I’ve held three yard sales in my life. The first two were complete wastes of my time, each netting approximately $20… which was just enough to pay for dinner the night of the yard sales because I was too dang tired to cook.
I had vowed to never again host a yard sale.
I even reminded my husband, “I SWORE I would never do this again!” as I trudged through my living room Friday night with my arms fairly bursting with posterboard and such. He laughed at me.
BUT there was one difference in this year’s yard sale: it was held on the annual community yard sale day. Our little town boasted OVER 35 yard sales in one square mile. It drew a nice crowd from surrounding areas, and we had a nearly constant stream of people in our driveway. I hit up Sam’s Club on Friday morning and bought powdered lemonade, a HUGE container of freezer cookie dough and a box of Otter Pops.
The kids made $40 with their little lemonade stand.
The girl just loved “waiting for customers.” After her first customer left, she was all giggles.
“Mom,” she said, her shoulder scrunched ALLLL the way up to her ears, “Dad just said THAT was MY CUSTOMER!”
The kids were able to use the money they earned to pay tithing yesterday, and everything that’s left is going in savings to buy school clothes later on this summer.
I broke my “no yard sale ever again!” vow for one reason only: bunk beds. We’ve been needing a bunk bed for our kids who have been sharing a twin bed… each sleeping at one end and knocking feet during the night. I’ve been scouring the internet for months, coming up empty handed. Everything in our price range was too cheap. I finally decided I’d have to order a $600 bunk bed, and decided then that the best way to start saving would be… a stinking stanking yard sale.
As I stood in my driveway, flanked on all sides by movies, books, clothes, I wondered what sort of treasures were being sold elsewheres. As my sister in law drove away from my yard sale, I said “If you see anything good out there, let me know!” A few minutes later, my cell phone rang. She had found a bunk bed. I immediately sent my husband on a mission to look at it.
It. Was. Perfect.
Sturdy, solid wood and it cost us $25! It is possible to become delirious over good news? We made enough to not only buy the bunk bed but a dresser as well… and we’re able to put $50 into our emergency fund. The folks that sold us the bunk beds and dresser also threw in a twin mattress for free AND then took 2 hours out of their Sunday afternoon to help us put the bunk beds together. When they noticed we didn’t have a twin sheet for one of the mattresses, they brought us some.
Gosh, have I ever told you how much I love this town? It’s like the Lord skimmed the cream from the top and plopped it here in Joseph City.
This bed is so sturdy that it will last through ten kids, yea more! I won’t be having ten kids, mind you… but I’m sure going to pass this bed just as soon as our kids outgrow it.
The kids were so thrilled to each have their own bed… little did we know: they BOTH had a bad case of separation anxiety last night. They each begged to crawl in bed with the other, and once we even caught the boy, mid-climb throwing his Iron Man blanket on his sister’s top bunk. Finally they drifted off, and an hour later I was up with the girl who had nightmares about monsters. Oh, they’ll grow out of it. But I think it’s adorable that they are so used to each other, especially since they fight constantly.
In other news, I forgot to wear sunscreen during the yard sale and now I slightly resemble Tanning Mom.