Well, the moving sale is done, and we survived… Although we had advertised an 8:00 AM start, people descended on us almost immediately when we started moving stuff out into the driveway around 6:30 AM. And by the time 8:00 AM rolled around, my pockets were already bulging with money. We kept the sale running until around 1:00 PM, at which time we hauled the last of our stuff back into the garage and closed up shop. When the dust settled, we had gotten rid of the bulk of what we were trying to sell, and we had taken in exactly $545. When you deduct the cost of advertising ($32.55 for a two day newspaper ad and $16.33 for signage) we ended up making $496.12. Not too shabby, and definitely worth the time that we spent. The leftovers, which amounted to two full loads in my Honda CR-V, went to charity. Thus, we’ll also be able to take a tax deduction on the unsold items.
For more information on moving, check out my Roadmap for a Successful Relocation.
I think we did better with the sale than we would’ve done with the tax deduction, and we also got cash in hand as opposed to the promise of less taxes a year from now. Moreover, the sale helped us thin out the amount of stuff that we had to haul to charity and it also meant that we had to document far less stuff (as it turns out, this is a non-trivial endeavor).
Congratulations on the successful sale.
I have a question, economically, would you have done better with the tax deduction on all items or the price they actually sold for at the garage sale?
Regards,
Making Our Way
I’m glad that you were able to sell most of your stuff. Good job!
Good job, Nickel. Nice haul.