For years I have wondered why anyone who needs to conserve money doesn't shop at garage sales and thrift stores. If you are vigilant there are wonderful bargains to be had, especially if you need to furnish a kitchen. I have found every kind of kitchen appliance there for pennies compare to shat they cost retail. And most are in good shape and have lots of life left. There are even some which are new. That unwanted wedding gift from Aunt Edna mght be just what you need!

Tell me about garage sales you've known and loved. And if you collect stuff, where do you find it?

-- jo (jo@crazyoldlady.com), May 30, 2000

Answers

Wow! A real person other than someone I recognize! Either my friends are trying to fool me or there are actually a few people out there reading this.

I've hosted a number of garage sales too. Sometimes you just have to unload some of the stuff cause you run out of a place to put it. I usually did fairly well, and I sold for cheap! cheap! cheap! Besides...my kids have so much stuff that they groan when they come here and I offer it to them...so what's a mother to do. I gotta quit buying stuff I don't plan to re-sell or use immediately.

Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment!

-- jo (jo@crazyoldlady.com), June 09, 2000.

I haven't seen one of those tins with the slide tops, but I have a couple of othernice old ones. I'll keep my eye out for the slide top style, but I bet they are fairly hard to find!

-- (jo@crazyoldlady.com), June 13, 2000.

I remember when I was a child my parents would have these wonderful garage sales every couple of years. You see, my father is quite the pack rat, infact the man can't part with anything unless he knows he going to be getting money for it, even it is only 50 cents...so hence the need for the garage sale, otherwize all his stuff would have taken up so much room that we would have been living out in the yard years ago. My mom even made a deal with my brother and me that any money made from selling our old toys we could keep for ourselves. Now this was very exciting. I remember as a child of 9 years old, the opperunity to make 20 dollars was like hitting the big jack-pot. It was interesting to watch other people eyeing our old stuff. Total strangers saw whole new worlds of possibities for stuff that somehow became completely useless to us. Stuff that we labeled as crap was now a treasure to someone else. Isn't there a saying that goes something like that...one man's trash is another man's...yadda yadda yadda. I guess that is the magic of garage sales.

-- kim (kh158@hotmail.com), June 05, 2000.

Yeah I am a real person! One this I forgot to mention in my other message....recently when I got to garage sales I have been look for an old 'band-aid brand' tin. They are the coolest things, a mental little tin with a slide top, they used to be used for band-aids but now they may great elctic storge boxes, for cigs and want not. I found one once and I have yet to find another....so If ya see one, let me know! thanks.

-- kim (kh158@hotmail.com), June 13, 2000.

yeah, the ones with the slide tops are hard to find. Infact, the one I did find, I lost. Something weird with that but I can't quite put my finger on it. And on a different note, I was reading the last entry I felt--and ***Oh My*** typos all over the place. I don't know what my brain was thinking but it sure as heck wasn't what my hands were trying to type....Sorry about that. :)

-- kim (kh158@hotmail.com), June 24, 2000.

As you might have guessed, I go to find good books. Also, since we have apartments, I look for good used furnishings. And it is certainly true you can find good appliances for practically nothing.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), July 03, 2000.

Where did my answer go? I wrote and wrote and wrote, but it didn't get here.

I just wanted to say my youngest daughter and I love garage sales, flea markets, and auctions. I look for books, antique dishes, and memorabilia.

My daughter found an old stenotype machine, Circa 1940's. It's a great conversation piece for my office since I'm a court reporter. I also have a very old manual adding machine where you pull metal spokes to tally sums. Purely for addition. I also found an old Royal manual typewriter for my collection. Not all at the same sale, of course, nor the same day.

I was lucky with the stenotype machine. The gentleman was getting ready to close up, and had just taken a $40.00 tag off it and replaced it with one for $10.00. He laughed and asked me where I was all day. Really, though, I would never have found it if my daughter hadn't spotted it.

Enough rambling for now. Hope this gets posted.

-- Geri (lee@hhs.net), July 04, 2000.