Get Organized Pittsburgh

Welcome to May! With May comes many things but one in particular is Garage Sales! I was asked to talk to the crew from the KDKA Radio morning show early this morning about garage sales and I wanted to share a few more tips with you here, whether you’re shopping or selling, here are a few things to help you along the way.

If you are looking for sales in your neighborhood good places to start are the Pittsburgh Post Gazette classifieds, the Pennysaver newspaper, and Craigslist. You can also search sites such as Oodle which syndicates it’s garage sale listings with a handful of other social networking websites and newspapers, as well as Garage Sales Tracker’s Pittsburgh area garage sales section.

If you are already on the road than no need to worry since there are smartphone applications for finding a local sale.  A service called Garage Sale App is available for .99 cents. The app mines data from Craigslist to show you what local sales are in your area. If you want a free app than Garage Sales Tracker also has a free app you can use to map out which sales in the area you want to go to that day and route accordingly. Another fantastic app is iGarageSale where you can search sales for specific items! It’s available on both iPhone and Android smartphones.

Now that you know how to find all of the sales, here are some tips for holding your own garage sale:

• Determine when to have the sale. Summertime and Spring are naturally the best times and being an early bird pays off!
• If you have a lot of stuff you may want to break the sale down into 2 days.
• Advertising is very important. Utilize the resources mentioned above as well as signage that you can pick up at any local hardware store or you can design your own sign just make sure you put the address, arrows in the right direction, date of sale, and time.
• Supplies such as balloons on the mail box, proper change, tables, and tags for pricing.
• Placing the the person in charge of the cashbox in the back of the sale makes people walk through the whole sale and increases the chance that they may buy something else as they make their way through.
• Make price tags big and place them on the TOP of the items.

Most of all, Have FUN!

As the school year comes to an end you are probably as eager as I to start the summer and get rid of all of your old school work. It is the familiar mentality of “I never want to see this again!” and there is definitely a feel of satisfaction that comes from dunking your binder into the nearest trashcan. However, this year, think about taking a little extra time and going through those old notes. I do this every year and find at least 200 pieces of paper that are only one-sided and aren’t ready for a fate in the dumpster, they belong in your printer as scrap paper! You might be thinking that this seems like a tedious task but it can actually be fun as you stumble upon old notes and doodles or a good test score. Not to mention you’re saving money along with trees!