To Hoard or Not to Hoard...

We have a lot of our garage sale treasures stored in the garage. Our daughter kidded us recently about being "hoarders." Of course, in our case, we do maintain two vendor booths in an antique mall, so we are not hoarding, but storing items for the store.

But what if you do find yourself overbuying at garage sales and your house is starting to overflow with "stuff"? When do you determine when it's OK and when it's not?

That's something important to consider when shopping garage sales or anywhere else. If you're a bargain shopper like I am, it is hard to pass up great deals when you see them, but here are some questions to ask yourself before buying:

- Am I sure this is something I will use in the next 1-2 years?
- Is this something I need or just clutter?
- Where am I going to store this item?
- Is this a want or a need?

As a culture, we do tend to have way too much "stuff" and most of us could benefit from stopping to think before making any kind of purchases.

There are things that I believe are practical to buy and store, such as craft supplies (IF you will really use them), wrapping paper and cards, and gifts. Even these have to be thought out ahead of time. At our house, I have a huge amount of brand new yarn from garage sales, but I am using it. I am also to the point where I know I have enough and will have to put the brakes on if I see more. I also buy and store Christmas cards every year after the holidays at a huge savings, as well as wrapping supplies. During the year, if I see the perfect gift for someone on my list, I'll buy and store that, too. These are all things that are being used, not hoarded for years with no future purpose.

If you think you've gotten out of control, start by having your own garage sale and be ruthless. Anything that hasn't been used in the last 2 years can go, and if it doesn't sell, don't put it back. Donate it. There are charities that will bring their truck over after your garage sale and pick up whatever is left. After you have cleared out, you can start fresh and buy only what makes sense.

Enjoy those bargains, but be sure to think before buying!

New Life for Old Calendars

It's that time of year. I just got the cutest 2013 Mary Engelbreit calendar for the kitchen. Now, what to do with my 2012 Thomas Kinkade model???

We have always saved our old calendars. They make wonderful art references for artists, which we use them for. We cut up one old folk art calendar and framed pages for a matching set, used to decorate the walls of our folk art inspired den. When making a scrapbook for one of my kids, I also used tiny illustrations cut out from an old Mary Engelbreit desk planner.

What else can you do with old calendars? Check out this short article for even more ideas. In the meantime, now is a great time to get 1/2 price 2013 calendars from places like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Free Kindle Download

We are offering our book FREE today and tomorrow. What a great way to start saving in the New Year!

Get it here:
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Savers-Garage-Shopping-ebook/dp/B008ZRYB28

Please pass the word!

Saving Money is Always a Great New Year's Resolution

Wow, Christmas flew by at our house. We had a wonderful time with the whole family together as well as a brand new grandson! We hope yours was a blessed and memorable day.

New Year's Eve is just around the corner. Have you started making any resolutions yet? Making a short list intimidates some people, as they feel like they may have failed if they don't accomplish everything on the list. I hope you don't feel that way! Look at it like something to shoot for, and don't be too hard on yourself if you can't make them all happen. There's always next year! At least by making a list, you can feel good about the fact that you are going to make a serious effort at improving your life and/or the life of those around you.

Not only in this economy, but anytime, learning different ways to save money is always a great resolution to make. When you really sit down and look at the many places your money goes, there is always room for improvement. Here are just a few areas where most of us could improve:

FOOD! Are you eating out way too often? Buying that high priced drive thru coffee on the way to work? Purchasing brand name grocery items without coupons or price comparison? Throwing out leftovers instead of finding clever ways of using them in a new dish? Then you have ways of saving a lot just in this category.

ENTERTAINMENT. Wow, do we spend a lot in this area. Whether it's a night out at the movies or paying that big cable/satellite bill, this takes a big chunk out of the budget. When you next have one of those evenings when you click through fifty channels and can find nothing to watch, that's the perfect time to make the big move. Try cutting your cable package to the minimum. Or....really take the big plunge and cancel it completely! We did this last year, buying an inexpensive Roku unit, a new Tivo, and using the Netflix account we already had. We have been pleasantly surprised at how easy it was, as we discovered the huge amount of online streaming content we can get for free. We set up OTR (over the air) antennas for the local channels, too, and it hasn't been painful at all.

If you like to go out a lot, a local Entertainment coupon book may be well worth the cost, too. You can get discounts on everything from restaurants to movies to bowling and much more. Look through the book for your area before buying, to make sure there are plenty of coupons you'll use to justify the purchase.

GAS. Ouch. Gas prices this past year have been downright frightening, but you can certainly improve on that expense. We keep our longer shopping trips to a minimum, combining all of those errands into one big trip to the city. Even in our small, local area, when we go out, we try to get everything done in the same trip. We own several vehicles, and use the most fuel efficient ones for any longer trips we need to make.

As always, we also think going to garage sales is a huge money saver in so many areas. Check out our book for ideas that will save you money on gifts, appliances, decorations, special events, decorating and so much more. (Psssst...the book will be free this weekend, Dec. 29-30).

Cheers and here's to a very frugal New Year for you and yours!

Merry Christmas and a Frugal New Year!

We've been a little quiet here at the Garage Sale Saver blog. Well, garage sales generally slow down to a crawl between Thanksgiving and New Year's, as well they should. We have to have special time for family, friends and the miracle that is Christmas.

We hope you tried out some of our gift buying and holiday decorating tips from the book as you prepared for the season.

Be ready, though. Once we begin 2013, we hope you'll have read our tips from our book, "The Complete Money Saver's Guide to Garage Sale Shopping" and you'll be ready to start the year saving!

In the meantime, from our home to yours, have the Merriest of Christmases and we look forward to sharing more tips with you in 2013.

Free Kindle Book Day- Spread the Word!

We're running a FREE Kindle book download, tomorrow only, December 1st for just 24 hours. If you haven't read our guide on becoming the master at garage sale buying, now is the time!

Download it here, but remember, it will only show up as FREE on December 1st.

We'd love your Facebook posts and Tweets to help get the word out while it lasts. Enjoy!

Better Than Black Friday Deals

What's better than Black Friday deals? Garage sale deals, of course!

With Black Friday deals, you can sometimes get some incredible buys for as much as 50-60% off normal prices. Sound good? Yes, but garage sale deals are consistently as low as 90% off original price and are not limited to one day or one weekend out of the year. That's why we felt it was important to share our tips for getting the very best deals all year long.

There are items that we like to buy new, and Black Friday is a great time to do that (especially online where there are no crowds to fight.) But for even better prices all year long, the garage sale can't be beat.