Yard Sales
Is Your Stuff Junk or Just Stuff?
With the nice days of spring, people are dragging out stuff and playing merchants for the day. As I drive down streets, I see garage doors open or front lawns become display areas of junk. It's like a wave that comes through neighborhoods at certain times of the year, sweeping out all the years of accumulated stuff.
I sometimes wonder if they are selling all the stuff that they purchased at other yard sales, as some of it looks recycled to death. And yet, we know one person's junk is another person's found treasure item.
I've asked myself if people know that a lot of the stuff lying around their house or garage is actually meaningless junk. It's astounding what they determine their stuff to be once they begin going through it. I'll ask, "What's this?" and they often reply, "Gee, I don't know."
If it goes into the sale pile, we only hope that someone else will be able to determine what it is.
Some of the items that make it to the sale area however should be displayed in the landfills instead, although people just don't want to admit they hung on to something that didn't have meaning or value at one time or another. It's too embarrassing for them to admit, even to themselves.
It's hard to price these meanlingless items of junk, too. How do you put a price on something you can't name? Yet, it must have had some value because you had it, right? So, pricing junk can be tricky.
Maybe that's why some yard sales don't have items marked with a price. They wait for a person to pick it up and ask, "How much is this?" and then they can reply, "How much you want to pay for it?" It looks like a negotiation, but it's really a plea to take it at any price (and happy that they finally found a potential owner who knows what it is, most likely).
The "put it out there and they will come" is an amazing phenomena when it comes to yard sales. Imagine if everyone cleared out the stuff in their homes every year, how much extra cash that would give them? And better, how much space does that give them?
I wonder what's more valuable -- space to live in or a little extra cash? They both look good to me.
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