Gazelle Intensity Garage Sale

Since February, I have been taking a class at my church - the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University. It really is a great class. He has a great way to encourage you to "live like no one else, so later you can live like no one else." We don't have to fall into the general mentality that we have to use credit cards to function or that we can't live without debt. Is it easy? No - it takes lots of forethought, lots of communication and lots of work. But it is worth it. I can't wait until the day I can cry out that we are debt free (except for our house then we'll be working on paying that off early).

It has really made a difference at the way we view money in our family. One of his big ideas is to run from debt, to do everything to get out of it as if you're a gazelle running from the jaws of the lion chasing you. Since we began, we've actually worked out a budget (although it fluctuates each month with Craig's salary) and begun living off of only what we make - I know what a concept!! It's working though. We've been able to build complete "baby step one" - building an emergency fund of $1000. We've only used the credit card one time since the beginning of February (and that was to get the few things I completely forgot to get for our daughter's birthday party at the end of February). Since I haven't even thought about using it since then, I can say that we've stopped using the credit card for our personal purchases and we've managed to pay off that credit card balance!!! Now it's on to debt number two - paying off Craig's business card. Little steps, one at a time.

So, one thing we decided to do was have a yard sale. We've talked about doing it to first and foremost get rid of a lot of stuff we have in our house. Secondly, we wanted to have some extra money to pay toward our home equity debt. We'd been talking about doing it for a while, it was just a matter of finding a spare weekend and the time to set up. So, last week the "fun" began. Let's pull out all the baby clothes. Let's pull out a lot of the kids' toys that they don't play with (no matter what they said when they saw them for sale on Saturday morning). We pulled stuff down from the attic and up from the basement. We priced, divided and advertised. We were praying and hoping that it would not be all for naught.

Saturday morning, we woke up at 6 to get move stuff out of the garage and open by 7. We had our first sale of $1 at 7:30. However, it was very overcast and forecasted for rain (later in the afternoon, but we know how reliable forecasts can be). We'd have a few moments of lull, then a rush of 3-6 cars, then another lull, and another rush - you get the idea. From 9 on, it was a pretty steady flow of people. Some bartered very hard, leaving me mentally and emotionally drained after a 45-minute session of price-war. She said I wasn't giving her a good deal (she wanted $100 worth of stuff for $45) and I told her she was making me work hard for my money. Some didn't barter at all - we love those people. Craig sold tons of Japanese maples and day lilies. Even Trinity came out a couple of times to buy back some of the things she wanted. We closed up at 2:30 and the rain fell at 2:40. We had sold lots of our stuff and had a very productive day!!

We still have to do all the cleaning up. We will be sending most of it off to Goodwill - we're holding back the baby clothes we didn't sell for other consignment sales (always looking for ways to make a little bit more cash). We have a few big things that we will put for sale on Craigslist. We are also already making notes for next year's sale - what to include more of, what to include less of, how to get more families involved. Now I've just got to write all that down so I'll remember it!