Shake Your Money Maker

As summer draws to a close in the pacific northwest, so does garage sale season.

I makes me a little sad, since I love spending my Saturday morning's garage saling, but now that Husky football has started, my Saturdays are filled with other things.

Now that I've had my baby showers (which were FABULOUS beyond words btw), I can start looking for baby items at garage sales. 

Amazingly enough, I got almost EVERYTHING we need for this little one, so it doesn't leave me a lot to shop for- but only having a few items on my list makes the hunt that much more exciting.

I came across an annual community sale last weekend, which is when a whole neighborhood holds sales at multiple houses all on the same day, and I couldn't pass it up. Basically it's like shopping at a mall- where there are tons of different stores all in one location, so instead of having to drive all over from sale to sale, you can drive and park and walk to tons of sales.

I called my mom and she was totally on board for some quality time spent sifting through other people's stuff.

So we spent two hours going to sale after sale, getting our exercise by walking all over and carrying our awesome finds (yes, I counted that as my exercise for the day).

There were only a few sales that had baby stuff, but a few were WAY too expensive ($10 for a onesie... I think not), and most of them had very gender specific items (and Oscar/ina will be rocking mostly gender neutral items for a while).

So when we came across a baby/kids sale that was not only really well put together, clean and organized, but the people were literally dying to get rid of everything for super cheap. So we stuck around and browsed through their items much longer than we usually would.

I stumbled upon what I consider to be the holy grail of baby items.  An Ergobaby carrier.

If you are out of the baby loop, this is a fantastic/super popular carrier and it goes for  upwards of $100 depending on the pattern.... sometimes as high as $150.

Finding one used is relatively easy, but you will still be forking out $60-80 depending on the pattern and condition.  You almost never see these at garage sales, because they get sold on Craigslist or to consignment shops since they retain their value and are so popular.

I was lucky enough to get an Ergo for a baby shower gift, and it is absolutely beautiful and matches our grey/white theme perfectly (thanks Aunt Heidi), so I didn't need an Ergo, but it was like finding a $100 bill in your jeans- you don't question it, you just do a happy dance.

Via

So, when I found an ErgoBaby at a garage sale, I figured it was worth asking "how much do you want for this," fully expecting a $70 price tag.

So when I tentatively asked the woman how much she wanted for the Ergo, I held my breath.

She was fantastic and actually showed me how to use it, popped her daughter in it to show me how awesome it was, and then promptly told me that I could have it for $10.

Um, yeah I think I can swing $10.  Even though I already have a brand new one, I couldn't pass up a $10 Ergo- it was like she was paying me to take it.

I figured for $10, I could keep this one in the car or give it to one of the grandparents or to a friend- or heck to a complete stranger!

As I started to think about it more, I realized that I could "flip" the Ergo.  If I could sell the Ergo on Craigslist for more than I bought it, I could put it toward buying baby stuff we need- like diapers.... diapers are expensive!

I'm no stranger to "flipping" items on Craigslist, but I've never bought something and sold it in the same state I purchased it in. I've always bought something and then improved it before selling it (remember the Picnic set).  Basically, increased the value and then sold it for a profit.

I decided that I wanted to try selling it on Craigslist, but wanted to pass on a "good deal" to someone else out there, so I priced it $30-25 under what everything else was listed for.  A bit like paying it forward while still making a profit (so I'm not sure if that really counts as paying it forward).

So I put it up for $60 and sold it to a VERY happy couple who were excited to get it for $30 less than they were expecting to pay.

For a little bit of effort of searching through bins of baby items, I made $50 which will buy me two cloth diapers (yes, they are pricey, but they will pay for themselves a million times over).

Happy garage sale day to me!