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we are having our first Garage sale (yard sale to you guys), please i need hints, help, ideas on how to make it succesfull!
PLEASE:angel:

First of all be ready to haggle with your prices and don't be offended when someone ask you to take less than your asking price. If you feel an item is at a fair price don't back down or if it something you can't stand to see brought back into the house let them take it for less.
Try to make sure everything is clean and all clothing is stain free and mended, you get better prices.
I try to group like items together, such as kitchen, men's intrest ex tools, baby items, etc.
Set up the night before if possible that way when you have to get up and open it is ready, it seems you will always have at least one person that will stop in either minutes before your advertised time or before you are ready for them.
Have lots of $1.00, $5.00 and quarters. I try to always mark all my items in .25 increments it just makes having the right change easier.
If you want a big turn out put it in the paper and post signs around your area that gets alot of traffic. If you are difficult to find you might also post signs here and there pointing in the direction of your home, nothing is more aggrivating than seeing a garage sale sign and not being able to find it. Oh also I would make all my signs out of the same color posterboard, people relate the color to the same garage sale.
Have everything clearly marked, for example I might ask 3.00 for an outfit that I have hung the pants under the shirt, makes it look like the shirt only is 3.00. For this case I mark the tag 3.00 2pc.
Try to put up everything in your garage that isn't for sale out of sight or hang a sign that states not for sale. If you have children keep all of their toys that are not for sale out of the garage, it is inevitable that a dk will pick it up and/or ride on it, leaving you with the fear they will get hurt or tear the toy up. Plus I am just a germ freak when it comes to strange people dks handling my dks toys.
Try to hang your nicer clothing up on hangers, keep clothing on table folded.
Put your more interesting/ big items at the end of the garage closer to the street example any furniture, baby swing, stroller, exersise machine, this entises people to stop.
This is probably above and beyond the necessary but for me having a garage sale is a big ordeal. So I sweep and power wash my garage. I always keep it in the back of my mind that the cleaner your items and your home appear the more likely your stuff will sell. I know personally I just won't stop at a garage sale if the house looks trashy.
Well I hope this will help, I know I probably rattled on too much but like I said having a garage sale is a big ordeal for me, the more money I can get out of my stuff the better for me, right?
Good luck I hope your garage sale is a huge sucess.

Wow, Tama-Toe--great tips! I am trying to convince dh to have a yard sale this spring/summer. He thinks it looks "tacky" **sigh** I think it would be a great idea to get rid of a lot of things we don't need/want any more. ;)

Did you read the garage sale tips here on the site?
http://www.usave2day.com/gsale.shtml

Sara

Oh yea I am all for having garage sales, I dread them because the prep is alot of work. Hummm funny that your dh thinks that they are tacky, guess I really never thought of them that way. Esp since I have been to garage sales in some several hundreds of thousand dollars homes. Got like them b/c most of the time they purchase things I wouldn't dream of paying the retail price for. I have always been farely sucessful at having a garage sales. I try to have them 2 a year once at the beginning of summer to get rid of all summer clothing and then at the end of summer or early fall to get rid of winter clothing (dks I should add). When we got rid of all of my ds's baby items like crib, swing, bassinet etc, that garage sale brought in over 1000.00. I just cant imagine letting that kind of money go to the thrift shop. But I understand that garage sales are not for everyone, my DF and I we love them, well going to them. DM she would rather be set fire too, she dislikes everything about them, going and esp having them.

A couple of more tips that I thought about is if you can have your garage sale over a weekend when Thur-Fri marks the 1st day of the month that is a good one too. Alot people get their checks on the first of the month, pay checks, disability, social security, etc.
Have extra batteries on hand to show that battery operated toys work. As well as an extention cord handy for the same reason with electical items.
Have some bags, we have tons of WM bags and keep them on hand during garage sales. It makes it nice when people do purchase quite a few small items or clothing to have something to make it back to their car easily.
I put my dks .25 toys that are for sale at a lower level for the kds, you would be amazed at the fact that a parent will pay a quarter for a toy just to keep the dk busy while they look.
This one just floored me and doesn't happen everywhere all the time but when we moved here alot of people wrote me checks. If you decide not to accept checks post a sign on the entrance to your sale stating so. If you do accept checks if possible take each check to the bank it was wrote from and cash it, the bank will honor the check if it holds the account even if you do not have an account there. This protects you from getting any fees from your bank if someones check is not good.
Oh I didn't see that the forum has tips too sorry, but read over them and I forgot to say keep the clothing grouped by size oops, good one to remember.

thank you everyone this has been a great help! i let you know how we made out, and please pray that the rain stays away :angel: