The next time someone says "garage sale" I will probably have a full fledged PTSD moment. The amount of stress that goes into "yard sale prep" is insane. I couldn't imagine starting a literal business from the ground up. This garage sale, itself, had me thinking we were about to open a Walmart Super Center.
I kept blowing off the idea because I really just didn't think we had enough "stuff" that was actually of value. I realized I probably had hoarded too much baby gear and that MAYBE we could get rid of five of the baby bouncer seats. I mean, I have one for every room of the house and Charleigh is almost five months and has never sat in one. I convinced myself it was time to purge.
My garage looked like Babies-R-Us had blown up. Bouncy seats, high chairs, ride on toys, walkers, bumbo seats, and bassinets were lined up from one wall to another. I purged the girl's clothes, which took an insane amount of time and effort. We moved onto shoes and ended up with 166 pairs of shoes that my kids either didn't want or couldn't fit anymore. Next we purged our own closet and emptied it of "one day we will wear" and "but what if I need this for an event that I'll never attend" clothes. Before I realized it, the garage was packed full of yard sale crap.
Between sorting, pricing, and organized the load of items for sale, I also had to make signs for the neighborhood and market, market, market on social media. We don't necessarily live in a highly trafficked area so I had to make sure I could get the word out enough to generate a decent amount of traffic. After what felt like a century of work, we were ready for shop to open.
My sister convinced me to have it on Friday, as well as Saturday, and I am really glad she did. We ended up making a pretty decent profit on Friday. We had sold a lot but there was still an ungodly amount of clothes, shoes and baby stuff. We drug the stuff back in Friday and were back at it Saturday morning. We were super busy and even had repeat customers.
I have pretty severe social anxiety. Not a lot of people know that about me because I present myself as a very socially confident person. It's part of my defensive mechanism though. I will carry on conversation and engage in social situations but as soon as I am done, my anxiety literally drains my body and I am left with a high functioning, panic attack forcing me into a fit of emotions.
At the end of the weekend, we made a pretty decent profit and were able to donate the rest of the unsold clothes and shoes to an organization that offers free items to families that loose everything in house fires and natural disasters. Needless to say, I will never ever own my own business, nor will I have another yard sale.
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