A Belated Spring Yard Sale Report

Yes, it's the beginning of July - and I haven't posted a single Yard Sale Report for this year yet!

Fear not, I *have* been out on my usual yard saling adventures. With the cold spring we had, I really didn't get started until the end of May. And despite the fact that I've hit a substantial number of sales this season, I haven't come home with much. These days I'm pretty picky about what I'll buy, even at yard sale prices, as the more I declutter, the less desire I have to bring something into the house that just ends up accumulating dust.

That being said, I do enjoy the "thrill of the hunt" enough to continue digging around in boxes of random stuff on people's driveways on the slight chance I will unearth something wonderful (I still adore the vintage glass candlesticks I found wrapped in paper at the bottom of a box at an estate sale 4 years ago).

My first find of the season was at a church rummage sale:

The final 3 Harry Potter books, in pristine hardcover, for $1 each. This was perfect timing as my older son was just ready to start Order of the Phoenix. These put a big smile on his face!

At the same rummage sale, I also picked up these in-brand-new-condition books for my gift cupboard (50 cents each!):

 At the same sale, I also picked up a new-in-the-shrink-wrap kids' DVD of magic tricks for $3 (not pictured - it's already been gifted!!)

A few weeks later, I picked up this beautiful, coffee-table-sized book on herb gardening for 75 cents:

Since I am on a never-ending quest to expand the number of herbs growing in my garden, this is a welcome addition to my library (and I admit that I spent a significant portion of a Saturday afternoon leafing through it on my porch!)

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I scored all 3 of these items at a fundraiser yard sale:

Handwoven basket (to become the new trash can in my office), 25 cents; beach mat $1 and single-serving stainless steel Thermos $2.

Grand total: $11 for 10 items, or $1.10 per item

July's looking like it's going to be light on the yard sales for me; I have 2 Saturdays where I'm doing demos at the Farmers' Market, plus we'll be on vacation for part of the month, too. So it may be a while before my next yard sale report appears - rest assured that I'll be back eventually with another update!

Have you found anything great at a yard sale lately?

 

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Fall Thrifting Extravaganza (and a mini fashion show!)

I think this is quite possibly the latest I've ever gotten around to posting about our Fall Thrifting Expedition, which we usually do in late August to stock up on all the fall and winter clothing our family needs for the coming months.

For one thing, we did our shopping in two stages this year: our usual late August trip to Value Village, plus a trip to Talize just a couple of weeks ago because my younger son still desperately needed to find pants!

As usual, we came away with a pretty good haul and a few really great finds. Here are some of the highlights and an update on our total clothing expenditures so far this year.

I didn't managed to snap a pic of every single item we brought home, as the boys have a tendency to run off with their treasures the moment they get them in the door.

Shown above:
1. A pair of Van's and a pair of sandals, both for my almost-16-year-old son Noah. The sandals were $2.00 and the Van's were $6.50 (I couldn't find an exact match online, but that brand generally runs $55 to 75+ a pair!)

2.  Tops for Noah - a Superman T-shirt ($3.50), Adidas hoodie ($2.00) and plaid flannel shirt ($3.50).

3. More tops for Noah: Patagonia hoodie ($4.50), Argyle sweater ($5.00) and striped sweater ($5.00). We were really excited about the hoodie, as Patagonia is a really good brand and it was in brand new condition!

4. Jeans for me: Jones & Co., Coupe Galbee "Curvy Fit" and Contrast, $5.00 each.

5. Nathan's haul: T-shirt ($2.50), plaid flannel shirt ($4.50), long sleeve gray knit top ($4.00) and jeans ($4.00)

All of those were from Value Village on 50% off day, and the last one is mine from Talize:

6. Mexx top ($4.99) (this had a pink tag, which was 50% off that day, otherwise it would have been $9.99)

More shoes:

From left to right:

A pair of Clark's for me ($9.00). This was a near-miraculous find - they fit my size 10 narrow feet *perfectly*, are in brand new condition, and cost over $70 new!

Faded Glory slip-ons ($4.99), also for me. They are super comfy for walking in!

Sneakers for Joe (hubby), $6.49.

Our total spent at Value Village with tax was $93.23 for 18 items of clothing, or an average of $5.18 an item. We spent another $97.52 at Talize for 11 items, or an average of $8.87 an item (I spent $20.00 on a coat there, which jacked up the average - more about that below!)

The boys came away with a good haul of American Eagle items (their favourite brand) and Nathan (13 yr old) found an Abercrombie hoodie which made him *very* happy!

Since clothes always look better on than in a pile, I did a little min-fashion show, and managed to convince Noah to let me snap a pic of him, too!

Outfit #1:

Hoodie, $9.99 at Talize (brand new condition), jeans $5.00 at Value Village, shoes $9.00 at Value Village, Gap T-shirt (under hoodie) bought a couple years ago for about $3.00, earrings (hard to see, but I am wearing some!) around 50 cents at a yard sale a couple years ago.
Total cost for outfit: Approximately $27.50

Outfit #2:

Gap turtleneck sweater, $6.99 at Talize, jeans $5.00 at Value Village, shoes $4.99 at Value Village, earrings homemade from a broken wooded bead necklace picked up at a rummage sale (?25 cents?)
Total cost for outfit: Approximately $17.23

Outfit #3 (Outerwear):

Coat, $19.99 at Talize (I'm not sure what it's made of as I can't find a care label, but it's really soft and fully lined), fleece hat, $1.00 at a yard sale a couple of years ago, fleece gloves free from a yard sale free pile last year, scarf hand knitted by me a few years ago (about $5.00 for the wool-silk blend yarn).
Total for outfit: Approximately $25.99


Outfit #4:

Patagonia hoodie, $4.50, jeans, approx. $5.00 from last year, T-shirt, approx $3.00 from a couple years ago, shoes, $6.50 at Talize (they were marked 50% off).
Total cost for outfit: $19.00

Annual clothing budget update:
After these last two thrifting trips, we are up to $419.09 for the year.  We generally aim for around $400 per year total for the four of us ($100 a person, although usually more of it goes to the boys as their clothes need replacing much more often!) We spent $455.86 last year, so we should come in somewhere in the same neighbourhood again (Nathan could still use a new pair of sneakers!) The last couple of years, with the boys fitting into men's size clothing, it's been more of a challenge to stick to the $400 annual budget, so I don't mind going a little bit over if necessary.

Have you found any great fashion deals this fall?
 

 
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A Mid-summer Yard Sale Report

It's been much longer than usual since I shared an update of my yard sale finds. It seems the Yard Sale Gods have been conspiring against me for the past few weeks, and either there haven't been any good sales to check out, the weather has been uncooperative, or I have had something else that I've absolutely had to do on Saturday morning.

Nevertheless, I have managed to score a few good deals and I figured it's time I got around to sharing them!

First up is this wintery-themed story book, which I picked up for 25 cents. It's already tucked away in my gift cupboard for Christmas giving.

 I found some more adult-oriented reading material later on. I knew this book on the history of four of Hamilton's heritage neighbourhoods would be right up my husband's alley, as he's a huge Hamilton history buff, so it was totally worth the $2.00 asking price. I debated saving it for our anniversary (September) or Christmas, but in the end I just gave it to him straight away and he pored over it for hours and hours that weekend :) I think we'll be doing a number of the walking tours from the book, lots of fascinating details about so many of the buildings!

It's been a while since I succumbed to my basket addiction, but at a neighbourhood moving sale I couldn't resist snapping all of these stylish containers (two baskets and a wooden box with some nifty curlicue detailing) up for a total of $2.00.

At a church rummage sale, I stumbled across something I'd been on the lookout for since just about forever (well, okay, maybe not quite that long, but it's definitely been a while!):

 A Pyrex loaf pan, for which I paid 50 cents. I have one, but two is much better so I can bake two "normal" shaped loaves of bread at once (rather than one normal and one round loaf, which is what I have been doing). Yeah, I know I could have gone and bought one on sale at any number of stores, but where's the fun in that? :)

My final find was 4 of these Ikea baskets for $2.00 each. I have 4 of the taller version of these baskets (which we incorporated into the storage unit we built in our front entranceway) and this size of square basket seems to come in handy for so many things that I snapped them up. My 13 year old son claimed one as soon as he laid eyes on them, so I'm sure they're all going to be put to good use.

That's it for my latest round of yard saling adventures!

Grand total: $12.75 for 10 items, or an average of $1.28 an item.

Have you made any great yard sale finds lately?

A couple of things I wanted to let you know about:

1. I'll be blogging sporadically for the rest of the summer as we're going on a family vacation for a week and then I have a friend coming to visit from Albuquerque for 10 days in August!

2. You can catch me at a few live appearances in August: I'll be on CHCH Morning Live on Tuesday, August 6th at 8:20 a.m. EST discussing my book and budget menu planning service, and preparing a couple of simple, inexpensive and tasty recipes using local and seasonal ingredients. I'll also be doing demos in the Community Kitchen at the Hamilton Farmers' Market on August 24th and 31st (more info will be available HERE soon).

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Graduating in Style - Without Busting Our Clothing Budget!

My younger son's grade 8 graduation ceremony was yesterday afternoon. It seemed pretty surreal, especially since this was his first-ever year of school! And of course there's nothing like being packed into a non-air-conditioned school auditorium with a few hundred other people during a humid Southern Ontario heatwave :)

While the school encouraged parents not to spend too much on fancy clothing and told the kids to dress "like they were going out somewhere special with their family", of course all the kids had their own ideas about what was appropriate! I remember us all getting dressed up pretty fancy for my own grade 8 graduation, and these kids wanted to do the same.

Nathan was determined that he wanted an outfit comprised of a dress shirt, vest and dress pants, as this is what all his friends decided they were going to wear. As his usual attire is more along the lines of a pair of Adidas shorts, a T-shirt and a pair of sneakers, we didn't exactly have anything to draw on from his current wardrobe. Add to that the fact that all our schedules have been crazy busy of late and we didn't end up coordinating a time for him to go out shopping with his dad until Saturday (3 days before the event!) and we were all feeling a bit stressed about whether we'd be able to pull things together!

Thankfully, when Joe and Nathan finally did go on the hunt for an outfit, they hit paydirt at their first stop (Value Village). They were able to get the dress shirt, vest and pants in the above photo - all for just under $25! Thankfully Nathan, who doesn't own a pair of dress shoes, has the same size feet as Joe so he was able to borrow his dad's black dress shoes and socks to complete the outfit.

He was pleased with his fancy look (and he did indeed fit right in with what many of the other boys were wearing) and we didn't have to spend a ridiculous amount of money for him to get all spiffed up for his graduation ceremony. I was pretty glad about that since he ended up taking those clothes off ASAP after the ceremony and changing into his "normal" attire to head over to the dinner/dance afterwards! I'm sure he'll probably get a bit more mileage out of the shirt and pants in the future, too, since they are both basic wardrobe staple pieces.

While this wasn't quite as impressive a feat as the time I pulled off my $10 holiday outfit a year and a half ago, we were all satisfied that we put together a good outfit for a great price.

Have you managed to pull together a stylish yet frugal outfit for a graduation, wedding or other formal occasion lately?

Yard Sale Report: The Second Half of May

In my area, May and June seem to be two of the best months for yard sales and I have hit quite a few in the last two Saturdays!

Here's what I came home with last weekend:

A pair of polar fleece gloves that fit me perfectly, a full container of bamboo skewers, and a beach mat all came out of a free pile (and you all know how much I *love* free piles!!) At the same yard sale I also found the silicone basting brush for 25 cents and the yoga book for 50 cents.

This morning I hit so many sales that I lost count because there was a huge street sale over on Beulah Avenue (an annual event) plus a few other sales in that area piggybacking on the main sale. I've been going to the Beulah Street Sale for probably close to a decade and for the first time ever, I left empty-handed. Ironically, after spending a good chunk of time pedaling all over Southwest Hamilton, the only items I purchased this morning were at a couple of sales right around the corner from me!

I was thrilled to find another stainless steel coffee mug, very similar to the one I picked up earlier this month, for 50 cents (now hubby and I will each have our own!) I also scooped up four kids' craft books in brand new condition to add to my gift cupboard for another $2.00.

Grand total for the last two weeks: $3.25 for 10 items or 32.5 cents an item

Have you found any great yard sale bargains lately?

Our Spring Clothes Shopping Expedition

Yesterday was a 50% off day at Value Village. Thanks to the fact that we have a Super Savers Club Card, we were able to shop the day before and get the 50% off discount. So our Mother's Day ended up being a free class at my yoga studio (they always do free classes for *everyone* on Mother's Day, which is so generous of them!) followed by a thrift store shopping trip. It was a busy day rather than a relaxing one, but seeing as how they were all frugal activities I suppose it was the perfect Mother's Day for me!

On this trip we were focused on getting the boys some spring and summer clothes as they both went and grew again and didn't have much that still fit them except a few T-shirts each.

They are both getting really particular about their clothing and although at first I thought we were never going to find anything that fit them *and* met with their fashion approval, we did end up with a decent haul in the end.

My younger son came home with this:

There are 3 T-shirts, 3 pairs of "regular' shorts, 1 pair of athletic shorts and a swimsuit in the picture. He also found 2 other T-shirts and a second pair of athletic shorts (not pictured since he went off to school in one set of T-shirt and shorts and I have no idea what he did with the other T-shirt!).

My older son found the following:

Again, not everything is pictured since he wandered off with some of the items already. In the photo are 2 T-shirts, a tank top, a pair of athletic pants, 3 pairs of shorts and a swimsuit. Not in the picture are a second swimsuit, another pair of shorts, and another 3 T-shirts (again, he's wearing one and I don't know where he's stashed the other 2 at the moment!) The pair of shorts in the bottom right corner still had the store tags on (I love it when we find brand new, never-worn stuff at the thrift store).

My husband also found a pair of sneakers for himself (not pictured).

In total we came home with 25 items of clothing for $96.06, or $3.84 an item.

We still need to find my younger son an outfit for his grade 8 graduation on June 25th. We'll probably hit our local Talize as that is my boys' new favourite thrift store.

Have you found any great thrift store deals lately?

DID YOU KNOW? I now have an events page! Come find out where you can catch up with me at a signing, seminar, workshop or food demo HERE.

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Yard Sale Season Is Here!

At long last, spring has decided to grace us with its presence here in Southern Ontario. We've been enjoying a well-deserved string of gorgeous, sunny days and of course when the warmer weather arrives my thoughts turn to two things: gardening and yard sales! I've gotten out in the garden a little bit and plan to spend a bunch of time out there in the next few days, so a garden update will be coming soon.

Right now I have the spoils of my first week of yard sale shopping to share. There was only one yard sale running in my neck of the woods today and at first I thought I was going to strike out. Most of the merchandise was kids' games (a lot of which looked like they'd been tucked away in the basement for 20 years) and older dishes, mugs, etc. It was not well sorted or displayed, though (many items were in boxes, wrapped in paper, making it next to impossible to tell what was in there!) When I hit a sale like this, I tend to dig around a bit (especially if I don't have a lot of other sales on my list for that day). I will often find things other people missed because they just did a quick scan of what was clearly visible.

In this case I ended up with the following items:

Three of those woven paper plate holders and a stainless steel mug; I paid 50 cents for the lot!

Now anyone who knows me is wondering why the heck I bought those paper plate holders as I never, ever use paper plates! The answer is that sometime last fall I read that these work well for drying herbs and I thought I'd give it a try. My plan is to dry small amounts at a time over the course of the growing season, rather than trying to dry large amounts all at once in the fall (which I somehow never get around to doing!). The stainless mug is going in our camping kit; we do have a set of 4 stainless mugs but they are quite small and this one will probably hold over twice as much coffee :)

Grand total for the day: 50 cents for 4 items, or 12.5 cents per item.

As I mentioned near the end of last yard sale season, I'm probably going to switch from weekly yard sale reports to 1-2 reports a month, depending on how many sales I'm getting out to and how much stuff I find - this will also free up some time for me on produce exchange days, keeping me a bit more sane! I will still file them all under "Weekly Yard Sale Reports" so they're easy to find.

Has your yard sale season started yet? Have you found anything great?

DID YOU KNOW? I now have an events page! Come find out where you can catch up with me at a signing, seminar, workshop or food demo HERE.

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Finally - A Fall & Winter Clothes Shopping Trip!

I believe I've mentioned that life's been crazier than usual around here at least once or twice :) A sure sign that things have gotten a bit out of hand is that the fall and winter clothes shopping trip that we normally do around the end of August (hitting up a Value Village 50% off day) just happened on Saturday. Yup, *after* Thanksgiving! Hey, at least we got it done before Halloween.

Since there wasn't another 50% off day on the Value Village horizon for the foreseeable future, we decided to head over to Talize since fellow Hamilton blogger Jentine of My Edit is a huge fan (and far more fashion conscious than I've ever going to be). I'd been there way back when they first opened (I think that's getting close to a decade ago as I seem to remember my kids being quite small). Anyway, for whatever reason we'd never gone back (it's a bit more out of the way for us than Value Village so it mostly fell off my radar I think). I'm happy to report that we had a very successful trip and I'm now an official Talize convert :) Overall I found the selection better organized, with more higher quality items and a lot less stuff that looked like it was ready for my rag bag compared to Value Village. As it turned out, they were offering 50% off on clothes with pink and purple tags, and about half the items we selected fit this category, so we did still receive a significant discount on our purchase.

We did also make a quick trip over to Value Village as they have a much larger shoe selection than Talize and we'd struck out in that department. We made a couple of good finds there, then hauled the whole lot home to be photographed and laundered.

(My apologies for the less-than-stellar photos. By the time we got home, daylight was starting to fade, and I really wanted to get this stuff in the wash as I had two teenage boys pestering me for their new duds. I did the best I could with the light I had to work with!)

Teenage boy #1 (13 year old) ended up with the following:

- A new winter jacket (I'm SO relieved we found something he agreed that he would actually wear!! He's definitely the most style-conscious person in our household).
- 3 pairs of jeans (again, nearly a miracle considering how picky he is about fit). One of them is actually not black since we found a gray pair that met with his approval (I'm not sure why, but he won't wear blue denim)
-2 black T-shirts
-2 American Eagle hoodies (only one in the picture as he was already wearing the other one!)
-plaid button-down shirt
-black belt


Teenage boy #2 (15 year old) got a pretty good haul, too:

 -2 button-down shirts
-2 long sleeved knit pullovers
-2 black T-shirts (one short sleeved, one long sleeved)
-2 pairs of jeans
-a pair of New Balance runners
-a pair of winter boots

Plus I found a couple of items for myself:

-A pair of yoga pants in brand new condition (I was really thrilled to find these as my current pairs are looking more than a bit long in the tooth)
-A pair of hiking boots

The boots I'd picked up in hopes they'd fit my 13 year old. They *were* in the men's section. After he tried them on and reported they were too small, it occurred to me that the style was not all that different from that of my favourite boots that died last year. I tried them on and they fit me! So, even though they're technically men's boots, I don't really care :) I don't love them as much as my old expensive pair, but at $14.99 and in brand-new condition, they'll get me through until I can splurge on another really good pair again (which isn't likely to be this year).

The grand total for this shopping expedition was $170.50 for 21 items, or an average of $8.12 an item (not bad with a winter jacket and 3 pair of footwear in the mix!)

That brings our total spent on clothing so far this year up to $344.47. Over a third of that was on shoes and boots since my boys' feet just keep getting bigger! I'm hoping their feet are just about done growing as one of them already has larger feet than my husband and the other's are about the same size.

I think we're now just about covered for fall and winter clothes. We still need to find some winter boots for my 13 year old, and hubby needs a new pair of dress shoes. We also need to stock up on socks for the boys. I'm hoping that should be it until the end of the year! It looks like we'll come in a lot lower on our clothing expenses than we did last year, when we went about $150 over our typical $400 annual budget.

Have you found any great thrift-store deals lately?

Where Have All the Yard Sale Reports Gone?

I know many of you that look forward to my weekly yard sale reports are probably wondering why there haven't been any for quite some time. In fact, the last report I posted was way back on June 30th!

I have still been getting out there most weekends (although there have been a few rainy Saturdays) but I've been coming home empty-handed. Last weekend I hit seven yard sales and didn't bring anything home, and that's been fairly typical of what's been going on in yard sale land for me all summer. At this point in my life, I'm pretty discerning about what I choose to bring home. In another month, both of my boys will be teenagers and the days where I'm in the market for all those "little kid" items so readily available on the yard sale circuit are long gone. We also don't need much in the way of general household items. I have a few specific items on my wish list (such as more cast iron cookware) but there are not that many things I'm on the lookout for. I always keep an eye out for men's clothing (especially now that my boys are wearing men's small sizes!) and giftable items to stow in my gift cupboard (meaning stuff that's in brand new condition and that I genuinely believe someone on my gift list will love to receive). Other than that, and my weaknesses for baskets, books and Pyrex cookware, there are not all that many things I am apt to hand money over for right now.

What all this boils down to is that this is everything I brought home since my last yard sale post:

And I actually found all of these items on the same week in the middle of August:
A "make-your-own-lip balm" kit for $3.00 (which ended up becoming a birthday gift for my 11 year old niece) and 6 plastic Mason jar lids for 10 cents each (these are hard to find and are very handy when you're using Mason jars for general food storage purposes). I also scooped up a blender for $3.00. You may recall that our trusty old Osterizer bit the dust after 20 years of service. We hadn't been able to find a suitable secondhand replacement and finally broke down and bought a new blender a couple of months ago (on sale for half price, with Canadian Tire money). Unfortunately, we have been less than thrilled with it, and the base (the part that holds the blade) has already cracked. Yes, I need to check to see if it's still under warranty, but when I saw this Cuisinart one I figured a backup plan for $3.00 would be a good thing (it actually runs quite well and I like it better than the one we bought new - argh!)

I'm hoping there will be a resurgence of good sales for September and October (I often do some of my best yard sale shopping at this time of year) although I may decide not to do another report until the end of the month unless I find something particularly fantastic.

Grand total spent: $6.60 for 8 items or 83 cents an item.

P.S. If you're reading this in your email or news feed, I wanted to make sure all my local readers know about my upcoming book signing and presentation. It's on Wednesday, September 12th at 7 p.m., at the Westdale branch of the Hamilton Public Library. I'll have copies of my book available to purchase for $15. I hope some of you will be able to join me!

A Thrifty Gifting Extravaganza

These past few weeks have been full of gift-giving occasions (Father's Day plus a plethora of birthdays) at a time when our budget has been more stretched than it has in a long time. Thank goodness for my gift cupboard and my culinary prowess! I managed to assemble some pretty decent gifts with a minimum outlay of cash and they all seemed to be quite well received.

#1: Father's Day

My dad is not much into cooking himself and really appreciates homemade goodies. I made a batch of these Chocolate Ginger Biscotti:

I have no idea where the recipe came from - I ripped it out of some magazine or other years ago. Half the batch got wrapped up for my hubby and half went to my dad, along with some of our canned goodies (strawberry jam and sweet mixed pickles).

 Here's what my dad's gift looked like all ready to go:
 

 The basket was a yard sale find (I might have paid a dollar for it, I can't remember!), all the rest of the wrapping materials were from my stash of recycled/reused wrapping supplies, and I used my basic pantry supplies to make the biscotti.

#2: Birthday gift for a three-year-old boy

This was a present for one of my closest friend's kids. I had a lot of fun putting this one together, as I have vivid memories of my boys at this age. I know they both went through a dinosaur-loving phase around the ages of 2-4 or so, and in fact I'd been keeping an eye out for dinosaur-related items over the past couple of years as I knew eventually I would be putting together a dinosaur-themed gift for a small boy :)

 What's inside:

 A couple of hardcover dinosaur books, a dinosaur dot-to-dot book, a multi-sided dinosaur cube puzzle set, and a few random dinosaur stationery type items (dinosaur shaped pad of paper, erasers, stencils). All of these items were gradually collected at various yard sales, and I estimate I spent less than $3.00 total on all of the above items (which, if I had bought retail, I'm guessing would have cost somewhere in the area of $30 or more). Once again, all the wrapping supplies came from my stash. 

#3: 40th Birthday gift for a close friend

I don't have a photo of this one, because I was a bit (okay, a lot) disorganized about getting it put together and ended up doing most of it just before we were racing out the door to get to her birthday party! This is the same friend whose little boy received gift #2 above, and we've known each other since we were ten and eleven year old kids (she's a year younger than me).

I made a batch of raisin-oatmeal scones and paired that with a jar of my homemade strawberry jam for the first part of her gift. The second part of her gift was a gift certificate for a day of "mind-body pampering", something she really doesn't take enough time for in her busy schedule. It's to include a hot yoga class at my studio, a home-cooked meal, plus some other surprises (we probably won't schedule this until the fall, as both of us are pretty busy all summer!). My yoga studio offers a deal to new students where you get 10 days of unlimited yoga for $10, so this gift isn't going to cost me much out-of-pocket either, and hopefully it will be a very restorative day for my friend who has a tendency to forget that taking some time for yourself once in a while is a good idea.

#4: Birthday gift for my 4-year-old niece

This was for my youngest niece, one of my brother's three girls. We have always done pretty modest gifts for each other's kids, as they all seem to have plenty of "stuff" already.

Inside:

This was the only gift of the four where I had to run out and buy something new to fill it out a bit. The story book and the paint with water book were both yard sale finds, and the "funny faces" book in the middle I ended up buying new. It was surprisingly reasonably priced at $3.99, so I still managed to put this one together for about $5 or so. (If I hadn't already given her an assortment of homemade fruit-scented playdoughs last year, I would have made those to add to this gift instead of buying the new book - they are always a big hit!)

While I do enjoy the challenge of putting together a good gift on a small budget, I'm going to be happy to take a bit of a break from gift assembly for a while, and hopefully I'll be able to restock my gift cupboard a bit during the rest of the yard sale season! 

Are you a "thrifty gifter"? What are some of your favourite frugal gift-giving strategies?

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Weekly Yard Sale Report: Short and Sweet

Yard sales on long weekends can be hit-or-miss - sometimes it seems like everyone decided to hold a holiday weekend sale, other times the selection is sparse. This time out it was the latter. I hit four sales, all of which were very quiet, and came home with:

Three children's books ($1.00 each), which are going in my gift cupboard. I found all of these at a single sale and didn't find anything else interesting in the rest of my travels this morning.

Did you find anything interesting this weekend?

Weekly Yard Sale Report: Crazy Busy Saturday Edition

For those of you who might have been wondering, yes I *did* go out on my usual Saturday morning yard sale rounds yesterday - I just didn't have time to blog about it! It was also the first exchange of the 2012 season for the West Hamilton Produce Cooperative, which I coordinate. That means I was up to my eyeballs in fresh-from-the-backyard-garden produce, sorting, portioning and distributing the bounty amongst our members. And on top of that, our family had a big party to go to as well - the 40th birthday celebration for one of my closest friends, whom I've known since we were younger than my kids are now! So we were there from late afternoon till well after dark.

Fortunately, the yard sales running in my area yesterday were in a very compact area, with two street sales and another individual sale all within a few blocks of one another in the Southwest part of the city. I was able to hit them all within a short period of time and managed to find a few purchase-worthy items:

A clear glass vase with a funky "bubble" texture (25 cents), two IKEA baskets that are a match for a few I already own and could use more of ($2 each) and a very practical "Lug" bag for $11. The bag was a bit on the spendy side for me, and at first I wasn't sure if it was worth it, but I'm already really glad I bought it. I packed it up full of stuff to tote along to the party we attended yesterday, and it has so many handy pockets and pouches it was easy to keep everything well organized. I'm planning on using it as my portable book marketing office, as it will easily hold a few copies of my book plus all the accompanying marketing materials. I also have it on good authority from a couple of friends who shop retail a lot more than I do that these bags cost around $65 new (plus tax) so I did get myself a pretty good deal!

As for the most interesting things I saw that I *didn't* buy this week, there were quite a few to choose from at one sale I stopped by, including these shields:

which my boys would have LOVED to have on their walls when they were younger but would not exactly fit into the "cool" category these days :)

And this fine specimen:

I'm not sure who this guy is but I just had to take a photo of him! I don't think my husband would be too impressed if I dragged this home and plonked it in the living room.

Grand total for the day: $15.25 for 4 items, or $3.81 an item

Did you find anything great this weekend?

Weekly Yard Sale Report

This week was everything the last two Saturdays were not: warm and sunny and perfect for checking out a few yard sales. I ended up hitting close to a dozen this morning and although for the most part they weren't particularly noteworthy, this sight on Strathcona Street more than made up for it:

 I'm certain this must be the most yard I've ever seen in one place outside of a yard shop (heck, I think I might have been in a yarn shop or two that didn't have this much yarn!) Unfortunately, it was all acrylic and I'm mostly a natural-fibre kind of gal so I didn't buy any of it.

I did, however, make a few small purchases on my rounds this morning:
 

A cute snowman magnetic dress up toy (25 cents), a Simpsons comic book ($1.00), an origami book (25 cents) and a navy blue Columbia T-shirt for my hubby (50 cents). The snowman toy and the origami book are going into my gift cupboard. The comic book I'm saving as a surprise for my 14 year-old-son to tuck into his bag when he heads off to camp 4 weeks from tomorrow.

That was the total haul for today!

Grand total for the day: $2.00 for 4 items, or an average of 50 cents an item.

Did you find anything great this week?

Weekly Yard Sale Report (or Lack Thereof)

 Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

For the second Saturday in a row, the weather was less than auspicious for yard sale shopping. It rained all morning and while I bravely ventured out to one indoor sale, I didn't find anything worth buying (although I did get plenty soaked on the way home).

Instead of coming home and writing another informative installment of my How to Yard Sale Like a Pro series, I decided to curl up in bed with a hot cup of coffee and a good book. Sorry gang - here's hoping the yard sale gods will be smiling next week!!

Did you find anything great this week?

How to Yard Sale Like a Pro #2: Find Sales, Plan Your Route and Be Prepared

It had to happen eventually: after a ridiculously long run of sunny (and mostly warm) weather, the heavens opened up and let 'er rip for the better part of the day yesterday. I can't complain - we really, really needed that rain as we had almost no snow this past winter and hardly any rain this spring. Unfortunately, the forecast for today was just questionable enough that people were hesitant to put out their yard sale wares this morning. I did meander over to a street sale in my neighbourhood, which turned out to only have a couple of sales going on because of the weather. I didn't find anything interesting, and as the skies were looking dark, I decided to come home and have another cup of coffee rather than ride all over west Hamilton to check out sales that might or might not be running. Mother Nature being as fickle as she is, as I write this the skies are starting to clear and the sun is peeking out. Ah well - there's always next week, right?

Anyway, since I didn't get any good yard sale action this morning, I figured it was just about time for another installment of my "How to Yard Sale Like a Pro" series (I kicked things off back in April with "Go, and Go Often!"). This week I'm going to talk about how to find sales and plan your route, as well as the items you should bring with you to have a more efficient and pleasant shopping experience.

Finding sales:

It used to be that the newspaper classifieds were your best source of yard sale listings. Although not as many people choose to run newspaper ads anymore due to their cost, it's still worth checking there, especially since the larger sales like street sales and church rummage sales are almost always advertised in the newspaper and you don't want to miss those!

By far the most common source of listings in my area these days is online classifieds. Kijiji is the most active online classified site here, but in other areas it's Craigslist. Kijiji has a nice feature where you can limit your ad search to a certain distance from your location, which is very handy when looking at the yard sale ads. There are often hundreds of yard sale ads, but if I limit my search to a 5 km radius from my house (generally what I stick to since I shop by bike) I only have to wade through a small percentage of those ads to find the ones I'm looking for.

Another way I find sales is by keeping an eye on telephone poles and community boards when I'm out and about. Often I'll find a couple of sales that weren't in the paper or on Kijiji to add to my list.

Finally, I always stay on the lookout for more sales when I'm actually out yard sale shopping. Very often, I'll find unadvertised sales running near other sales that were on my list (especially if there's a big street sale or a large cluster of sales in the area like there was last week). I find being on a bike is a big advantage here; since I'm moving slower than a car it's easier for me to spot those "unexpected sales" and safely stop to check them out.

When you're making your yard sale list, make sure to note any sales that have unusual start times. Most sales will start between 8 and 9 a.m., but occasionally there will be one that starts at 7 or 10 and that information is useful when planning your route!

Plan Your Route:

Now it's time to grab a map and plan an efficient route. I generally start with the sales closest to me and work my way out to the furthest away. I might choose to do the opposite if there is a particularly great sounding sale that's further away (especially if it starts at 8 a.m. or earlier) or if there's a sale close by that doesn't start until 10 a.m. Either way, though, I'm looking to choose the most efficient route so I can get to the maximum number of sales in the shortest amount of time. Remember to be polite and don't show up at a sale an hour before it's supposed to start - this will NOT endear you to the proprietor!

Grab Your Gear:

Over the years, I've found it handy to have a few things with me when I'm out and about yard sale shopping. This includes a map (I don't often need it, but occasionally the location of a smaller street eludes me) a tape measure (for measuring furniture dimensions and pants inseams), a list of measurements and clothing sizes (e.g. how big is that space by the front door where you want to hang a mirror? Knowing the inseam and waist measurements  of your family members can be useful, too, in case you find some great clothes). Having a good assortment of small bills and loose change is also extremely handy and allows you to bargain more effectively. When you're looking at smaller items, it's a lot easier to ask "Will you take 25 cents for this?" if you can just hand over the quarter, rather than producing a $20 bill and expecting them to make change. If you have a long list of sales to hit and expect to be out for quite a while, a bottle of water and a snack can keep you feeling energized throughout your excursion.

Do you have any tips for making yard sale shopping more efficient? 

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Weekly Yard Sale Report: Southwest Yard Sale-o-Rama

Today was a big day on my yard sale calendar: the day of the annual Beulah Street Sale. This street in the southwest part of Hamilton has run an annual sale for so many years that it's become a tradition for a large number of local residents to stop by and hunt for bargains.

This event is such a big draw that a lot of other folks in the area piggyback onto it and run their own yard sales on the same day. So there were an overwhelming number of sales to check out today, even for a seasoned yard sale shopper like myself. The good news is they were clustered together in a very tight area, so I didn't have to do a whole lot of riding around to hit a fantastic number of sales (there were so many I didn't even try to keep count!).

My first stops of the morning were to check out a street sale plus another yard sale in my own Westdale neighbourhood. I bought these two books for 25 cents each:

The puzzle book will go into our "camping entertainment" stash, and the paper book is going into my gift cupboard.

Then I rounded up the family and we all headed over to the Beulah Street Sale (and hit up a bunch of sales on Dundurn South on the way over)..

I've never come home empty handed from this event, and this year was no exception!

 We found: a pair of hockey pants for my 12 year old son ($15), set of 4 drinking glasses ($2), book on how to make handmade books and journals ($1), dinosaur block puzzle (going in my gift cupboard) ($1), clear glass engraved bottle (50 cents).

On Beulah I also found The Mother of All Free Piles and after rooting around in it I came up with a huge armload of stuff:

 Those of you who've been reading my yard sale reports for a long time know how much I LOVE free piles :) I found so much great stuff in this one I was a bit embarrassed to take it all. The woman running the sale insisted that I take as much as I wanted from it as she just wanted to get rid of it all (she even went and got me a big bag to hold everything). Yep, every single item in the photo above was out of that free pile: Four Christmas baskets, two packages of cellophane basket wrap, a Christmas wine bottle wrap, a package of gift tags, a package of Christmas stickers, a package of cheesecloth, a package of elastic ribbon, a Christmas dishcloth, and a cute little salt and pepper shaker set (they're going to be our picnic/camping set). Nearly everything is still brand new in unopened packages! I was running low on wrapping supplies after last Christmas, so this has significantly replenished my stash.

The salt and pepper shakers up close - they're only three inches tall. So adorable! And hopefully, functional, too.

The rest of the family had had their fill of yard sales by then, so they headed home and left me to check out the rest of the sales on my list on my own. I headed over to Stanley Avenue to check out a couple of sales and found:

A pair of size 10 knitting needles (25 cents) which I'm hoping are big enough to experiment with knitting T-shirt yarn, and a pack of 20 Christmas cards ($1)

From there, I headed towards home, hitting up a couple more sales on Charleton and a street sale on Linwood without buying anything else, although I found the coolest thing I *didn't* buy today on Linwood:

This is a sheet music cupboard, but I can think of a lot of other great uses for it. I had to restrain myself from buying it, but I really don't have anywhere to put it right now (and we've got enough furniture waiting for an overhaul at the moment, so I don't want to add more until we've dealt with what we've already got!)

I also passed by St Joseph's church in my travels this morning...

...and got to meet fellow Hamilton blogger Tamara of Tea for Three (and one of her adorable daughters). I even bought something from her yard sale, but I won't tell you what as I'm sure she doesn't need everyone in the Blogosphere knowing where she lives :)

Grand total for the day: $21.25 for 25 items, or 85 cents an item

(If I remove the "big ticket" hockey pants from the equation, it works out to 26 cents an item for the other 24 items!)

Did you find anything great this week?

Weekly Yard Sale Report and Southwest/James North Wanderings

It's the long Victoria Day Weekend here in Canada and I don't think the weather could be any nicer! It was a perfect Saturday morning for hitting the yard sale circuit on my bike and I had eight sales on my list to check out.

Since I have a lot more local readers than I did many moons ago when I started these yard sale reports (and thanks to CBC Hamilton it's not exactly a secret that I live in The Hammer so my "blogger anonymity", if I ever had any, is totally shot) I've decided it would be fun to add some more local references to these posts. So, non-local readers, I love you, too - you just might not always know what I'm talking about, but you might get to know a lot more about the city I live in :)

I started off the morning at a sale on Aberdeen. I didn't buy anything there, but working my way towards Locke Street I encountered this little fellow on the porch:

I then headed slightly northeast to check out a sale on Herkimer, and scored this beauty:

A Lagostina Dutch oven - the holy grail of cookware. I've been dreaming of finding a good quality Dutch oven at a yard sale for years, so to say I was excited about this find would be a slight understatement. We recently had to throw out a pot we'd been using for 20 years (my sister-in-law was going to throw it out all that time ago and we managed to get two more decades of regular use out of it). This is a more than worthy successor to our expired pot, that's for sure.  I paid $4 for it and went (very) happily on my way!

This particular yard sale was located right in my old stomping grounds. I lived near Queen & Herkimer for several years, in this place:

It's nearly unrecognizable from the time I lived there. It used to have a green stucco exterior, and I'm pretty sure that large evergreen tree wasn't there when I was. I guess a lot can change in 15 years :) We lived in the main floor apartment on the right hand side of this semi-detached house.

I headed further north and backtracked a bit west to get to a sale on Dundurn north, where I didn't buy anything. Making my way further northeast, I happened to spy this:

Was someone hoping to do their grocery shopping at Victoria Park? Maybe they can come back a bit later in the growing season and barter for some veggies from a member of the Victoria Park Community Gardens. I'm not even sure where that cart would have come from as there are no grocery stores in the immediate vicinity.

Here was the scene at York and Bay just after 9 a.m. this morning:

 Is EVERYONE at the cottage? By the time I made it home I concluded that everyone that's still in the city was either hitting up yard sales (they were all doing a brisk business), strolling down James North, or exploring the Waterfront Trail.

From York and Bay I wove my way towards the James North area. I stopped to check a sale on Bay North, and while I enjoyed a stimulating conversation with the proprietor, I didn't buy anything. My next stop was a sale on MacNab North, where I found these:

I got these spoons for ten cents apiece, which I think is one heck of a deal. The smaller spoon in the middle (I'm told it's a jam spoon, and it will look right at home serving up our homemade jam from a Mason jar) is definitely real silver and I'm pretty sure the larger ones are, too. They need a bit of cleaning up, but I've been meaning to polish our silver (inherited from my hubby's grandmother) for ever and a day anyhow, so hopefully this is the incentive I need to finally get the job done.

I then made a stop on Mulberry Street, where I found the coolest thing I DIDN'T buy this morning:

A selection of retro frames!

By then the day was really starting to heat up and I was starting to run out of steam, but I pressed onwards to check out one more sale on James North before taking the Waterfront Trail back to Westdale.

The view from Burlington and Bay this morning:

After making it back to my own neck of the woods, I stopped at one final sale where, miraculously, I didn't buy any books even though they had a ton of them.

That pretty much sums up this morning's adventures!

Grand total for the day: $4.30 for 4 items, or an average of $1.08 an item.

Did you find anything great this weekend?