After being away for over 5 months, I had forgotten how different the buying and selling to make money is from one area of the country to another.
Just as one example, a couple of weeks ago in South Carolina, we couldn’t visit nearly as many yard sales on an ordinary Saturday morning as we wanted to. We would carefully map out our route in such a way to give us the biggest bang for our buck, and we almost never got to all of the sales in the region.
We arrived back in New Hampshire this past Monday evening, and were eager to hit the circuit today – our first Saturday back home. The weather looked pretty decent, so we figured it might be a nice day for yard saleing.
Of course, it’s a lot colder up here at this time of year than it is down in South Carolina – so we didn’t really expect too many sales. But we really didn’t expect “nearly none.” We drove through the nearby town of Gorham where one or two were listed – but they weren’t opening until 9:00 – and we were on the road by 7:00 am.
In South Carolina we’re considered almost late by 7:00 am since many people are opening their doors by 6:00 am – and there are dozens of cars lined up along the curbsides of all of them. I’m sure they start so early there because the heat can get pretty stifling by late morning.
At any rate, we drove down to the North Conway area where there were a few more sales listed. But not that many. We continued on downstate – we were going to visit our daughter and grandson, so it was the perfect route to pick up the “unadvertised specials” along the way. We found a great rummage sale in a neat little town that we decided we’d actually consider living in once our own house sells up in the mountains. In fact, we met a neat lady who is selling a house there and she invited us to go take a walk around. Very interesting! So, besides filling up at least 7 bags of great clothes for consignment, we also made a nice connection in the area.
But, by and large, buying and selling to make money on the yard sale circuit is still a little sparse ’round these parts! Typically up here in New Hampshire, Memorial Day really kicks off the yard sale season. We’re looking forward to seeing what comes up in the next couple of weeks! In the meantime, all of you buyers in warmer parts of the country, enjoy the head start! We’ll be catching up soon.
