Bargain Shopping – Garage Sale Style

Since we were fortunate enough to have last Friday off we decided to get up early and go have a little breakfast at IHOP. 

Hmmm that doesn’t seem right, let me try that first sentence again. 

Since we were fortunate enough to have last Friday off and since James thinks that he will die if we sleep late, we got up and had a HUGE breakfast at IHOP. Yep, that’s better! 😉

We had been talking about going to garage sales for a couple of weeks, but had yet to make it to any.  So while eating our breakfast we grabbed a paper to see if any caught our attention. 

There were a few that we decided to visit on Friday and even more that we wanted to visit on Saturday.  We had limited time Friday morning since I had plans to have lunch with a friend at a very girly place that James will not take me to.  It was amazing by the way and we had a great time!  Right Kendra?

We stopped in and had a quick look around at a couple of places and decided to call it quits and just wait until Saturday.

Saturday arrives and we were up before the crack of dawn, because if you live at our house that is what you do.  We threw some clothes on and set out to have a quick breakfast at Chick-fil-A, one of my favorite places and a whole lot better for you than the breakfast at IHOP.

After our first couple of dud sales I was becoming a little bored and was glad that there were only a couple of more on our list.  As we were driving to one of the last ones we found a sign for a sale that wasn’t on our list.  James busted a u-turn, because he loves u-turns (they are so much more practical than just turning down the next street) and we headed to the sale. 

Pulling up it didn’t look like much really, but it came through for us and showed us that one person’s junk really is another person’s treasures.

The first thing that caught our eye was this cute little McCall’s Garden Book.

McCall's Gardening book from the 60's.

As you can see the price was 10 cents and it was too cute to pass up.  If you read our blog then you know that gardening is a big deal right now and this book has a ton of information about flower beds and vegetable gardens.  On top of all the information I love how cute it is, it is such a throwback.  The copyright date is 1961 and it certainly looks like the ’60s.

After that book we had to keep digging.  James picked up a Great Recipes for Good Health cook book then scurried off to check out something else.  I kept looking at books and picked up Betty Crocker Cooking Basics and Recipes from Grandma’s Kitchen.   Maybe these will spur me into cooking more.  We’ll see about that.  I decided that was enough books and walked another step or two and saw that there was a whole other box of books and I couldn’t help myself, I had to dig.  I picked up three Danielle Steel books that I don’t have, yes I read Danielle Steel and I LIKE IT!

At this point the lady running the garage sale looks over and sees that I am carrying 7 books and kindly asks if I would like for her to set them down for me.  Yay! Free hands to dig some more!

After the books I spotted a whole box of yarn.  Since knitting has become another favorite hobby of mine, I decided that I just had to have some.  All of the yarn was the cute Fun Fur yarn that is normally between 5 and 7 dollars a skein and was priced at 50 cents.  Too good to pass up right?  I was going to make an offer for the whole box because that is what you are supposed to do at garage sales, but someone had brought that over, so the lady running the sale couldn’t give me a discount.  I looked through and picked out 12 skeins that I thought I couldn’t live with out.  Unfortunately James didn’t get a picture of these since they aren’t important to him. haha  Let me tell you they are cute and all you guys out there would be soooo jealous.

I’m sure you are wondering where James is at this point and I turn to look for him and see that he has an arm load as well. 

He found some old children’s records that he thought we could sell on eBay.  Tip for all you fellow bargain hunters: DON’T BUY CHILDREN’S RECORDS.  You can’t sell them on ebay for a great amount of money. haha.  James wanted to throw them away but I just can’t.  I want to keep them because I am a hoarder and I need to go on Oprah.

Here’s a picture of all of our books along with the records.

All our garage sale books!

James also found the cutest little table to go in our office.  Its very light weight and has a loop at the top of the triangle so that you can pick it up and hang it on the wall to get it out of the way.  I doubt that we ever actually hang it on the wall but it’s a neat little feature.  The legs were originally black and the top looked like old counter top, so James sanded it down and painted the whole thing to match perfectly with our other stuff.  The table… 50 cents.  Thank you very much.

Our awesome 50 cent table for the office.

The last and probably the best buy of the bunch was a garment bag for 3 bucks.  James has been needing once since he travels for work now and has to wear suits.  We have looked around for one and they are all over a hundred dollars, so this was a steal.  It’s in great shape, just needs a little cleaning up and it will be as good as new!

Our grand total at the sale was $12.10!  We were both happy with our garage sale-ing skills.

I think that we have decided to hit up a couple more garage sales and even a few estate sales this weekend.  Honestly we probably shouldn’t because we have enough crap, but what if there is something that is just for me and I miss out because I didn’t go.  Just look at all the cool stuff Megan over at NestMaker picked up at an estate sale this past weekend… we need some cool crap like that.  haha

5 thoughts on “Bargain Shopping – Garage Sale Style”

  1. I haven’t read Danielle Steel in a while but i like her too. I LOVE garage sale shopping but can’t seem to get up and out early enough with my kids griping the whole time. At lunch I go to Savers, which is highly organized/efficient garage saleing(new word). My mother would have bought the whole box of yarn. Sierra is into knitting lately too. Yes, SIERRA likes to sit with Mamaw and see what she can make. I am trying to keep the hoarding under control but it gets way worse (highly educated) when you have kids and don’t want to throw anything that your child had drooled on away.

  2. I love reading and for some reason (3 kids) i have not been able to sit and read in a looong time. When i would go to garage sells, books is all i would get. Maybe we can trade when we are done with them. I do miss your weight watcher stories! Why did you stop?

  3. Oh Gaby, thanks for being there to remind everyone that I haven’t been doing that. haha. Actually, I hadn’t been to Weight Watchers in two weeks. I just went back this last week and will do a post later today. If you like Danielle Steel I have plenty for you to read.

  4. Good for you guys! Looks like you came away with some great stuff for not a lot of money. I love going to garage and estate sales. You just never know what you’re going to find that you just can’t pass up.

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