Comments on: Shop Yard Sales for Young Children’s Clothing (66/365)

By: Slccom

Slccom — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 23:50:26 +0000

A lot of people put their signs on a large box held down by bricks or rocks, with a balloon on it. That works well.

By: Slccom

Slccom — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 23:49:12 +0000

It is illegal where I live. City officials will rip them off, but I don’t know if anyone has been ticketed.

By: Kai

Kai — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 19:44:46 +0000

Illegally on a pole? Where do people post such signs where you live? I’m not sure of the actual legality, but it’s definitely commonplace her, and I’ve never heard of a prosecution. that seems like an extra dig just to get one in.

By: Joan

Joan — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:41:24 +0000

#11 Rebecca Informative comments like yours are the reason I use to love the comments. I use to read the comments for addition information that was great and there was a lot of good information given. I will now quit reading the comments because they seen to be a contest between who can say the most wierd things about the writing. High school is way in my past, but somehow the comments seem to remind me of it.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 17:24:42 +0000

deRuiter, I love you. I don’t agree with every comment you write, but each one is a thousand times more entertaining than any original TSD post !

By: Amy K

Amy K — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 13:52:46 +0000

Along with yard sales, I am a fan of the consignment/tag sales that our local Mother’s Club runs twice each year. Because dozens of sellers are coming together there is a great selection. Before our daughter was born I picked up her bathtub, boppy, and a few other large-ish things I wasn’t sure we’d need. I also saw quite a few things we had already gotten at showers, for 1/5 the retail price (baby bjorn, bundle me). That’s a little higher than yard sale prices, and unlike a yard sale I can’t negotiate, but I’m not really one to do that anyways.

By: deRuiter

deRuiter — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 10:43:56 +0000

Thank you Marta #1, “Seven lines into the post and I’ve already counted 2 occurrences for “incredibly” and 2 for “simply”.” Now it IS called “The Simple Dollar” so perhaps there is a clause in the sale agreement of the column that “simply”, “simply put” (Don’t TELL me you’re putting it simply, PUT IT SIMPLY!) must appear a certain amount of times in each column? Does everyone in Iowa have such a limited vocabulary and sound like they never traveled out of their own cornfield? I wouldn’t think so! It’s like that horrible accident on the other side of the highway, you can’t help looking, and just when you think it can’t get worse, it does! The battered garage sale sign is months out of date, illegally posted on a utility pole and ought to be accompanying an article on how NOT to run a garage sale. The author should to take some of his precious stash of cash and buy a thesaurus!

By: Raya

Raya — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 09:23:48 +0000

#9 Johanna @ 3:40 pm March 7th, 2012
“If that’s a real garage sale ad, when was this photo taken? Has Brittany been working on this project since last September? Are the good people at 329 North Pearl advertising their sale six months in advance? Or did they make their signs out of some kind of indestructible material that’s immune to weathering effects?”

I don’t see how THAT has any relevance to the post.

By: Izabelle

Izabelle — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 03:00:16 +0000

???

I did not get scorn from Trent’s post, just astonishment at the rate some people spend.

I can relate – every summer, at the yard sales I frequent, I score tons of barely-used things that must have cost a small fortune at the store. Granted, I don’t know the story behind these purchases, but it opened up my eyes to the fact that *maybe* we North Americans tend to buy too much stuff. When it’s all laid out in such a plain (and visual) manner, it’s hard to ignore.

By: Mister E

Mister E — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:08:58 +0000

This place gets weirder by the day.

I think garage sales are nifty, even if I’m almost never out of the house early enough on summer weekends to take advantage of them.

By: David

David — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 23:25:37 +0000

Well, someone must buy these things at cost. I mean, manufacturers of baby wipes hand woven from dupioni silk and fragranced with Joy perfume do not dump their entire production run directly onto the garage sale market at a dollar a pop. This is not merely because they are unmindful that Sarah will come along and knock them down to forty cents.

But whether Trent’s neighbors are selling nearly new baby clothes because they are rich as Croesus and happy as Larry, or because they are so desperate they have eaten the baby and are just about to hang themselves, does not and should not matter to Trent. In the former case he is getting a bargain that will make him happy and no one miserable; in the latter, who knows but his forty cents on the dollar will make the difference between damnation and redemption for the poor rich guy next door?

Well it was said by the Master:

If I want to dress parsimonious
What’s that to Polonius?

By: Emma

Emma — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 23:15:37 +0000

Thanks G-D for rich folks! Remember them while voting. The are indispensable to a frugalist survival.(and his happiness) Along with a goat, crock pot, outdoor cloth line, home made soap and cloth diapers(for children). The proximity to the rich folks scraps or by products(seen as a renewable resource here) must be taken into consideration when planning to built a house in the middle of the woods. It might be not efficient to go on a scavenger hunt into a distant neighborhood with ever increasing gas prices.Why do I think that going after the rich man’s scarps being an educated and somehow well off man himself is not the same frugality tip as baking your own bread ? Why mock those(the rich) who provide for you?

By: Troy

Troy — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:15:10 +0000

So why exactly are you “stunned at the high quality of the items being sold for a dollar or two” in “really nice neighborhoods?”

You allude to the benefit of getting a great deal on all these new shiny expensive wonderful things, where it’s ok if you buy them at yard sales, but then assume that others that have these same nice things or are selling them are somehow miserable and in debt and are not true to themselves because they choose work and making money to buy shiny new expensive things not at yard sales and “spend money at a very high rate and have alot of item turnover.”

How do you know?

By: rebecca

rebecca — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:57:27 +0000

You do need to have a general idea of how fast your child is growing when buying clothes to grow into. It might be a bit challenging for a first time parent, at least at first. As kids get older their growth slows somewhat, and yes, occasionally you do underestimate their growth spurts and some stuff may not match the season when they hit that size, but I think I have had only a handful of pieces that my three have not been able to wear over the 7 years I have had kids. You still come out way ahead.

You can also re purpose items. I had a cute white sundress for a little girl, but my daughter was born in August and it got cold to fast for her to grow into. But I hung on to it and the following summer she wore it tunic length with leggings, and the next summer she wore it as a cropped tank top with shorts, and then it was passed on to my niece. Jeans that are too short in spring to hang on to for fall but still fit in the waist? Make shorts or a skirt for summer.
I love hunting dirt cheap yard sales for items to re purpose for kids clothes. Some of the easiest sewing projects out there are turning adult or bigger kid clothes into little kid items.

By: Izabelle

Izabelle — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:52:46 +0000

This is a good example to illustrate why, in an era of readily available photography equipment and instant results, qualified commercial photographers are still relevant. Anyone can snap a picture like this, but planning a shoot, from subject matter to composition and lighting, takes years of training and experience to do well.

Trent, if you are not demanding better / more pertinent subject matter, you are failing your intern. But then again, these are details that usually elude people who are not visual communication professionals… and why professional photography looks so easy to outsiders.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:40:48 +0000

If that’s a real garage sale ad, when was this photo taken? Has Brittany been working on this project since last September? Are the good people at 329 North Pearl advertising their sale six months in advance? Or did they make their signs out of some kind of indestructible material that’s immune to weathering effects?

By: David

David — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:30:21 +0000

It’s quite an intriguing example of a garage sale photo, largely due to the idiosyncratic handwriting. When I read it I thought it said “Sausage Balls Left”, perhaps an over-enterprising attempt at trying to recoup the cost of buying too much of what is no doubt considered a delicacy in parts of Iowa. What a real garage sale might look like I know not, but on the whole I am happier to remain in ignorance. I’ve done it all my life, anyway.

By: julie

julie — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:15:11 +0000

Is that really the best example you could come up with for a garage sale photo?

By: Cindy

Cindy — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:12:39 +0000

When buying clothes ahead because the child will grow into be sure to account for the season. My newborn daughter got wonderful clothes for 9 months later but they were not warm enough for the winter month she fit them.

By: Angie

Angie — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 20:54:06 +0000

virtually, inevitably, mostly, impressively… it would be a quick game. Good advice, though. My friends and I have kids that are close together but staggered enough to clothes swap back and forth.