Yard Sale Buys

I forgot to post a pic of what I bought last Saturday. It was a good day. Lots of church yardsales and even a school yardsale which was unadvertised. I cannot figure out why an organization would hold a yardsale and not even advertise it in the garage sale section of craiglist for free.

Stuff in the picture above range in price from free (the seller knew me and just told me to take stuff) to $2 for the Made in Poland crystal vase which I bought 2 weeks ago but forgot to photograph. Got a good deal on the new Johnson and Johnson baby wash stuff for .25 a bottle. And I got a vintage Disneyland ashtray for free (but it's not in the picture).

In the photo below the shopping bag and the two plastic bins were .50 each. Birdfeeder ($5) was the most expensive purchase of the day (looks better in real life - it's actually upside down in the photo)


And during the week I stopped at a new thrift store that opened up recently. I doubt it will stay in business (I think it's a "for profit" thrift store, rather than one run by an organization. I would have bought a pair of these nightstands if there were 2 of them but alas, there was only one. I just love the look of it (but would have painted it. That is glare on the top).


And of course, I hit Walgreens for some bargains. I'm always going to Walgreens to get stuff free (after Register Rewards) but for the first time I saw free free stuff. Just calendar posters but hey, they were free. I took a Family Guy and a Spongebob Squarepants one for Jacob. And side benefit - each poster came with a nice piece of cardboard. I'm weird, you never know when you'll need a nice piece of cardboard.

So many yardsales, so little time

I found out that I lied the other day when I said I had 2 church yardsales in my town to go to on Saturday. I have three. At least their start times are staggered (7am, 7:30 and 8am). Next Saturday (Memorial Day weekend) I will probably be hoping to find one decent yardsale.

I saw something so hideous the other day, I had to have it. I have no idea why. I spent more than I think I should have ($3.50). I thought they would just charge me the $2 nightgown price and not the $3.50 robe price. I wasn't going to complain since it is my favorite thrift and the last thing I want is to irritate the volunteer cashiers.



Here's something else I bought this week:


some kind of fancy super duper ironing press. I paid $8 for it. The thing is heavy, I will put it on Craiglist.

I did two magazine interviews today - hopefully both articles will come out sometime in July.

How not to price stuff at a yardsale (or thrift store)

I swear, some people really must not want to sell stuff at their yardsales or thrift stores. That is the only logical explanation I can come up with why someone would mark stuff in obvious places in permanent marker.

Exhibit A:


And here's an oldie that you may remember from last year. Exhibit B:



I had a good yardsaling day last Saturday. I was able to get a $3 booster seat to give to my brother. They asked me to look for one since they occasionally have a friend's kid in their car (they have one booster seat already but want a second one for their other car). Even though he lives in upstate New York, I plan on visiting there again soon so I can give it to him then.



Here is a portion of the stuff that I bought on Saturday. One church yardsale (spent $7 for the bulk of the stuff you see), then an indoor community center yardsale and then a school yardsale and a couple of others. See that red box? That's a Waterford Crystal Christmas ornament (next to the box). It was $5. I like the round ceramic dish with cover (on the booster seat), that was .50. The Scrabble game was free. Crafters like Scrabble tiles to make stuff, I've been saving up a bunch of tiles to put up as a big lot on ebay. The rifle team jacket was .50. It seemed like an odd jacket - maybe someone on ebay will think it's cool. The Rosie doll (.75) is an ebay dud. But maybe I can resell at my next yardsale.

Looking foward to this Saturday. Two more nearby church yardsales.

I heart Walgreens! What .04 will buy nowadays

I had an awesome shopping trip at Walgreens yesterday. I was kinda disappointed in this week's Walgreens ad (except for the 5 12-packs of diet-pepsi for $13 deal). I was busy all day on Monday - a trip to the dentist to get a a cavity filled, Target, Walmart, Staples, BJ's Warehouse, two different CVS's, Kohl's, thrift store, yadda yadda and couldn't fit Walgreens into the schedule on Monday.

But yesterday I went and wow - clearance deals galore in the snack aisle. I had gotten a lot of Register Rewards last week (last week's ad was awesome) so I used those to pay for all the junk food you see above - except I did have to fork over a whole 4 cents. Plus I picked up my free collage print deal they had over Mother's Day weekend.

During my trip to Kohl's I learned something new. I have a Kohl's credit card to get all those special coupons that come in the mail. And to get the discount you have to use the Kohl's credit card to pay. My Kohl's statement gets sent to my email and I'm always forgetting the Kohl's password and have to have it re-sent. And I'm paranoid that sometime I will forget to pay it and get a late fee etc. So what I learned the other day is that once you make your purchase at Kohl's, you can go ahead and pay it off immediately with cash. That is going to save me a lot of headaches, because I normally don't buy a whole lot at Kohl's so paying it off immediately will save me time. And I still get the discounts. And I won't have Mr. YSQ asking me "So what did you buy at Kohl's?" when he sees the bank statement. My purchase the other day was a new bedspread for Jacob - was $99.99 - on clearance for $19.99 plus I got 15% discount.

And finally, I found some good stuff to buy at the thrift store which has had slim pickins lately. For $6 - this brand new Food Network serving thing. The Kohl's $39.99 price tag is still attached. The box shows a thrift store price of $8 on the front, but on the side there was another price of $6 - so that is what I got it for. For $3 - a oozy goozy thing for Jacob (I was hesitant to pay $3 but I knew Jacob would love it and he does). And for $1 - the red small hand. Will be good for displaying jewelry on etc, when I finally get back to selling on ebay.



Today at my regular thrift, I bought a full sized bottle of Coco Chanel eau de toilette for $8. That was the bargain of the day.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there. I am going to celebrate Mother's Day the old-fashioned way. The way it was intended. I'm going gambling. I got a coupon for free bingo tonight and also want to use my free $20 in free birthday game play at the faux slot machines.

Didn't have too great of a morning yardsaling yesterday. My favorite find was a vintage Radio Shack Panapet transistor radio for .75. I bought all the below for $3. The L'eggs egg I just got because of the packaging. I don't plan on wearing them.

Yippee - computer is working!

The last few days my computer has been on break. I got some corrupted file or something that didn't make my computer boot up. Mr. YSQ fixed it tonight - yippee!! Just in time for me to read all my congratulations and birthday wishes tomorrow.

But geez CVS, I know I will be another year older shortly, but I'm not quite ready to be buying Grampers just yet. This is what I got recently when I scanned my CVS Extracare card:



My neighborhood had a "neighborhood-wide" yardsale last Saturday. Which meant if you wanted, you could pay a $10 donation to a food pantry and they would let you set up on an empty lot. Or you could just have a yardsale at your house. It would have been worth the effort, IF they had put ads in the newspapers and did better advertising. But they didn't, and they didn't even advertise on craigstlist either. There was one sign. Small black writing on grey??? Oh puhleese. As a shopper though, it was good since most of the sellers were on the one empty lot, and there weren't a lot of competition from other shoppers.





A couple of my thrift stores have been disappointing lately. Just a lot of crap. Or they have "ok" stuff that is way overpriced. Example:



Or just stuff that is just plain tacky:


Next week I have another dentist appointment to fill a small cavity, so I will stop in the thrift again since its near the dentist office. They better get some good junk in soon!