Yard Sale Finds

This past Saturday, I did some earnest yard-saling.  Here was the haul for the day:

11 long-sleeved school shirts

2 short-sleeve shirts

6 pair school pants

1 school shorts

2 play t-shirts

1 school sweat shirt

1 pair sneakers

a peg-board game (x-mas gift)

a shoe-box containing 19 bottles of fabric paint

a CD display case

a round tablecloth

I spent just under $18, and about 2 hours.  If I had bought this in a thrift shop, I would have spent a bit less time, but a lot more money (I'm estimating, a bit more than $100.  That's a difference of something like $80 for one extra hour of shopping!)

You'll notice that this list is heavily weighted toward kids' clothes.  Going yard-saling has the best pay-off for people with children, I think.  My boys are very hard on their clothes, so I've learned to get extra outfits I can pull out mid-year when their current shirts or pants are no longer decently patchable.

Yard sales are also good ways to furnish a house or apartment that doesn't have much in it yet.  But if you're shopping for something specific (like a round tablecloth), you might spend just as much time looking around at yard sales before you can find one you like -- a thrift shop begins to make more sense.  For that reason, my friends and I swap lists of things we're looking for.  (The CD case and tablecloth are examples of things I bought for friends).