Donating stuff vs. having a garage sale?

[ourbabygirl]

How do you decide which to do? It seems like soooo much work to have a garage sale, and the stuff that's left at the end most likely gets donated, right? What are the advantages of having a garage sale, when you could donate and get a tax write-off?
I tend to just donate grocery bags full of stuff various times throughout the year, rather than saving it all for summer and taking the time to do a garage sale (plus I can't really devote the time to sitting out there with the stuff because my 4 year old can't be entertained out there for 8 hours, 2-3 days in a row or whatever).

Unfortunately, in our area there are only a couple of places to donate- Goodwill and Savers, and I know that the Goodwill CEO keeps a big profit. Do you make more money with a garage sale than you do from donating and getting a tax receipt?

What am I missing? Please fill me in!

Thanks! :)

[sariana]

Our current HOA does not allow garage sales, so that isn't even an option for us. I've never had much luck with them when I've done them in the past (usually sponsored by someone else, such as a local Realtor). I end up with a lot of stuff left over that I end up donating anyway.

[TwinFoxes]

I donate almost everything kid-related, except for what I can sell at our mother of multiples consignment sale.

Some things aren't worth me tagging, entering into our consignment managing software, and finding hangars for. A shirt from Target worth a couple of bucks it's just easier to donate. An LL Bean coat I'll sell. But honestly, if it weren't for our MoM club, I'd just donate it all.

I have sold a few of my own nice items from Boden etc. on Poshmark.

[squimp]

If you live in an area with a lot of traffic and advertise well you could have a successful garage sale, but I have never done it where we have lived. For big items, I think selling them individually on Craigslist or Facebook is best for getting the most money. For clothes, I donate a lot but for nicer stuff I sell consignment. Do you have any neighbors you could work with to share the effort? Or any big sales that happen in your area where you could bring your clothes there? We have a big sale in the spring where people can have a booth for the day.

[pharmjenn]

Garage sales are a lot of effort. I had a large one before we moved 5 years ago, but since then, it is easier to either donate or sell on Facebook sale groups. I like to donate in small batches a few times per year, as we are still able to itemize on our taxes (for state only now, I think) and this way I have multiple receipts.
We do have companies that mail out flyers saying when they will be driving through the neighborhood, and that makes it pretty easy to bag/box things and put them by the garage for pickup and they leave receipts for us.

[specialp]

I sell on FB or mom-to-mom consignment. Everything else is donated. We have a donation truck in our neighborhood several times a year and while I like the charity, it wouldn't matter to me if I didn't. I loathe garage sales, the effort, the hours, haggling, etc. Our neighborhood only allows a community-wide one once a year, a lot of people participate so it generates a lot of traffic, it is well advertised with a map of participating houses, and someone organizes a donation truck for Monday, etc. So even if you do not live in an area with a lot of traffic (we do not), getting more houses involved will help if you could do that.

[gymnbomb]

I sell things worth selling on Facebook marketplace (or DH will list on Craigslist). I sometimes sell kid stuff at the big twice a year consignment sale, but every time I do it I question if it is worth it. I still donate a good bit of stuff, but because we no longer itemize under the new tax laws it is no longer a deduction.


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[Globetrotter]

If I had to do a yard sale, I think I’d rather join someone else’s. Seems like too much work!

[georgiegirl]

I sell bigger ticket items on FB swap pages. Everything else I donate.


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[SnuggleBuggles]

I donate. Mostly I have the Veterans come and pick stuff up.
I’ve occasionally sold things on Facebook and that’s gone well.


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[jgenie]

I donate although my kids are constantly begging me to have a yard sale. I don’t think we would make enough to be worth our time and DH hates the idea [emoji362] of having a yard sale.


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[KrisM]

We don't itemize, but I still donate most things. I try to give clothes to neighbors and friends if I can. I have done garage sales in the past, but they are just a lot of work.

[essnce629]

We've done both, although I usually just donate stuff throughout the year, especially since I've been going through the Marie Kondo process since January. Our neighborhood has an annual garage sale that is organized by a local realtor and she does all the advertising and signs. She prints out a map of the neighborhood that lists every house that is participating and each house gives them out. We usually have at least 12+ houses participating and we're 1 block from a major street so we get lots of foot traffic and it's easier than organizing it all by myself. It's still a lot of work to make sure everything is clean, organized, and has prices. My mom comes up from San Diego to help me organize and price everything. We also sell fresh popped popcorn and water during it and the kids love to participate and sell their stuff. The kids get to keep the money that they make selling their own stuff. We've made anywhere from $500 to almost $900 in the past! I don't ever sell clothes, those are donated.

[mmsmom]

I had a yard sale 20 years ago and made over $2000. It was before internet sales options. We sold a lot of big furniture though. It was so crazy... people arrived at 6am. It was pouring rain so I put put old pillow cases for people to wipe feet and someone wanted to buy those pillow cases. So that time it was worth it. I have since mostly donated. My mom’s neighborhood does a yard sale once a year and she doesn’t price anything... just does a make an offer kind of thing and she sells most everything and it saves her the time of pricing.

Also... new tax laws make write offs from donating more difficult so unless you itemize you will not get benefit from donating.

[khm]

Infant stuff seems to be the best for garage sales. I did one with my sister back in the day. We made several hundred dollars each (I can't remember exactly, $700? Less than $1000 for sure).

It was a TON of work and I wouldn't do it again without infant gear. I would never bother for "older kid" stuff. Just seems that as they are past babyhood, their gear is just worth less and less.

I'm all about the, "hey Kid1, bag up your stuff and see if NeighborKid wants it". We have a network of people who seem happy for the handmedown clothes / sports gear and I'd much rather do that than bother with a garage sale these days. YMMV, but I just don't have the mental fortitude for dealing with the garage-sale-ing public these days.

[AnnieW625]

We just donate, usually to St. Vincent de Paul as I find it so much easier than planning a garage sale.


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[DualvansMommy]

My neighborhood had few garage sales; usually when the owners need to move and clear out decades of stuff. Since I don’t have the habit or mentality in keeping stuff past their use for many years, garage sales isn’t useful nor practical for me.

I do throughout spring clean 2-3x a year from every room whether it’s clothes, toys, books, sporting stuff and misc. I just donate to St. Paul or Vincent or one of our local charities.


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[mikala]

I do a garage sale with a few friends every few years and every time I swear it wasn't worth the effort vs donating the majority and then selling items worth more than $20 on local resale sites. I primarily donate to local non profits vs Goodwill or pass kids stuff on to friends for free. The local animal shelter takes linens, book charity takes kids books, etc. The local food pantry periodically puts out a call for kids clothing in specific sizes for homeless or newly foster children.

[Kestrel]

We just did a garage sale this last weekend and made $1800, well worth our time. We are in the process of moving, so it made sense. (Our new house won't be able to do garage sales.) We don't price things, just play the "make offer" game, or when someone asks, make up a price on the spot. We donate the vast majority of DS's clothes to his school - they have a room with lots of stuff they keep for things like potty accidents, fell in the mud at recess, ect. (They also give some clothes to students who need them.) We only garage sale the kids' big ticket items, like outgrown winter coats and boots. When DS was younger, we sold pretty much all of his baby gear like stroller, baby swing, crib, carseats, ect and generally got about 30% of the original price.

I'm amazed at what people will pay for stuff like leftover 1/2 can of paint, even open cleaners and shampoo no one liked. A tub of broken crayons, a box of mixed markers, outgrown puzzles... all did well.

If we're going to donate it anyway, we pull it out and see if anyone's interested. Then, after the sale's over, we bag it up right off the tables/shelves and put in the car for donation Monday. (Don't put back in the house! Then you run into the "I'll do it later" monster! :)
Also, we only do fri & sat 9am-1pm. I'm not spending an eight hour day at it, though plenty of people do - I just don't have the patience.

[citymama]

Depending on the item, we donate, consign or list on our local Buy Nothing page (like freecycle). I don't think I've ever had a garage sale (I once had a moving sale about 20 years ago!).

[Twoboos]

Our church has a huge rummage sale each June so I've been donating a ton there in the past couple of weeks. We also have a very active "Buy Nothing" fb page so have passed on a lot of stuff there - it's amazing what people want LOL.

For bigger ticket items I might sell (like i just got rid of LLBean rolling duffles but sold those) but have mostly moved on to donating.

[legaleagle]

I've never had a garage sale. There's no point in itemizing anymore (and I wasn't great at doing it anyway) so I post as much as possible to Buy Nothing and FB yard sale groups (for free) except for a few types of items that are particularly valuable to a charity that I know I can easily get them to (e.g. linens to animal shelter, books to the library book sale, etc). I do have some needy friend of friends that I give my DS3 & DD's outgrown clothes to - I just text them and they pick them up. My priority is out of my house ASAP and bonus is a lot of the things people want from those groups charities wouldn't take anyway, or would be a huge hassle.

[marymoo86]

I separate in to FB group sell pile (has a likely chance of selling quickly) and donate to Salvation Army/other pile.

I'll sell anything that has minimum effort and likely to go quickly and then pile up anything else to go to SA or other ministry donations.

I don't have the time or energy to deal with garage sales. They also seem less commonplace now that a lot of folks utilize FB groups.

[candaceb]

Nicer clothes, equipment, etc. I post in Facebook groups at very reasonable prices with porch pickup. If I couldn't do porch pickup (gated community, city, etc.) I wouldn't do it. As it stands, I call it my "magic doormat". I leave stuff I don't want on our porch and money appears under the doormat. I post clothes in lots -- like 5 shirts and 5 shorts for $20. Things like an LLBean rain coat, I'll post for $10 individually. I like to do things in $5 increments because it makes life simple. If it's worth less than $5 and can't be easily combined in a lot, I donate or for clothes I have friends who will take hand-me-downs.
I don't want to store stuff long enough to have a garage sale. And I don't want to deal with people. Porch pickup is basically anonymous.

[div_0305]

I've not done a garage sale since becoming an adult. We did them as kids before moving some place. Besides the amount of work, I've heard there's so much theft at garage sales. DS thought it would be fun to have a garage sale, and I considered it for his sake, but we never did it. He's very busy with sports, and I have only the weekend to get ready for the next week. I would post some nice things on FB or CL for sale, but I don't have that time either, and rate of dealing with flakes on these platforms is too high. Donating is so much easier. I don't think about the tax benefit. I just want the stuff gone for the least amount of trouble and time taken out of my day to do it.

[belovedgandp]

I'm not patient enough to store up enough stuff to make a garage sale worth while.

Larger/furniture items I've had good luck on Facebook and CL.

I do a have a system to store kid stuff and do a local consignment sale every 18 months - to hit the different seasons. I do well there, but toys, decor, gadgets, sports stuff is great. My clothes now sell since I only bother with the nicer items and have bigger sizes where the volume goes down. There was so much volume that it wasn't worth it for under 4T basically.

I tend to donate. A big trend around here now is to do the Savers fundraising drives. I always have a laundry basket in my closet to collect donation items. I now drop off the household "hard" items. The drives only want bags of soft items. I hold onto the bags of soft goods until the band/youth group/whatever we know is doing the fundraiser.

There are lots of potential donation locations. With our recent move I've donated a ton to ReStore (Habitat for Humanity). Catholic Charities here has a good retail store to donate to also.