For the past thirteen years or so, it has been a tradition in my family to have an annual or biannual garage sale (you'd think after thirteen years we'd have nothing left to sell, but that never seems to be the case). We usually hold ours in later spring, early summer or very early fall. Over the years I have learned quite a lot about garage sales, particularly what constitutes a successful garage sale and how to achieve this goal. Here are a few tips for your own sale:

1) Advertise! Find out if the city, town or village you live in has a municipality wide garage sale day. Where I live, every May is held a village wide garage sale. For five dollars, the village lists you're sale in its promotional material, including a map of all garage sales for the day! Its the best kind of advertising you could ask for, as municipal sponsored garage sales bring loads of people out. If there is no such event where you live, take the initiative to create signs you can hang up to advertise your sale. Make the signs simple, but nice. Use brightly colored posters that catch the eye of those passing by, hang the signs at the eye level of those driving and uses arrows to point in the direction of where you're located. Hang up about five or six signs, on as many main roads as you can, that way more people will see them. Also, consider putting an ad in your local paper. For twenty-dollars, you can alert all those people who may not see your signs but want to browse garage sales that you may have what they are looking for! This especially important for people not located on a heavily trafficked street; how are people suppose to know you're having a sale if you don't advertise?

2) Clean off your items! If you're like my family, a lot of what you're selling has been in the basement or garage for some time. Things get dirty, grimy and plan old nasty looking. You don't have to make sure everything is polished, but give items a once over with a damp cloth. You may consider what you are selling junk, but basic marketing principles apply here. The average person would rather buy a slightly dirty suitcase than one that is full of cobwebs, dirt and mold!

3) Organize your items! Don't just throw everything into a pile. Divide your items into categories. All clothes should go into one area, all books another. This helps people to sift through all your items, and often people are looking for something specific so make sure they can find it as easily as possible! Just as in the step 2,

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