Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Delivery Charges, Massages & Other Ways to Earn Cash at Yard Sales

Sell food, set up a massage chair or display crafts. There's more to garage sales than second-hand merchandise, according to Kathryn Vercillo, of the Money Saving Blog. In this guest post, she offers suggestions about making extra money at yard sales.

Making Extra Cash at the Yard Sale

The most efficient yard sales are those that allow you to make easy cash with some bonus sales. In addition to selling your junk, you might offer the following items for sale:

Beverages. It’s cheap to make lemonade or iced tea and people will be happy to pay you for a glass on a hot day.

• Snacks. You may consider buying some snacks in bulk and selling them for a markup during your sale.

• Crafts and artwork. If you’re crafty or artsy, then you may want to make some items for the sale. I know one artist who threw a bunch of her old Polaroids in a box and listed them for $1 each; a surprisingly large number of people bought some of these on a whim at her yard sale.

• Delivery charge. If you have large items available for sale then you may let people know that you’d be happy to deliver the item to them at the end of the day for a small fee.

• On-site services. Are there any services that you can provide to people who are at your place? For example, massage therapists may set up a chair and offer 15-minute massages for a fee.

• Future services. If you operate any type of business or provide any services, then make your brochures and business cards available during the sale. You just never know who might see them and want work from you down the line.

--written by Kathryn Vercillo of the Money Saving Blog, which was named one of the Top 20 British personal finance blogs earlier this year.

Related articles:

How to sell crafts
How to make lemonade

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Sharon is the author of the Frugal Duchess: How to Live Well and Save Money -- a coming of age memoir about money -- and a contributing writer in Wise Bread's 10,0001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget.


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