Friday, August 9, 2013

Thrifting 101: estate sales

Good morning everyone and welcome to my thrifting 101 series!  I am so excited to post the estate sale section because this is my favorite type of thrifting!  


1.     Be patient.  You have to understand that not all estate sales are good.  I have been to just as many bad estate sales as I have good.  

2.     The later in the week , the bigger the savings!  The owners or estate company will mark things 1/2 off usually on Sundays and sometimes Saturdays.  They don't want to end the sale with a house still full of things they wanted to get rid of!
3.     That brings me to the next rule- try to bargain!  Most people will take a lower price than marked- especially when there is tons of stuff that needs to go!

4.     Look everywhere!  If it is a true estate sale, every thing in the building should be in sale.  I found awesome vintage necklaces hidden in a shoe box.  If you see cedar chests, pop those suckers open!  One time I found furs and vintage dresses from the 1940s in one.  No one else thought to open it before me. Win!

5.     Bundle.  That means put everything you want to buy in a big pile and carry it to the cashier.  Making it look messy and heavy helps.  Why would you do this?  Because the cashier doesn't want to count and look through everything in your arms.  They will almost always just give you a total price for everything you grabbed.  I paid nine dollars for tons of clothes when the half off price was still thirty!

5 comments:

  1. I love this! But one question of mine still remains. How do you find out about estate sales?

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  2. I started out free styling, and eventually ended up on all of their emailing lists because I frequent them so much!!!

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  3. Ah I see! So looking online would be the place to start?

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  4. I definitely agree with all of your points. If you have 3 sales you go to, there's the sale that has way too much hype for nothing, then there's the sale that has nice stuff but the prices are jacked up and there's no point in trying to haggle because you know the outcome. Then at the next sale, you find an amazing piece with a comfortable price. But you may have to elbow your way past the guy that smells like bad cheese and the lady that smells like socks. Other than that, I love rummage and estate sales :)

    Ivy

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