Mapping Out Your Garage and Estate Sales: Two Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Treasure Hunting

Are you still using newspapers and other printed materials to treasure hunt in your area?

Well, here are a few resources to make your treasure hunting a bit easier:

1. Start out with the right tools. Online tools, that is. 

• ESTATESALES.ORG

Have you heard of www.estatesales.org ? This site is great for just about everything relating to estate sales.  

See up there in the right hand corner? Once you register with the site, you can plug in what areas you'd like to search and also what type of items you are looking for. 

For instance, if you would like to search within a 100 mile radius and only search for "antique china", this site allows you to save that as a setting in your account. 

With estatesales.org you can also control how often you are notified of sales in your area. I set mine up to notify me only once a week and the notifications always pop into my inbox on Thursday evening just in time for the weekend's sales! 

• GSALR.COM

Another site that I absolutely love is www.gsalr.com www.gsalr.com

This site is similar to estatesales.org. On both sites, you have the option to list sales (if you are having a sale), search or sign up for an account to receive notifications based on your specifications.  As you can see, if you have an iPhone, you can even download the app for easy access to the site and your account.

• CRAIGSLIST

Of course, if you're an old pro, there's always Craigslist. We love CL, don't we? Of course we do!

While there are many of us who know how to use CL there are a few things that I have found a lot of people don't know about CL. For instance, did you know that if you set up an account (yes, they give you that option) you don't have to worry with having to find that message that you received when you posted your item in order to delete your account? Why? Well, if you set up an account, all of your listings are stored in one secure little place.

When your item sells, you just log in, delete your posting and you're all done. It's that easy!

Also, when searching for items to purchase or for garage sales, you can choose whether to display images or not.

Have you ever noticed that when searching CL? There in the upper left corner above the results listing you have the option to "hide images" or "show images". Of course, if you are already hiding your images it will give you the option to "show images" and vice versa.

This list is definitely not exhaustive but these are a few of the online resources I use to save time and to make the hunt a little less confusing.

2. Get to know your area and keep an open mind. 

No one wants to spend a fortune at a rummage sale, right? That's why we rummage! Everyone wants to get the most bang for their buck.

When preparing to head out to your next garage sale, don't overlook neighborhoods that most would. Am I saying to be unwise and unsafe? No. What I am saying is keep an open mind when mapping out your shopping destinations. Some of the my best finds have come from places I would normally not even consider shopping.

So, that's all for now! I'd love to hear any tips or tricks you may have! 

Hope you all are having a great week! Mine's a whole 'lot better! 

Hugs,