eBay Sales, Garage Sale Finds And Things That Don't Sell

It has been WAY too long since I have had a lot of auctions on eBay.  With my son having football games every Saturday it is hard to go garage sale-ing.  I am trying to clean, declutter and purge in the garage.  Everything is either in a 'next garage sale to get rid of' pile or on one counter-top, the 'list on eBay' pile.  The second pile takes up 1/2 of my counter-top.  The first pile is a lot more.  I have boxes in my garage on the floor, on the other counter-top and my shed almost completely full of garage sale stuff.

I am planning on having my next garage sale on December  24th or 31st.  I have had this two years now the first Saturday after Christmas and the garage sale was a HUGE success. This year, since the first Saturday after Christmas is New Years I might do it the day before Christmas instead.

The last two times I did this (I skipped last year since I didn't have anything to sell) I had four friends helping me for the first few hours of the day.  It was THAT busy. There were cars up and down the street and over 20 people in my yard at one time.  It was an absolute madhouse!  Why?  Because no one else is crazy enough to have a garage sale on that day.  So, regular garage salers, people with nothing to do and saw it in the paper, and people that saw the signs ALL came to my garage sale since no one else, anywhere around, was having a garage sale.  I had customers come from over 30 miles away in both directions.

So, where do I get my stuff and what do I do with it?

First I get things and I try to sell them on eBay if they are a decent size to ship and on Craig's List or Cheapcycle (a knock-off groups of Freecycle that is just starting up) if the items are large and too big or heavy to ship.

I get these items from garage sales (I mostly go to nicer cities that have richer residence) or moving sales, since it is a 'everything must go' attitude at them or church rummage sales (since people don't have their own nostalgic feelings on items they are selling so they usually have lower prices. I also sometimes find things at estate sales or thrift stores.

There is two good times to go to a garage sale.  The very beginning of the day, when you find the goldmine items before anyone else, but are paying close to their asking price.  If you go at the end of the day, especially on a hot day, they are DONE, don't care, just want to sell everything and not pack it up again.  They will give you super cheap prices at this time.

Once I have things I search them on 'completed auctions' on eBay to verify they are worth selling and the approximate cost that the item is going for, sold.  Sometimes things look like they'd be a great sell but are worth nothing.  These items, as well as the items I tried to sell but didn't, all go into my garage sale pile or to the thrift store as a donation.

The items worth selling get photographed and then listed on eBay.  Right now here is my current auctions: Debbzs eBay Auctions


I pay $2.50 a month to Auctiva, an outside listing company, for some extra perks in my listings.


I try to only list items that I think will sell for the minimum of $25.00 for it to be worth my time and so that I can make the most of my sales.


With any sale the cost of the listing, how much eBay collects and how much I have to pay to Paypal makes it where anything smaller in sales isn't worth it.

Something like this, a doggie door that fits into a sliding glass door, I will try to sell on Craig's List & Cheapcycle first, since it will be expensive to ship.  However, this particular one, is brand new and already boxed to ship.  A friend bought it online two years ago and never used it.  So it is ready to ship.  So, I will try to sell on Craig's list to save the money on postage and eBay fees, but if I can't sell it, I'll post it on eBay.