Our Finances Suck Part 3 - But I Need Money Now!!

So far in this series we have covered how to prepare a budget and how to implement the budget.  These are great steps and I believe essential in getting on track...but sometimes circumstances dictate that you simply need money.....like NOW!!!!

Perhaps you have some unexpected bills rolling in and you know that you cannot stretch your current income any further then you may need to consider a way to make some money.....and fast!!.

One of the fastest ways to make some cash is to sell something that you already have.

A garage sale is great for this and can be pulled together pretty quickly.  We held our first ever garage sale in March this year and here's a few things that we learnt along the way....

I spent a few weeks searching the house for items to sell and then I stockpiled them in one corner of the garage.

I bought a roll of labels and some cardboard tags on a string and set about pricing a bit every few days.  I believe that the day runs more smoothly if everything is priced.  With things that were of little monetary value I put pretty low prices on them just to get rid of them but for items with a bigger value I'd suggest that you add a few dollars onto your price to allow for negotiations!

The few days just before the garage sale I went through the now huge pile of goods and packed like things together....so I had a plastic tub for home wares, a plastic tub for kitchen ware, a plastic tub for toys etc.. etc..  Since I had 3 trestle tables I labelled the plastic tubs table 1, table 2 and table 3.

Things like books I left in tubs with the spines facing up for easy seeing.  I had a tub of the girls shoes and tied the pairs together with string to make it easier for people looking through the tub.  And I had a few tubs for the girls clothing sorted into sizes....for example size 000 - 2 in one tub, size 3- 6 in another tub, size 7-12 in another tub etc... etc...  The clothes I priced at 50 cents per item but any that I thought were worth a lot more than that I had priced individually on a hanging stand.

The night before the garage sale I wrote up some big, clear sings and hubby and I went around the streets putting them up (make sure you do take them down though as some councils are quite particular about the signs being left up!!)  I did not advertise in any of our local papers because we have a lot of passing traffic so didn't feel the need. I did list our garage sale on a few local Facebook garage sale pages though.

And then the morning of the garage sale came around.  We woke up super early to set up.....no matter what time you advertise that your garage sale will start there will always be people arriving earlier than that!

It 's great to have a bit of help on the day...luckily we have live in help with our 5 girls!!  We woke the older ones super early, much to their dislike, and set them to work!  This is where having the tubs labelled with the table numbers really came in handy.  We allocated a child per trestle table, gave them their table cloth and tubs and they were able to set them up without a million questions!

Handy tip....make sure you have an area for the men!  All of those men that were dragged along by their wives were instantly drawn to tools and the like! And their wives could spend more time browsing with hubby out of the way!!

We put our trestle tables up under our carport and then put bigger eye catching items down the driveway.  Often people will only stop if something catches their eye so this helps a lot.  

With the girls handling the selling and hubby hiding inside I spent some time photographing our items for sale while they were all laid out and posting them on local Facebook garage sale pages....this worked well and a few items that did not appear to be selling at the garage sale sold online and were picked up within the next day or two so I would definitely recommend doing this.

At the end of the day we had made just under $380 which was better than I had expected! So if you have some stuff laying around at home with not too much effort you could hold your own garage sale and get some quick cash.

Other ways to make some quick money would be to use local the local Facebook garage sale pages that I have mentioned above.  We have at least three in our area and for little effort you can list an item on all three within a few minutes.  Because the buyers are generally local you can have your items picked up pretty quickly and the cash can be in your hands!

Local trash and treasure markets or car boot sales are another great way to sell your items quickly but you might have to pay a fee for a stall/space....if the fee is not too big it might still be worth your while.....or you could consider sharing a stall with a friend or family member to reduce the cost.  Don't forget that most people are after a bargain so make sure you price your items to sell.

Ebay is another option and these days you are able to list a number of items per month for free.....for a basic listing.  Sometimes items can take a little while to sell and there is the added hassle of having to post items if pick up is not an option.... but it is worth a try if you need the money.

So there's a few ways that you might be able to make some money from what you already have at home for times when you need some money quickly.


If you think you might have a garage sale some time soon I have included a link here for a handy garage sale checklist to help you makes sure your garage sale runs smoothly and why not pop over and check out my pinterest garage sale board for some more great ideas.

Linking up with Essentially Jess for #IBOT 

Do you have any other ways to find some quick money (legal of course!!) 

for when unexpected expenses come along?