Garage sale is one of the ways college students can make pizza/beer money while getting rid of their junks. It’s also where you find good bargains for things you don’t already have. Holding a sale is easy, but also involves some work. To hold a successful garage sale you need planning, patience, and a dash of luck. While you’re at it, you’ll learn about your city and your neighbors, and get to meet new people too.

The first step to take is to scout out a location. Check with your apartment manager to see if you can do it on the small yard outside your building. (Don’t do it on the sidewalk.) Then check with your city to see if you need a garage sale permit. I am not kidding! I just found this out as I am doing the research for this article myself. Many U.S. cities have rules and regulations about garage sales and they also require you to have a garage sale permit. The reason is that some people are causing disturbance in the neighborhood by turning the once-in-a-while yard sale into a weekly home-based swap meet.

You’ve got the place, now you have to set the date and time for your event. Saturday usually is a good day to do it because most people still want to get out of the house. Most garage sales go from around 8am to 3pm. (Not too early, not too hot). Once you set the date, ask your trustworthy neighbors if they want to partner up with you for the sale. There are many benefits to having a partner at garage sale. You can save a bit of cost and labor of advertising. You can split the cost to put an ad in the local newspapers, or list your sale for free on some other publications or websites. You might even be able to post flyers in the neighborhood before the sale day. Your neighbors might have some items that you don’t, and those items might bring in more people to your sale. And the best thing about having partners is that you guys can take turn going to the bathroom or taking a break. (If you can’t find a partner in sales, call up a friend for help.)

Once everything is set, let’s turn the attention to your storage areas. It’s time for a shake down. Be merciless. Start from your storage areas and end with your closet. Go through the boxes to see what you really need to keep and what you don’t need anymore. If something looks like junk or is in very bad condition, just dump it. But if it looks okay to you if you were a buyer, get it on sale.

Here are some tips from “Real Simple” magazine for the ladies because I know how much we’re attached to our clothes. Severe all emotional attachments and guilt to designer brands, amount spent on it, and other “meaningful” items. Toss out items you can’t remember when you wore it last, or you haven’t touched in a year. Get rid of clothes you feel embarrassed to be seen in. And of course, say goodbye to outdated fashion. Sorry to tell you but I don’t think the 80s are going to make a retro comeback.

How much should you sell your Armani jeans for? The experts said to price your item at 10-30% or the original prices. For the items you expect people to haggle, make the price a bit higher so you can reduce it to the price you really want. Clearly label all of your merchandise with sticker labels or price tags, which you can find from any office supply store.

The day before the sale, clean up your merchandise. Wipe off the dust. Touch up the paint. Fix a tear. Even though these items may be used, but you want them to look great for someone else so that they would want buy them. Be sure to have about $20 in $1 bills for change. And if you can put up your sign on the street corners, go ahead and do that too.

Start setting up early on sales day. You might even find someone already waiting to check out your merchandise even before you are done. Display your permit if required. Now just kick back and enjoy interacting with your customers. Stand firm on the items you want to make money from, and be flexible with items you really want to get rid off. In the last hour of your sale, it’s time to abandon all hope and cut your price. It’s better to make a bit of money than nothing at all. After you close, pack all the leftovers into some boxes and get rid of them as soon as you can by dropping them off at donation centers, or leaving them by the dumpster. The less contact you have with the leftover, the lesser you want to bring it back in!

Garage sale works out beautifully for small items as well as the larger ones. But I would suggest you advertise for furniture and expensive appliances separately because you can get much better price for them. Before or right after you move, you can have a moving sale—posting flyers in your apartment complex or at school, advertise in local newspaper, or eBay it to local pickup only. If nothing comes up, try your luck at your yard sale along with your knickknacks.

There’s a saying that goes, “One person’s trash is another person’s treasure”. The best thing of all is that the junk you ended up donating will be helping people elsewhere who are in need. You bet it feels good to have some change in your pocket, and the warm-fuzzy feeling in your heart knowing that you help someone out with your donation, and you also have a clean apartment!

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