FindingTreasures at Yard Sales

Arrive early-Yard sales are a great place to find Treasures. It is always smart to prepare your family to leave early if you want to maximize your potential treasure hunting at yard sales. If you go as a family, it is also smart to realize each family member has a different idea about what a Treasure is, and is not.

Realize differences My three year little girl may consider princess or Barbie items as her most precious Treasures. My six year old boy (on the other hand) considers video games, trucks, and sports items as the best Treasures the world has to offer. My wife likes old furniture, crafts, purses, and make-up. When I go to yard sales, I am looking for a few items. I look for books, tools, cd's, and movies. Finding treasures mean different things to different people. Yard sales are often the place to look for those Treasures.

Be aware of good and bad sales Before you go to yard sales, you need to know not all yard sales are the same. Some yard sales consist of items most of us would throw in our trash cans. Other yard sales, consist of huge piles of clothes. When you see yard sales like these it is best to drive right by them. There is no sense wasting your time looking for treasures in a pile of junk. The perfect yard sale would have something for the whole family to enjoy. There are not too many yard sales that will satisfy your whole family. You need to realize this because children and wives can get bored very easily.

Hitting pay dirt Finally, you drove for awhile, and you have finally found a yard sale worth a few minutes of your time. In our family, we usually send one person out to scope the potential yard sale. That person will take a quick look at the sale to see if it is worth a closer look. If it is, he will bring the news back to the rest of the family. The family unloads themselves from the car and go (in pairs) searching for Treasures. When you have finished searching through every nook and cranny of the yard sale, hopefully you have found some potential items. Look these items over carefully. Make sure there is nothing wrong with the items. Make sure your family really want what they have found at the sale. When you are ready to purchase the items, ask for prices, and prepare to negotiate.

Negotiation When people set up yard sales, they are trying to make money. Besides making money, they are usually trying to get rid of as much of their items as they possibly can. Most yard sale venders are ready to negotiate. If the price is too high, and the seller refuses to negotiate the price, make sure you are willing to leave. Tell them to have a nice day, turn around, and go to your car. Usually, the seller will negotiate. If you buy a bunch of items, you can usually ask for a quantity price. This is a very understandable negotiation in yard sale lingo. Barter for however long it takes to get your price and pay for your items. Hopefully, you and your family have found some treasures at this yard sale. When you have children it is always good to try to find something for each of them. When children feel left out, they don't have fun, and become very whiny.

Unfound Treasures Every Yard saler has some unfound treasures. Some of them are unrealistic, but we have them anyway. Here are a couple of the treasures I would like to find at a yard sale, but never have.
1) 5 gallon bucket filled with unsearched wheat pennies at a good price
2) A Ms Pacman cocktail table- Are there any near Tampa at a good price?
3) A set of 300 Fantastic Four comic books I had as a child and my father said he lost.

Going to yard sales is a blast. You can find some interesting things and save some hard earned money. You can spend some valuable time with your family and get closer to them. If you are lucky, you just might find that perfect once in a lifetime find. Just remember, I'm the one who told you. Finding Treasures at yard sales is a whole lot of fun.