What To Do With Your Garage Sale Surplus

SURPLUS

As you start garage saleing you may find that you develop a surplus of things you thought you wanted at the sale but didn't like after you brought home or used it for a few months and then found something you liked better. There are several things you can do with this surplus. You can send it to D.I. or goodwill if you don't feel like putting any work into it, you can have your own garage sale with it, you can take it to a consignment store or you can sell it on ebay or craigslist. Having your own garage sale with your surplus is nice because you get rid of it all in one day. If you are doing this try to sell things for what you bought them for that way you are not loosing any money. Taking your items to consignment stores is an option that will sometimes make you money however, in my experience, I always leave disappointed in the amount I was offered and feel like I should have gotten more. The option that will make you the most money is to try to resell it on ebay or craiglist. You wont be able to do this with all of your items but some of them could make you a good profit.

I recently took my surplus of jeans to a consignment store here in town. These three pairs of pants were included in my surplus. The camo capris are Miss Me the jeans are Holister and the brown cargo pants are Lucky Brand. I also took in a gray pair of Banana Republic pants, a pair of Aeropostale jeans and pair of my husbands MEK jeans and BKE jeans.

MEK jeans

BKE jeans

I went to two consignment stores and left completely frustrated with the offers they gave me. The first consignment store was only willing to give me $16 for my husbands MEK jeans! They were also willing to give me $6 for the Miss Me camo capris and $6 for the hollister jeans but would not take anything else. I wasn't happy with that at all so I took my pile of jeans to another consignment store. At the second store they were willing to give me 28 for the MEK jeans (more like it) and $6 dollars for my husbands BKE jeans. UGH!!! I still was not happy with that so I came home and listed my jean surplus on ebay.

A week later I am happy to say that all but one of the pants sold! My husbands MEK jeans sold for $37 dollars, his BKE's sold for $32, the Miss Me camo capris sold for 16.25, the Hollister jeans sold for 10.50, the brown cargo Lucky Brand pants sold for 4.27 and the gray Banana Republic pants sold for 4.99. The only pair of jeans that did not sell was the pair of Aeropostale jeans. My husbands two pair of jeans were not from garage sales but the other 5 pairs of pants were. I spent a total of $2.05 on the other 5 pairs of pants and made a profit of almost $35 dollars!

Here are a few other things I have sold on craigslist and made a profit on.

I bought this cradle for $15 dollars at a garage sale. Both of my babies slept in this cradle. Now 3 years later I sold it on craigslist for $45. I profited $30 dollars

I bought two of these entry way tables for $20 dollars a piece. I sold both of them on craigslist for a total of $110! I profited $70.

If you put a little work into listing some of your unwanted items you found at garage sales on craigslist and ebay you can prevent yourself from loosing money and even make money!