My Last Yard Sale Ever

A few weeks ago our little neighborhood had a neighborhood-wide yard sale planned on a Saturday morning.  I didn't plan on participating, since Ben would be out of town during the yard sale and Jack would have a soccer game halfway through the allotted time.  But when got home from a friend's house on Friday evening and the kids saw the neighbors getting things ready for their yard sales, they were adamant that we participate.  So the younger kids went to bed and Cat and I worked on collecting and pricing things for a couple of hours before we went to bed that night.

As you can see, we didn't come up with a whole lot to sell.  (I could have been more ambitious in my efforts to get rid of things, but after moving across the country, then moving again two years later, I felt like we'd trimmed down quite a bit already.  Plus, I try to make regular trips to our local thrift store to donate unwanted/unused items.)

Eliza wanted the proceeds from the things that came out of her closet (old burp cloths, mostly) to be designated as her personal earnings.  Cat found some things she wanted to sell in her room.  And, not to be left out of the Aspiring Money Makers, Jack gathered some random cars and things from his vast vehicle collection and put them on a stool.  I had some reservations about the cars he wanted to sell - some were sentimental, one was broken, and some that were being sold alone but were actually parts of sets - but in the spirit of the yard sale, and wanting to support my kids in their efforts to de-clutter, and not pass on my unreasonable sentimentality when it comes to stuff, I bit my tongue.

Wouldn't you know that while I was gone perusing some of the neighbors' sales, a shopper bought two of Jack's items that actually brought me to tears when I told Ben about it that night.  Someone bought the very first Thomas engine Jack had ever owned.  (I blogged about it here.)  And a wooden Clarabel coach that was part of a different Thomas set.

Is it ridiculous that it brought me to tears?  Perhaps.  But Thomas the Tank Engine has been such a huge part of my kids' lives and they've gotten so much mileage - forgive the pun - out of those trains that it would've taken pretty extreme circumstances for me to part with them by choice.  But I guess if they weren't that important to Jack, then they shouldn't be that important to me, right?  It's just stuff, after all.

In the end, we made $9.50 in sales.  The kids spent $4 on popsicles a neighbor was selling as a fundraiser for a grandchild.  I bought a big basket from another neighbor for $2, and Cat bought a desk for her room for $10.  Cat kept riding her bike around the neighborhood to check out the other sales and talk to our neighbors and people browsing the sales would ask her if she was selling her bike.  She's outgrown it and wants a bigger bike, so when someone asked about it toward the end she decided to sell it.  We got $15 for the bike.  Which means we had a net profit of $8.50.  And... Cat needs a new bike.  And... we'll never be able to replace Thomas and Clarabel.

Please remind me never to do another yard sale.