My daughter and I have yard sales sporadically -- once very couple of years it seems. It's a good way to make some extra cash and to get rid of our clutter.

We just had one Saturday and together made over $300. We started putting stuff out about 7:30, started selling around 8:15 (customers were late--we had a frost Friday night & it was COLD Saturday morning) and we were all done by 2:00.

I wrote up some of our "best practices" here: Yard Sale Basics

Does anyone else do yard sales to make money/declutter?

In the UK there are "Car Boot Sales" nearly every weekend where people come to sell their old or unwanted items at stalls in a field or school playing field. It's very popular and a really good place to pick up bargains.

Oh, man, the car boot sale sounds like an awesome practice. I so want to declutter our house, but the whole process just seems too difficult and time-consuming. If I could do it one trunkload (I guess you call it bootload?) at a time, I think I could deal with it. --Maria

Car boot sales sound like a great way to get rid of stuff a little at a time! What a neat idea.

Maria, maybe you could have a series of mini yard sales? Clean out one room and sell those things, then do another. It can be very daunting to do it all at once. Sort of like moving.

One of my friends used to do a spring/fall cleaning & with no advertising at all, just put it all outside & held a sale. She had a pretty good neighborhood for it and always made some money. It seemed to me she did no prep at all. LOL--and the more yard sales I do, the less work it seems, so maybe practice made perfect for her.

Great article Deb. Our garage is insane right now and we need to get rid of so much stuff. I've donated a lot already and my boyfriend has sold some stuff on Craigslist.

Do you think that having a table with free stuff that people can just take would draw more people to a sale or do you think a bargain bin with all $1 items would work better.

We really have so much stuff and some of it isn't worth selling but I figure I can use it to sell the bigger items. Do you think doing it on a holiday weekend might be a good idea. Post thanksgiving toy sale.

I don't know how we accumulated all this stuff!!!

I don't hold yard sales, but I'm a definite shopper and have found REAL treasures!

Thanks, Monica. I always try to sell everything I think someone will pay for, so I'd probably start with a $1 table (with maybe a 3 for $2 special?) Or, even a 25 or 50-cent basket of some of the smaller items. Those little amounts can add up over the course of a day. I also like the idea of "Free with Purchase"--so if you have a lot of toys to sell, you could do some smaller ones as "bonuses".

I think the after-Thanksgiving idea is totally dependent on the neighborhood. I live quite close to a regional mall & the whole world with be there that weekend (plus it'll probably be cold or rainy here), so I don't think it would work here.

But, in your area, it might be a huge success. I'd probably do a lot of pre-promotions on craigslist, flyers, facebook, etc. to get everyone pumped & ready. People will be looking for Christmas gifts then and with the economy still not "recovered", I think people will be happy to find bargains for presents.

And, if you like your neighbors, a good idea is to sort of do a neighborhood sale--just let everyone know what day you're doing yours & ask if they want to hold their own on the same day--that way, you can get more traffic for everyone. I started doing this after I had a yard sale one morning & some neighbors decided on the spot to hold their own. Next time, I put flyers out around the cove & we had about five or six sales all in one day. Customers loved them all being in walking distance.

There's another neighborhood nearby and they hold a sale every September (third weekend or something--I forget). It's blocks and blocks of yard sales--people come in from out of town & stay in hotels to go to this sale!

Dianne, my mother would love you! I don't like going to yard sales and she always wants to go.

LOL...my sister HATES going to. My dad, my youngest son and I are usually the ones that will get up at the crack of dawn to go with her. We do yard sales most of the summer. LOVE community yard sales those are THE best. We just went to one a couple of weeks ago, I picked up some GREAT stuff for my new in home office. Some of it was new, really cheap - nothing over $5.00.

Books, DVD's, picture frames, gardening tools, other little knickknacks. When the kids were smaller and I was living the single mom life, clothes - big time because kids outgrew them so fast, you could always find a bargain on new and gently used stuff.

The more the merrier!!! Your mom would have a great time with us. We go from about 5-6 am until about 1-2.

I love going to garage sales! I love used stuff!