Yard Sale Season Begins

It's officially yard sale season! Memorial Day week marks it for me, since that's when the sale that I look forward to every year is held. There's a certain one I've been going to for 7 years now that I mark on my calendar as soon as the new year begins.

These past few weeks I have had so much stuff coming and going from my house! Not only bags of nice, heavily discounted yard sale items, but also bags of children's clothing that friends have been giving me to sort through! I have been extra blessed to be the recipient of such goods, as not only does it save us money, but I have been running out of clothing that fits my kids since they keep growing. I was hoping to hold out until yard sale season to have to go shopping for them (since that's when I can get good stuff cheap), and now that said season has arrived, my stock of clothing is growing again! I just need to buy more storage totes now. I have piles of clothing in several rooms that are waiting to be tucked away for future use. I'm sure my poor husband is as ready to have his studio back as I am my dining and living rooms. 

I pictured a few of my more exciting bargains in the photo above:

A 50c watering can. I have had one on my wish list for two years now! It sure makes watering my seedlings more convenient. I had been using a drinking glass, but by only being able to dump water over top of the plants I felt like I was harming them with the extra weight on their fragile leaves. Now I can water at the base of the plant with the nice, long spout. 

A nice salad dressing jar for 50c. This one has recipes along the side of the jar for 8 different salad dressings. Instead of measuring ingredients of bigger quantity, like oil or vinegar, it has fill lines. So you measure your spices/herbs, and add oil until you reach the fill line for that particular dressing. I'm excited about this one because we eat a lot of salads in the summertime and this way I won't have to resort to Pinterest every time I want to try making a new dressing. 

A new, unopened package of herbal tea bags for 50c. I like to have several varieties of tea around for company and cool evenings, and what's better than finding a brand new box for 50 cents!? 

An office organizer @ 50c. We've been working on reducing clutter around our place, and one area that seems to collect stuff is a dresser we have in our dining room. I dedicated the top drawer to office supplies, and purchased a drawer organizer awhile back to hold miscellaneous items like scissors, tape, sticky notes, and pens. Only I happened to use the pen compartment for Sharpies and dry erase markers, leaving our pencil and pen collection... still on top of the dresser. So I got this handy, dandy organizer to give those pens a place to call home, all tucked away out of sight.  

A 50c light timer. Not sure what its official name is, but I have been wanting one of these, too. Especially since we killed a couple pumpkin plants because we forgot to turn the heater off in our greenhouse during the day a couple weeks ago. All you do is plug the timer into your outlet and plug your appliance, lights, or whatever desired device into the side of the timer. It has a 24-hour clock on it that you can set when you want it to go on or off, and you can even set it to have several on/off cycles in a day! It was brand new too, so that's an extra bonus!

Several packs of stickers @ 25c each. Aaron and I are starting a choir with all the young kids in our church group, and we want to make it fun by having a reward chart where they can earn stickers by doing good deeds such as perfect attendance, bringing their book every week, helping set up/clean up at practice, etc., and bigger prizes will be awarded when we reach so many stickers on the chart. I was able to get 5 baggies full of sticker books and sheets that will be perfect for that. This was a huge savings, and probably about my best deal at this yard sale. 

A muslin swaddle blanket for $1. Now that it's summertime and the weather is warmer, I have been needing lightweight blankets so I don't have to resort to my flannel receiving blankets and baby quilt. I still swaddle Jewel at night, so this will be nice to keep her cool while feeling secure and safe. Plus it will double as a nursing cover!

A bundle of skirt/pant hangers for 50c. I seem to break several of them a year, and since I don't do a whole lot of retail shopping, I don't get a whole lot of purchases that come with hangers. These ones are made of harder plastic, so they aren't the super cheap ones that don't last! 

Winter clothing. Now that I have a girl to dress, I need to be thinking ahead and plan for her. This warm, fluffy coat was $3 and looks practically brand new. Three dollars might sound like a lot to spend on one piece of clothing, but I find people tend to mark their winter stuff up quite a bit when it comes to kids boots and coats. Probably because they cost so much new and they only get one seasons' use out of it per kid. This was an excellent deal for a coat, especially with as good of condition it was in. The boots were $2, which is also an amazing price considering what it is and the fact that they barely show signs of wear! They won't fit Jewel for another year and a half or two, but one must act when good deals are found. A lot of the baby/kids stuff was priced pretty high for yard sales (yes, $1 is high. And yes, I did purchase some anyway), but these two items were exceptions. 

So there's a peek into some of my yard sale finds! Have you come across any good deals this summer yet?