Photo courtesy of Thomas Hawk

After many months of talking about it, planning a weekend for it, and gathering stuff for it, we had a garage sale today. The kids were very excited. To be honest, I was worried that the kids had their expectations set too high. Elizabeth had purged her room from Barbie dolls and books. She is growing up and has a passion for her Nintendo DS (which we bought two weeks ago at a garage sale). She had boxes and boxes of stuffed animals, books, and dolls. Benjamin had a blankets worth of toys that he had grown out of.

It was a lot of work with the signs, the stickers, placing an ad on Craiglist, getting change from the bank, and checking tips on hosting a garage sale. Ideally we should have snowballed any money earned. We never talked about that. Both Jen and I knew that we were most interested in purging stuff and pricing it to SELL. Any money earned would be used towards a three day camping trip planned for the following….three days.

We awoke at 5:30 and started setting up at 6:00 a.m. We had a ton of stuff. We had a morning rush of buyers with a short break followed by another rush followed by a short break. This pattern went on until 10:00 a.m. We placed a 1/2 price sign out and kept busy until noon. We closed up shop by 1:00 p.m. Jennifer and I earned $120.00. Elizabeth earned $61.00 and gave me $5.00…more on that in a bit. My son earned $24.00. Yes….we earned the money because it was work! I must have demonstrated a hand-held Oreck vacuum cleaner five times before the last person bought it.

So Elizabeth owed me $5.00 from the Nintendo DS that I bought her at another garage sale. She and I are early rising folk on Saturday mornings. I take her sailing a couple of times a month in the summer. Garage Sailing that is. We hit the road with a few dollars following signs around town. These are the moments that we get to chat about her life.

She had been saving for a Nintendo DS. We started a 401DAD plan where I agreed to match her funds if she saved 1/2 of the cost of a new unit. That was until we stumbled upon a used system. It was black and looked well cared for. I bought it for $40.00 which included 7 games. She was excited, but the 410DAD plan did not apply to used purchases.

Later that day we took the seven games that appealed to the prior owner, a young boy, to GameStop. Elizabeth was given $61.00 in store credit. She gave me $20.00 in store credit which I gave right back to her. She owed me $20.00 for the balance of the DS. She bought two games and was the happiest 10 year-old girl on the block. She still owed me $20.00. It bugged her. She did not like the feeling of being in debt. Wow!

She worked off her debt with me down to $5.00. This morning she earned $7.00 early at our garage sale. She kept $2.00 and gave me $5.00. The very best part about it was watching her reaction when she told me that she was debt free! My 10 year-old was debt free. The very worst part about it was soon after, we talked about debt and she asked me why her mother and I were not debt free. Ouch. I should have taken that teaching moment to talk about debt. I did not. I did not know what to say. She was right. She knows were are working on it. She knows that is our goal.

She went on to earn another $56.00. Her mother took her over to GameStop where she bought another DS game. She was maybe $2.00 short of the amount needed for a second game. She could have, but did not ask her mother for the balance to meet what she needed. She did not want to go back into debt. She kept the money.

I am beat. It’s 7:35 p.m. I worked in the sun all day. We had fun. When it was over, we pulled out the camping chairs and sat in the shade out front of the house. We talked. We shared disbelief over what we had been able to get rid of at rock bottom prices. We sold stuff and spent time together as a family and met some great local folk. I learned yet another lesson in debt….from my daughter. I hope it sticks with her. It will with me.

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