Tips for a Sucessful Yard Sale

I am preparing for my stockpile yard sale this Friday and Saturday – my biggest one yet. That is as long as the Yard Sale Gods smile upon me and drive the rain away! I thought it would be a good time to give some tips to having a successful yard sale:

Advertise
Unless you live in an area with heavy traffic passing by, advertise your yard sale in the classifieds and in Craigslist. You can also place flyers on the community boards of the grocery stores and the library.

Signs
Nothing drives me crazy more than seeing a sign for a yard sale, turning down the street and then have no more signs to guide me! Here are some tips for successful signs:

• Use a big bright colored poster board for your sign. I gather the political signs that are left over after the elections and just fold and staple a piece of poster board over the existing sign.
• Place big arrows on the signs to guide the drivers
• Make the writing Thick & Big on your sign so it can be easily read by someone driving by. Writing that is small and light will do nothing for someone just passing by. You really only need the words “Yard Sale” and maybe your street address
• Make sure there is a sign on every turn so your customers make it to your sale
• Setting up the yard sale
• Make sure every item at your sale is clean and in working order (unless otherwise marked). Nothing makes me leave a sale quicker than walking up and seeing a bunch of dirty junk.
• Whenever possible, place your items up off the ground on tables. It is really difficult for some people to bend down and forage on the ground. Plus, it will make the sale look more interesting from the street. Come on, you do it too... drive right on by those yard sales that look sparse.
• PRICE EVERYTHING! No one wants to stand in line just to wait to hear the price you want for an item. It’s easiest to keep some labels with you when you are gathering your sale items and price them as you go along. Hint: I price everything in increments of 25 cents (for example .25, .75, 1.25, 2.50). It makes it so much easier to add up the items when your customers are checking out.
• Have change ready – make sure to have plenty of 1’s, 5’s and some change on hand when your sale starts. A fanny pack works great to hold your money so you can stay on the move and not worry about someone snatching your profits.
• If you have yard sales often, have an email signup sheet so you can let people know when you’re having your next sale
• Have some shade ready for you in the summertime – Nothing wipes you out more than standing in the blazing sun all day. I don’t have any shade in my front yard until the evening, so I set up a gazebo/canopy. It gives much needed relief and adds to the festivity of my sale.
• Check with your city/county to see if a permit is necessary for your sale.

The Day of the Sale

• Have fun! It’s a great time to chat with the folks that stop by your sale & your neighbors.
• Fill a cooler with ice and drinks to sell. This is a great job to give to the younger kids!
• Have an extension cord ready so people can try out electrical items.
• Expect people to haggle – its part of the fun of going to yard sales. Remember, can negotiate right back!

After the Sale

• Make sure you take your signs down.
• Donate any items you don’t want to bring back into the house. Many charities will come right to your house to pick up donations.

Food Lions Printables (FLIPS) for the week of 8/12/09

Nothing too special this week - at least we still have the Guiding Stars coupon.
I think I will be spending my time at the Harris Teeter Triples!

A PDF file of the coupons can be downloaded here: HERE

$1 off any Guiding Stars Item (expires September 1st)
$1.00 off Motts Applesauce (expires August 25th)
$1.00 off any Gillette Deodorant (expires August 25th)
$3 off six Lean Cuisine Dinners or Entrees (expires August 25th)
$2.00 of any one Dove Nutrimoisture 24oz Body Wash (expires August 25th)
$1.00 off two Hidden Valley Dressings (expires August 25th)
.50 off two Hidden Valley Dips (expires August 25th)
$1.00 off two Food Lion Applesauce (expires August 25th)
$1.00 off any Degree Deodorant (expires August 25th)
$1.00 off Breyers Ice Cream (expires August 25th)

My Coupon Binder♦

My coupon binder… trusty old friend. Always there for me, through thick and thin. She has seen me through many a sale and has saved me a ton of money!

There are a number of ways to organize your coupons. I have a friend who does a great job using boxes and never seems to miss out on a deal. I’ve been using a binder for around the past nine years and couldn’t live without it. It takes a bit more time to file the coupons, but I would rather take that time at home relaxing in front of the TV to be able to quickly flip through the pages in the store.

Setting up your binder is a personal preference and it may take trial and error to figure out what works best for you. This is what you will need and how I have set up mine:

A Binder – the zippered binders work great on keeping everything secure (especially if you drop it!) but I found that I never quite closed it up and the ring was too small to hold all the pages. Right now I use a 4” heavy duty D-ring binder that works perfect for me.

Baseball card sleeves – these can be found at Walmart or Target, usually with the photo albums. The Dollar Tree also sells them, but I found that they wear out very quickly. Others also use the sleeves that go in photo albums for the larger size pockets. I find that if you just fold the larger coupons, they fit fine.

Dividers/Labels – You will need some way to divide the sections of your binder. You can use the standard binder dividers or I just place labels on the bottom right hand side of the page. This way I just flip up the corners to find the section I’m looking for and I don’t have additional pages to bulk up my binder.

Dividing into sections – Some people file the coupons alphabetically, by expiration date or by category. I’m a category kinda gal (cereal, cookies, dairy, etc). By doing this, when I go to a section of the grocery store, I plop open my binder to that category and I can easily compare what is one the shelf to the coupons I have available.

Supplies – A 3-ring zippered pencil bag works great to hold supplies like a calculator, pencil/pen or the coupons you will be giving to the cashier on your shopping trip. Plus there is an endless supply of organizing items on the school supply isle. Again, it’s what works best for you, be creative!

The most important tip is to keep your coupons with you. My binder stays in my car just in case I run into an unexpected sale!

Printable coupons from Pillsbury

Pillsbury has some great printable coupons click HERE for:

• .75 off Kix cereal
• .55 off Trix cereal
• .55 off Honey Nut Cheerios
• 1.00 off Savorings
• .55 off Simply Cookie Dough
• 1.00 off 2 Grands biscuits
• 1.00 off 2 Refrigerated Cookie Dough
• .40 off 2 Sweet Rolls
• .55 off 2 Toaster Stride;
• .40 off Suddenly Salad
• 1.50 off Wanchai Ferry
• .75 off 3 Hamburger Helper
• .60 off 2 Old El Paso products
• .60 off Chex Mix bars
• .50 off Chex Mix
• .40 off Fiber One Chewy Bars
• .50 off 2 BC Fruit Snacks
• .40 off Nature Valley Granola bars
• .40 off Chex Mix 100 Cal Mix
• .40 off BC Fruit Flavored shapes
• .50 off 6 Yoplait
• .40 off Gogurts or Trix
• 1.00 off Yo-Plus
• .80 off 2 Gogurts or Trix
• .55 off 32 ox Yoplait yougurt
• 1.00 off Nature Valley Granola Clusters
  

These coupons are great for Farm Fresh's spend $30 get $15 catalina deal this week!

Tax-Free Weekend: August 7th - 9th

This weekend is Virginia's tax free weekend for school supplies and clothing!

Here are the details from the gov't website:

When: First weekend of August (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) each year. The 2009 holiday will take place on August 7, 8, and 9, 2009.

What's Exempt: During this three-day period, purchases of qualifying school supplies selling for $20 or less per item, and purchases of qualifying clothing and footwear selling for $100 or less per item will be exempt from sales tax. Retailers may also choose to absorb the tax on other items during the holiday period, but they are responsible for paying the tax on those items to the Department of Taxation.

Tides Games Tuesday Nights - Buy One Ticket Get One FREE!

Present a KRAFT Singles wrapper and receive the Buy One Regular Price Ticket Get One Free offer from KRAFT Singles!
*Offer only valid at the Harbor Park Box Office - Not to be combined with any other offer.

Printable Food Lion Coupons

Here are the coupons for this week from Food Lion:

• $1 off two bags of Food Lion Potato Chips (expires August 18^th)
• $1 of any purchase of $5 or more of Butcher’s Brand Beef (expires August 18^th)
• $1 off Food Lion Peanut Butter (expires August 18^th)
• Free can of Chef Boyardee when you buy 1 Hawaiian Punch Gallon (expires September 1^st)
• $1 off Tostitos Scoops (expires August 18^th)
• $1 off any purchase of $3 or more in Smart Options products (expires August 18^th)
• $1 off Skippy Peanut Butter (expires August 18^th)
• $1 off any guiding stars item
  

Download the PDF with all on one page here

These coupons are still good:

• $1 off a box of Food Lion Cereal
• $1 off your next Home 360 purchase
• $1 off your next Healthy Accents purchase
• $2 off the purchase of one 12-pack of Food Lion Green Tea

Download the PDF with all on one page here

Happy Saving!