Although whenever I talk about being an eco-friendly shopper, I often only mention thrift shops, Etsy, or recreating pieces of clothes out of other clothes, that isn’t all that is out there! Another great idea for trying to reduce, reuse, and recycle is to have a yard sale. There are many different approaches to hosting a yard sale, or sometimes people call them garage sales, barn sales, or moving sales.
You can have a sale where you only sell toys, clothes, or something a little more specific. For instance, yesterday I saw a teaching yard sale. A retired teacher was selling all of her old supplies instead of throwing them out or leaving them in her closet to sit there and collect dust! A couple rules for looking at a yard sale are to always bargain, check to make sure electronics work and check for stains, rips, or tears in your clothes. Whenever products are marked at a yard sale, they are almost always up for negotiation. If you see something you really like, but the price looks a little too high for your wallet, ask the person maintaining the grounds to see if you could lower the price. If they say no, act like you want to walk away and have no interest anymore. This should work and they will lower the price, chances are if it is on the table to be sold it can’t be that important!
When you are thinking about purchasing electronics, like games or DVDs, it’s always a good idea to open the CD case or DVD case to make sure the disk is in there and doesn’t have any scratches. There would be nothing worse than going home only to realize that your new purchase is actually a dude! If you are looking at buying a children’s toy or a gaming device, it’s always important to turn it on to make sure it works, to have the box if it’s something more expensive, and to find out the date they bought it and why they want to get rid of it. If they can answer all these questions, then chances are they just need to get rid of that electronic and didn’t actually steal it, or even worse, try to sell it to you when it’s already broken. The last yard sale rule is to always check clothes for holes, rips, or tears in the fabric. It may not look like they are torn, but it’s always good to double check.