in my yard sale was priced in 25 cent increments — no 10 cent items!

This made my yard sale easier because the only change I needed to deal with was quarters.

It was faster to add up the total of someone’s purchase, faster to make change for them, and I didn’t need tons of change on hand, just quarters.

5. Fanny Pack

I kept all of my money in a fanny pack all day which was one of my favorite decisions. (Mine is super old, but this one look similar.)

All of the bills were kept in the large compartment and all of my quarters were in the small zippered compartment.

Being able to wear my money was so nice because I didn’t need to worry about keeping track of a cash box.

People were at the sale early while I was still setting up and I could be up doing things while they shopped, with my hands free. Plus, I could walk out to them when I knew they were ready to check out and handle all the money from anywhere.

6. Lots of Change

I probably overdid it on the change, but it’s better to have too much than too little! I got $130 worth of change from the bank the day before the sale:

1 – 20
2 – 10s
6 – 5s
40 – 1s
a roll of quarters

Realizing you don’t have enough change in the middle of a sale is a stressful problem to have, so make things easier by getting a whole lot of it!

7. PrePlanned Food

The day I held my yard sale was a long 12-hour day. I was busy handling the yard sale all day and of course I got hungry!

Luckily, I was having my yard sale at my parent’s house and they are experts at feeding people. My mom had muffins baked for snacks. She made me coffee. My dad grilled burgers and brats for lunch and dinner. It was so nice not to have to worry about food.

If you’re not so lucky as to have people ready to feed you all day during your sale, I highly recommend that you have your food preplanned, or even pre-made for the entire day. You could pack a cooler with drinks, snacks, and a sack lunch to sit out with you so that you don’t have to go into the house to make anything.

8. Extra People

Speaking of parents that fed me all day, it was so nice to have extra people around!

My parents helped take care of Mozzie all day. I was able to take bathroom and food breaks without worrying about missing shoppers. They just made it all much easier!

If you’re not having your sale with another person, recruits some friends or family to come sit with you for a few hours. This makes it much more fun too!

My yard sale earnings!

All of these elements made for a great yard sale! I’m thrilled with how much we made, the amount of stuff we sold, and how enjoyable the day was. If I ever host a yard sale again, I’ll definitely be using these same methods that worked so well this time.

⇒ I’d love to know what your yard sale tips are! If you’ve shopped at a lot of yard sales or hosted many of your own, I’m sure you’ve noticed what works and what doesn’t. Leave a comment and let me know!