by Jane Dwinell

The great Liberty Street Yard Sale is now over for 2010. This fabulous Montpelier institution provides bargains and a chance to meet and greet your neighbors. Nearly every house has goods for sale, and the street becomes a serious traffic jam about 10 o'clock. It seems like everyone has too much stuff they don't need (yet could really use some of those items their neighbors don't want: the trash-to-treasure paradox of the yard sale!).

We had just a few things out, and only one item of any financial consequence, yet we came away with $265 for four hours of work (if you can call hanging out talking to people "work"). It's a great way to spend a Saturday morning (perhaps you could organize one in your street or neighborhood).

Having moved in the past year and helped a few friends move recently, I know what it's like to deal with stuff. Do we keep it or sell it? Throw it out, repair it, or recycle it? Donate it to charity or put it on our lawn with a "free" sign? There are lots of possibilities. The one thing we don't want to do with our stuff, though, is move it if we don't really need or want it. Even if you're not planning on moving anytime soon, you may want to look around and see what you can get rid of.

Books, clothes, tools, sports equipment, and kitchen stuff can easily get out of hand. Unless you're baking pies for the county fair, do you really need more than one or two pie plates? One friend had 15 baking pans, 10 pie plates, and five two-dozen muffin tins — and she rarely bakes. Unless you entertain frequently, you don't need more than two or three place settings (plate, bowl, cup, glass) for every person who lives in your household. Another friend — who lives with only one other person — had eight sets of dishes (with each set having eight to 12 place settings).

Books are precious to just about everyone who owns them, but do you need more than you could possibly read or refer to in your lifetime? I know many people who own hundreds and hundreds of books, many more than they could possibly ever read. And in many cases, those books are poorly organized, stacked willy-nilly all over the house, so it would be hard to even know where to start if you were looking for a particular title.

Then there are basements, attics, garages, and storage sheds. I see too many that are so cluttered with unused, broken, and rusting items that they are fire hazards. If someone is looking for something they actually want, it may be hard to find it behind the cans of dried-up paint, bikes with flat tires, skis with rusted edges, tennis racquets with broken strings, old magazines that should be recycled or given away, and plant pots full of dead plants. Never mind that if things are kept crowded in damp places like basements and sheds, they're just going to get moldy and ruined if they're not stored properly.

Then there is the food stored in one's pantry, refrigerator and freezer. Do you know exactly what you have? Or are there mysterious cans, boxes and jars with food that is going moldy, getting rancid, or is long past its use-by date? I've been in several homes where there is clearly enough food to feed a couple of people for at least six months, if not a year (especially if they don't mind basing their diets on strange condiments and cans of tuna fish). It's one thing to buy your dry goods (rice, beans, flour) in bulk and another to stock up on items like sugar and canned vegetables when they're on sale, only to discover when you move that you have 10 five-pound bags of hard-as-a-rock sugar (and some that the mice have gotten into) along with 30 cans of green beans and 25 cans of peas.

If you go through your stuff (room by room, long before you even think about moving) and sell what you don't need, don't love, and haven't used in at least a year, you may find yourself making some serious money. A thousand books that sell for a buck a piece adds up. Your extra six sets of dishes, depending on quality, could bring you several hundred dollars. Add in to that bigger-ticket items like sports equipment and power tools you never use, and you're talking a month's salary or more from your yard sale. Never mind the hundreds you'll save on food if you eat what you have before it goes bad.

You don't need to complain about the economy! You've probably got a treasure trove in your own home. Selling the stuff you don't need and want will make many people happy: you — because you'll have more room in your house, be able to find what you want at a moment's notice, and have some serious money in the bank — plus all those lucky people that will be happy to pick up something they needed at a great bargain.

It's not too late to plan your summer neighborhood yard sale, that ultimate community-based, low-carbon-footprint, barter-and-trade, reduce-reuse-recycle shopping experience! Make it an annual event — you'll be glad you did.

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About Common Sense
Common Sense is written by Jane Dwinell and Dana Dwinell-Yardley, a mother-daughter blog team. After homesteading in Vermont for over 25 years, Jane now splits her time between a small canal boat in France and a friendly neighborhood in New Orleans. Dana, inspired by her upbringing, resides in a container-garden-and-housemate-crazy Montpelier home. Send Jane and Dana your questions and comments about food, fuel, family, or financial independence! Write to mountaingirl at vtlink dot net. You can also check out some of their other writings at their website: Spirit of Life Publishing.