The Yard Sale - Credit Crunch Recycling With A Difference
De-clutter, have fun and meet your neighbours
With lots of bank holidays and warm spring weather, two West London women have come up with a fun way to save money and the planet while we’re all feeling the pinch.
Nicola Easton and Clare Gittins have no illusions that their new venture, londonyardsale will make you millionaires but here is a way to make some money and have some fun while making a donation to the Japan Society for their Tohoku Earthquake Relief Fund.
Nicola told us: “During a spring-cleaning purge last year, we both collected a large amount of stuff we no longer needed which was too good to throw away. Car boot sales and e-bay didn’t appeal. There were too many bags to cart to the charity shop.
“We eyed the heaps of perfectly good toys, books, junky jewellery, clothes, gadgets and bric a brac and knew we had to get rid of it quickly, but how?
“Then I remembered staying with friends in the USA during a weekend when they had organised a successful yard sale. A yard sale is just like a car boot sale but it is in your own front garden so it is an unbelievably convenient and fun way to get rid of unwanted clutter.
Clare, former editor of ActonW3.com says 'I thought, “why not? What have we got to lose?”
“We both worked hard printing flyers, sticking them to lamposts and telling all our friends about our plan. We collected plastic bags, checked the weather was set fair for our chosen weekend and priced our possessions.
“On the day we arranged a couple of tables in the small front garden at my house and reminded friends and neighbours to drop by. We wondered why there was nothing on the internet where we could read about yard sales and advertise our own - just like I had seen in the States.”
Nicola and Clare’s yard sale was a huge success. They got rid of heaps of unwanted stuff - even electrical gadgets. They told us there were surprised by how much fun it was: “It genuinely gave us pleasure to see our possessions being carried off by happy customers who were, in turn, thrilled to have bagged a bargain. We made a nice amount of money, gave some of it to charity and had an extremely enjoyable afternoon with friends, neighbours and passers-by.
“Afterwards, we decided we simply had to set up a website to encourage others to do the same and to make it easy for them. The idea for londonyardsale.co.uk took root.”
Yes, yard sales are an American invention – but where would we be without escalators and e-mail, bubblegum, bar codes and blue jeans?
Yard sales, table top sales or garage sales will change the way we all think about recycling, de-cluttering, and getting rid of those unwanted possessions which we know are worth something to someone.
To learn all you have ever needed to know about yard sales and garage sales, visit londonyardsale.co.uk
And if you organise your own yard sale before the end of May, londonyardsale.co.uk will advertise it for you free (normal charge is £5 for each listing). Clare and Nicola will also make a donation for every yard sale listed to the Japan Society for their Tohoku Earthquake Relief Fund.
24 April 2011