How to Not Make Money

Every spring there’s a neighborhood garage sale around here. To our kids it’s a big party day. It seems like the entire community is out and about and miraculously the sun is usually shining.

The down side of the all of this frivolity are the armloads of free stuff our kids come home with at the end of the day when people give up on making much money. Kind of a “here, you throw this away” scenario but our kids aren’t interested in throwing anything away. Ever.

This year, Emma and her friend and fellow American Girl magazine aficionada, Freja, decided to make “pet products” to sell at the garage sale. They got their ideas for goods and how to’s straight from the pages of their beloved AG magazine.

In my effort to try harder to be the Good Mother and Enjoy my Children, I took them to Michael’s yesterday afternoon. We turned our kitchen into an art studio. Creativity, puff paint and craft foam abounded.

Freja decorating a picture frame for a potential bunny owner

Emma painting the all important colorful sign advertising their wares

Freja’s mom, Janet, and I, had minimal interest in devoting our day to the garage sale (despite the Good Mother and Enjoy our Children quests). We committed to 9:00-11:00 a.m. At 8:00 this morning, my girl who never in her life is ready for school at 8:30, was geared up to go out the door. She’d touched up the sign, was dressed, had eaten her breakfast, had her hair brushed, was packed and all set. Who are you and what have you done with my Emma?

We set up the card table (by Janet and Freja’s house because of more traffic).

And then we sat and waited. Waited for the pet owners to come in droves and snap up as many pet products as they could get their hands on.

In the first hour we had one taker that bought a 25 cent magnet.

In an attempt to stave off discouragement, I made a phone call to Emma’s Aunt Whitney. She has pets and she’s the kind of aunt you can invite to buy your products. She lives 25 miles away in Seattle but I thought perhaps she was in the area for some reason. She was home. She said, “How long will she be selling?” I assured her not long enough to merit a trip to Everett. Darn.

Next, I handed Emma the phone and told her to call her grandparents. They don’t have pets but they’re the kind of grandparents that you can invite to buy your products. Grandma Geri said she would come. We had a few other takers and things started to pick up. Janet spent $4.

Emma and Freja were brilliant salesladies. They would wave their arms with a flourish and offer their goods. Most people smiled and gave a polite no thanks. Some ignored them completely and a few glared a bit. Neither Emma nor Freja were very deterred by such behavior. Janet and I, sitting nearby on our camp chairs, wondered where our girls got their gumption.

When we closed up shop and counted the cash, they made $11.80. That is including the couple of dollars in change that I started them out with as well as the profits from Freja's brother Leif’s leftover pastries. He was selling donuts and pastries earlier but gave up his domain to the girls. (He had heard the siren song of the garage sale.) Janet and I had each given the girls $5 to spend at Michael’s plus Janet provided the ribbon and puff paint and I supplied the wash cloths ($4) they used to make the “paw cloths”. I’m no accounting whiz but I’m not sure it was extremely profitable.

We ended up with about half of the stock remaining. If you have a pet and would like a "paw cloth", picture frame or magnet (lovingly made of craft foam), I know where you can get a good deal.


Since Hallmark was having a sale on Webkinz today (spend $10 and get a Webkinz animal free), we headed there after the “big” sale. The girls each got a Webkin and got their face painted. After we got home, we were in the delightful they’re-giving-it-away-free stage of the garage sale. Emma scored a hat from our neighbors.


Here's Emma, sporting the hat and holding "Blizzard", the new addition to her thriving stuffed cat collection. When I see that smile, I am reminded that sometimes profits don't necessarily need to be monetary to be worthwhile.