Welcome to garage sales Unhinged.
Where the characters are as quirky as the vines.
I'm Julie. And I'm Jake.
Join us as we dive into the wild world of garage sales, yard
sales, estate sales, and anywhere second hand sales are
happening from. Bizarre bargains to hilarious
haggles. You won't believe the stories
we've got lined up. Let's get unhinged.
So Julie, what's the have you ever been?
Yes to you no. You've been.
I've been.
What was it like? So have you ever been to like a
party that had clearly kind of gone on too long?
Every damn time. So here's the thing, Jacob.
What people don't realize about me is that I'm naturally an
introvert. I would much rather be at home
with my book and myself and not talk to anyone.
And here's where I really screwed up.
I'm married, an extrovert, so he wants to go out 'cause he gets
energy from being around other people and putting up with their
bullshit. And I just don't want to.
So. And then I like because I am, I
network a lot for my business and I do that stuff.
I tell people I'm an extrovert whore.
I'm an extrovert for the money. So that's where like I have
extrovert tendencies, but I just do it because it makes money.
That's it I think. It'd be funnier if when you
explain that phrase, rather than saying that you're an extrovert
for the money, you go, I'm a whore for the money.
Just leave it at that. No, that that leads there's that
can be used for a lot of different things.
So whenever you ask like no, I think.
There's, there's an element of being an extrovert in that line
of business, I would think, you know.
Well, let's go back to your question of like, have I ever
been to a party where like it's just going on and on and on and
it needs to end? Yes, but I'm also big, big fan
of the Irish goodbye. And my, my husband is not, he
does not do that. He has to go around to everyone
at the party to say goodbye and to say like, Hey, let's catch
up. We're going to play golf, we're
going to do lunch. We're going to.
And I'm like, Oh my, just give me your keys.
I'll sit out in the car like I don't care anymore.
And he also has to give me a 20 minute warning whenever he's
like, hey, we're going to leave in 20 minutes.
And I'm like, cool, I will. And for that full 20 minutes,
he's going to say all of his goodbyes and I'm going to be
standing by the exit ready to go.
And we, we went to a friend's house one time and we, it was
like a multiple birthday party situation.
So all these people having birthdays, we were there hanging
out. I was ready to go done dunzo.
I'm like, I've had, I've peopled way too much.
I'm ready to go. And I was standing with all of
my stuff by the door, ready to walk out.
And one of our friends walked over to me.
And she goes, oh, my God, Julie, are you just leaving?
And I looked at her and I'm like, well, yeah.
And she goes without saying bye. I'm like, yeah, that's what it
looks like. That's what I'm doing.
And she got so mad at me. She's like, Julie, I'm your
friend. Why would you leave without
saying bye? And I was like, are we not going
to be friends anymore if I don't tell you bye today?
And she was just put her hands around and she goes, well, no.
And I was like, well, there you go.
And I walked out the door. So where was your question
going, Jake? There really isn't you have been
to how do you know OK, that's the first time that I've asked
the question and your basis for you know how you like your
position on something has a lot to do with what you don't like
about your husband, but I'd like for you to kind of.
Hold on, hold on. I love my husband and.
I didn't say you didn't love him, I said you don't like him.
No, I majority of the days I do like him.
Well, so you like, have you ever gone to a party where like
that's not a factor where you're in control of when you check
out, but it's just gone on too long?
And how do you know it's gone on too long?
How do you know when? Like man, this kind of wrapped
up 30 minutes ago. When the lights come on, I don't
know. I don't know, like part of me is
like if the energy in the room just changes and it's if I'm
like, hey, it was fun a little while ago.
Now it's just kind of like, cool, So what are you going to
have for brunch tomorrow? Like, no, I'm done.
I don't want to do chit chat. I don't want to do small talk.
Have you not been making small talk the entire damn time?
That's what parties are. No, whenever you're partying
with friends. Like, oh, right, There's there's
drugs. You're right, yes.
That's what you're saying. Kids don't do drugs unless they
are great. It's a.
Good way to avoid small talk. Yes, it is.
No, like if I'm hanging out with my friends, like, hey, we we're
getting caught up on life and but I'm not like, I'm not
talking about oh, what's on the brunch menu tomorrow or, oh, the
weather this, you know, yeah, that's bad.
Like, no, I don't don't want to talk about any of that stuff.
So like, I feel like the energy in the room shifted and it's
kind of like it collectively feels like the conversation just
goes welp, and then you just see yourself out.
Right. Yeah, when they're like there is
going to be perceptible whelp moment in a party that's gone on
too long. And it's it's kind of telling.
I think maybe, you know, shout out to all the introverts that
are willing to, you know, call it as they see it and go, oh,
the whelp occurred and it's time to punch out versus the
extroverts that are like, no, I need to keep this going.
Well it's also, you know, a clear indicator as to why I
can't ever have a Corp like an office job again, because if I
get there at 9 and by 920 I feel like it's well, I'm done for the
day. Oh yeah wait, I got to work a
full 8 hour day. Like Dang, that sucks.
Look, I didn't get those things done because I just felt like
the energy had left the room. So yeah, why would I?
I just wasn't vibing with this spreadsheet so.
Yeah, why? I asked because I came across a
news item recently that made me kind of wonder, huh, how long is
too long for a garage sale to go on?
So I'll like ponder that question for a moment and I'll
tell you a little bit about the news item that led me here.
OK. So in Edmonton, in our, you
know, in our neighbors up north, there's a guy that's been having
a garage sale for 3 consecutive months.
OK, that's illegal, but cool. And that's part of the deal.
People have been complaining about it.
And it's the most adorable thing to read about these things that
happened in Canada because they're like, we're submitting A
complaint with an E at the end of it to the Queens Court, you
know, with an E at the end of it.
And it's, it's just really charming.
But wait, wait, wait. So my name is Jul i.e.
Does that make me charming? Not at all, no.
You don't say goodbye to your friends.
Of course not. Yeah, screw them.
No, I'm going home to go to bed and read my book.
Screw them with an E at the end of it, yes.
And will that? Wouldn't that then be screw
theme? No screw has an E at the end of
it. Oh.
Screwy this would this would have played out differently.
Sorry, finish your charming story about our Canadians
friends so. Been having a garage sale for
going on three months now and it's people are complaining.
Hey, look, this is an eyesore. This guy's just got stuff all
over the place. It's I mean, it's like like a a
trash yard, but it's been a sale.
He's got signs up. Things have some organization to
them. And I saw some pictures and
yeah, man, it's, it's rough looking for sure.
But he's complaining, you know, people have complained and he's
shot back. It's like, no, like I'm the sale
goes on, I'm going to fight this.
And you guys can either, you know, leave me alone until I'm
done with my sale and then all this stops.
Or well, the sale will continue in the months it takes for this
to get through. You know, our version of
Municipal Court, which I'm sure takes longer in Canada because
there's probably a like four week interval where they just
got to politely ask you to do things and then apologize for
asking you to do them and then they have to apologize for
denying them what they're asking.
And then they bring over, they bring over the apologizing
poutine to like try to yeah, I get it.
Yeah, Canadians. So nice.
So that's been going on for a bit.
I mean, I think the the case, you know, continues and this is
something this guy's vowing to fight.
But I wondered how long is too long for a garage sale to happen
now? I think you brought up on on the
show before that different places have different rules
around these things. Yes.
Some places you have to get a permit to have a garage sale.
Yes. And permitting involves rules
like OK, you cannot put like here's how you can and can't use
your signs promoting this thing, your sale can't go for beyond X
number of consecutive days, things like that.
Some places don't require permits, and I'm not sure
whether that means they have no rules around how long a sale can
last. I think for, I think at the the
most one of the most lenient areas in Texas anyways, the
Austin area, I don't think they have as strict A permitting rule
if they have any at all. So here's the thing, cities and
municipalities like it. It all depends on your location.
If you have to pull a permit, however, our state has laws
regarding garage sales, yard sales, second hand sells.
So even if your municipality doesn't require you to pull a
permit, you still have to abide by the state law of how often
you can do a sell. So in the state of Texas you can
do a sell once. What is it?
You can't do a sell more than three times in a 12 month cycle.
Right. Because after that third time
you are considered running a business and then the
Comptroller can come after you and find you fees, yadda yadda.
The man comes for you, the man cometh.
And that's where and again, I don't know what Canadian laws
are like. And like if they have that same
kind of stipulation of how often can you have a cell?
So for, you know, for people that especially in the state of
Texas, if your neighbor is doing a yard sale every single
weekend, you can call the comptroller's office.
You can e-mail the comptroller's office and let them know that
this is going on. What are they?
To do that, if everyone knows 1800 Comptroller Comptroller at
texas.com. That's probably what it is.
Contact your Comptroller. Is that a robot?
Yes, it's a robot. It's an elected official, you
loser. Pay attention to voting rights
so you can contact your Comptroller and alert them to
it. Now, again, if you were let, I
mean, I was just talking about this in our last episode.
If you're doing a garage sale over a weekend and you started
on a Friday and end on a Sunday, that's considered one sale.
That is not three sales. But if you're doing 1:00 every
single weekend, that is considered a sell every weekend.
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make your next sell a success. I guess I can't understand how
they figure that. Like if I had it Friday and in
Sunday, why isn't that considered 3 sales?
It's like like. Because there's actually.
You know the sale has ended and the new one has started.
Because it it, it actually has it in the law of like a sale
last for it can last for 36 hours or 70.
I don't know what them hours are, but yeah.
And that's why like estate sale companies are actual companies.
They're registered companies because they are doing sales all
the time. And it's not just while they may
have a sale at one property for one weekend, the company itself
is doing multiple sales, which is why they have to be set up as
a company. So but to your question of like
if I am just homeowner Julie and I'm doing a sale, when do I
know, OK, Julie, enough is enough.
No one is going to buy this broken Wicker basket and you
know it. So I think back to that yard
sale, a successful yard sale I had many, many moons ago and
mine was on. It was AI think I just did it on
a Saturday like by the second day, like if things aren't gone
and also because we live in the Bible belt, I can't do it Sunday
mornings because people are at church.
I'm not going to get as much foot traffic and also I need at
least one day out of a weekend to recover.
So I think my cell is just on a Saturday and I also published
the hours that my cell was going to be from.
So I think I was doing from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM or 4 PMI don't
know. But as it started getting closer
to that end time, like one, a lot of the big things that I
knew we're going to go had already gone.
Like by 10:00 AM they were all gone.
So now it was Slim Pickens rummaging through things and,
you know, trying to find stuff. So with that last hour, and also
it's a lot of work. It's exhausting.
It takes a lot of energy to to do these bills.
So within the last hour, maybe 2 hours, if somebody came up and I
priced something for $5 and they go, hey, would you take $2.00
for it? Yes, I would exactly like just
take it. I don't want to take it back
into my house. I had a lady come by and I had a
lot of women's clothing left and she was doing, she has a resale
shop and she wanted to buy all my clothes for $20.
And I said, let me help you get this into the back of your car.
I was not bringing it back into my house.
Like whatever she wanted she could take.
And so, you know, when, when do you notice stop a garage sale or
a yard sale? It's like, OK, is the is your
energy draining? Cool, for sure.
Yeah. The other thing is not not
working for you anymore when it's really, yeah, when you're
not vibing as you put it, yeah. Well, and also like whenever the
foot traffic dies down, like listen, I'm not doing a club in
my front yard at 8:00 PM trying to sell this last plastic fork.
I'm like, no, I'm just no, I'm done.
Like cutting it? Off when people start to haggle
over the loose Lego pieces, you know, it's like, you know what,
man? Well it it also helped and I
highly recommend this for anyone that's going to do their own
sell. It helped that I had a box by
the front curb that said everything in the box is free.
So if I had a loose Lego piece, I'd throw it in the box.
Like literally I would do that. Like if I had a pair of socks
and I had no other socks to sell, I would throw the socks in
the box like that. Socks in the box.
There you go. Yeah, I know you're going to see
it on us. I know I'm almost I'm I'm about
to be a rapper. This is awesome.
But what happened was is that people felt like they need it to
reciprocate. So if they got something for
free out-of-the-box, they would always walk into the yard and
buy something. Oh, OK.
And part of me was like, I didn't care, I just did not want
to take anything back inside. The other thing is, is that
whatever didn't sell, I was going to take to Goodwill.
And so the less stuff I had to pack up and put in my car to
take the Goodwill better for me. So yeah, by the end of the
wholesale I probably had a shoe box worth of stuff that I took
to Goodwill. Then either it was in the free
box and nobody wanted it, or was something that I couldn't sell
and just got rid of it. I feel like it'd be great if
more businesses, like actual retail places operated under the
same principle that, you know, by like, man, we're so close to
closing. Fine.
Like, what do you want to pay for it?
I guess hurry up. I'm almost done with my shift.
The flat screen's fine, $12.00. Well, so here's here's the
thing. And I'm going to encourage
people to shop local, shop mom and pop stores because they will
do that. So, but I didn't tell you.
So my husband and I were in East Texas this weekend.
We were with family and we were about to leave our oldest
brother's house to come back to the DFW area.
And I go outside to my car and all these guys are around my car
and I'm gone. What are they doing?
I had a flat tire. There was a screw in my tire and
it was completely flat. I'm going, oh man, we were, we
were about to drive the two hours back to our house and we
were able to find a tire shop open.
It's a locally run tire shop that they were open till 7:00 PM
and we were able to air up the tire enough for me to drive over
there, talked to the guys there. I walked in.
I was like, I got a screw in my tire.
Can you patch it up? The guy was like, I have two
other cars that we're working on.
We're not going to be able to get it today.
We can do it tomorrow. And I'm like, I don't live here.
I'm trying to get back to Dallas.
And he's like, pull it into Bay One.
I'll get one of my guys to plug it.
So they were able to remove the screw.
They plugged it and I took it today to the tire shop and
they're like, well, the plug will hold for the life of the
tires and I'm like, OK, that's awesome.
They didn't charge me for it. We tipped the guy money for
doing it, took them all of 20 seconds to do it, but at least
got us back to Dallas and we didn't break down on the side of
the Interstate. That all being said, whenever
you shop at a local store they will haggle.
Whenever you shop at Home Depot or Lowe's they will haggle.
So the there's some stores that they can haggle that are
national chains. And then again, the mom and pop
stores, they will also haggle. I will say whenever I go to a
shop at a mom and pop store, I don't really want to haggle
because those are my neighbors. Those are my local people.
And I'm like, you know, I'm willing to pay a little bit
extra because they're in my neighborhood and they're running
a business. But if it really comes down to
like, hey, I can't afford this or this is all I have, would you
take this amount? They're likely to to make a deal
with you. Yeah, it doesn't work all the
way up the chain. You can't go like, I'll consider
this Amazon Prime subscription. Can you throw in some maybe
actual journalism in the Washington Post?
Yeah, no, that's not going to happen.
Like I couldn't imagine going to like William Sonoma and be like,
listen, I know you want $80.00 for this thing.
Would you take 65? Like they're not going to do
that. Yeah, they will.
Just like they'll have, you know, Jerome throw you out.
Yes, yeah. You're clearly not meant to be
shopping here. They'll they'll mark me with the
C for the cheap ass like don't let this cheap ass come back in
here. They.
Do brand you with like a a mahogany handled C brand you
know and. Oh, that sounds lovely.
And that's a good thing. So yeah, no.
Like, things can go on too long. I think those laws exist for a
reason. I think it's like, yeah, I think
it's one of those areas where, yeah, that element of
bureaucracy does seem warranted because people will essentially,
like, drag all their crap into the yard and leave it there for
whatever reason and call it a garage sale.
Like it it, it's there for a purpose, but it's like, no,
you're just hoarding outside. Well, and it's also one of those
things of for people that maybe they're a collector of things or
like, hey, I have a lot of stuff someone's going to come buy one
of these weekends and they're going to buy it like that.
That's a whole other mentality versus the people that I'm going
to have a garage sale, a yard sale this weekend.
I'm going to clear out the house, I'm going to get rid of
stuff. I'm going to make some money so
I can pay some bills. And they're not looking at it as
a long term livelihood thing. They're looking at it as a boost
of get stuff out of my house versus, hey, I'm going to make a
chunk of change to help pay a bill And they're going to do it
at one event. Versus like trying to do an
online resale thing where you know, I can post something to
Facebook Marketplace and it can live in my garage for weeks on
end before someone says, hey, I'm going to make you an offer
on it. But you know, there's, there's
some different mentalities there.
I'm a big fan of, I mean, we have a whole podcast around it,
but I'm a big fan of garage sales and yard sales because
that's where I'm going to get as a buyer.
I'm going to get the best deals for me.
And 2. When it man, when the weather's
nice outside, I will go get me a cup of coffee and drive around
neighborhoods and yeah, I'll go see what you got.
And, and I like carrying the small bills and cash on me so
whenever I can haggle them down, I'm not whipping out a wad of
hundreds and be like, OK, you said you'd take a dollar and let
me like pull out the stack of money.
So trying to count their millions.
I'm kind of smiling right now because I'm trying to think of
the experience for the person that's running their yard sale.
And I'm not going to say what it is, but you drive a very nice
car and they see you pull up and walk out and go.
I've only got $10 and I I'm here to buy a used toothbrush.
I'm there's a lot of dissonance there.
And I'm sure it's really hard for people to put those two
things together. Like she haggled down the you
know, the macrame are to like $2.25 from $3 and took it back
into her luxury vehicle. Or you can look at it from the
standpoint of what a lot of businesses do and go, oh, if
that type of person is going to that type of sale, they must
have some really good stuff 'cause it looks like.
Marking up as an influencer, like look, oh, I'm out shopping
here. So, you know, it is one of those
things like especially when I go to estate sales and estate sales
tend to have, they hire security, they have staff there
and they see me, they see me park and they see me walk in.
They'll still haggle. But estate sales are a little
bit different because if they know the value of something,
they won't haggle on it. They will just hold on to it and
take it to the next sale at a different house and sell it
there. So it's knowing how much
different groups will haggle for things.
Again, for a lot of people are doing garage sales and yard
sales for the vast majority of them, no one wants to take stuff
back into the house. And also I think I'm pretty, I'm
pretty reasonable whenever it comes to haggling.
So like for example, that Piggy Bank, I, it had $2.00 on it and
I want to ask them if they take a dollar.
OK, I didn't say like, hey, would you take $0.10 for it?
Also, I didn't have $0.10 so that would.
Be great if you said would you take a dime for it?
Yeah. Oh, can.
You break this $10.00 bill. What if I cut a little piece off
this dollar? That's how it works, right?
Yeah. So like I, I think there's a,
yeah, part of me I have thought about that.
I'm going, should I just get a third vehicle for our household
that is just a beater vehicle and that's what I used?
Brand on the weekend, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
That's the car buying strategy, you know, like you drive up in a
really ratty car and they're like, no, I'm not like I'm not
trading this in. This is what I got going on.
And so like, like you give me your best, you know, offer.
And because this is this is who you're talking to here.
You're you're talking to the old Mitsubishi.
Well, I will say the past couple cars I bought and I, I don't
borrow money. I pay cash for things.
So yes, that means I'm spending several years saving up for a
next purchase of a vehicle. But past couple cars I bought, I
had Uber deliver me to the dealership like they couldn't
even look at the car that I was driving and it worked out fine.
And also a dealership pays to see me coming because they don't
make any money off of me. I don't finance anything, so
like all they want to do is just get me off the lot, but they're.
But they also see them like buy out of here.
Well, they're also seeing of like, oh, we get to sell a car.
Oh, she's not going to finance, just sell it, get it like hurry
up and do the paperwork. It's fine.
Get out with the next one. I've thought about buying AI
thought about buying a third vehicle, not just for going
garage selling, yard selling, but because I love to hunt and
fish and and camp and do all that stuff.
But then like the thought of like, man, that's extra car
insurance, that's extra maintenance and I just, that's a
lot of hassle and I don't want to unless, unless I can get one
of those small Japanese trucks like they're not even legal on
our roads here. I would totally buy one of those
because. Oh yeah, I've seen those.
I've one of those. There's a lot of cars that would
be great if they could be sold in this country, but Yep.
Yeah, I'd love to have one of those.
So now I'm wondering if if stores did have that policy like
you know what, we're closing in 10 minutes, make an offer, what
would be like, what would you want?
What store would you want to have that policy while you're
thinking about it? I've got one that I can share if
that's OK. Yeah, go for it.
When I was growing up, I was very much into going to the
arcade. I mean, you, you show me an
arcade machine and like, I'm in, like, we have to go to the
grocery store with mom. Back when grocery stores had
arcade machines. Oh, yeah.
Can I? You do the look, I'm here to
support you. I've been good like I'm just
going to go over here. This thing is going to take care
of me while you are getting food for the family.
So I need probably 8 quarters because I'm not good at these
things and I'm going to. So I was way into the like
playing video games. So my hope was always if I can
be at the arcade around closing time, they're going to go like,
you know what, last 10 minutes. All right, boys, you know, turn
off the quarter slots. It's all just free play and you
just go, you know, they like they don't want to deal with, I
didn't understand how it worked at the time.
But if they just like, you know what, we're going to take money
out of this and it's going to be easier for us to get out of here
if you guys just get all the video games out of your system.
So they just like, you know, you guys have at it, you know, it
never happened. I want to answer your question,
but before I do that, I want to tell our listeners a story that
whenever So you're 15 months older than me and our oldest
brother's four years older than me, and whenever we would get in
trouble at the grocery store, do you remember how mom would
reprimand us? No, no.
She would make us hold hands and it was so embarrassing because
Oh my God, they're going to see me from school holding my
brother's hand. And if we complained about
holding each other's hand, she said that we could kiss and make
up. We would have to kiss each other
on the cheek and say that we're sorry and then we could stop
holding hands. So if people think that we are
deranged, you can blame our mother for that psychological
trauma. Fantastic.
No, I, I, I think I successfully buried that, so I don't remember
that. Well.
I'm sure it'll never come up in therapy.
It's. Fine, yeah, it comes up with my
therapist all the time. So you know, if if I could pick
one thing of like, man, if they would give you like, hey, we're
closing in 10 minutes freebies, right airline.
If I could go to the airport and like the last flight of the
night going, Hey, we got open seats.
If you want to go somewhere, hop on.
Woah, yeah, everybody pile in right going to Cancun.
Yeah, yeah, like that would like, yeah, it's going to be a
red eye flight, but I'm going to wake up tomorrow and a place
that I've been wanting to go to and I didn't pay anything to get
there, like. That that would be great.
Look, airports closing, We're going to turn off all the towers
and everything like that. All the radars are going to stop
spinning. You want to go anywhere, you got
to get on this plane, right? Here, Yeah, yeah.
Everybody kind of, you know, scrunch in, squeeze in.
Yeah, Yeah, that would be nice. Like because I spend a lot of
money, business money, other like I travel a lot for work and
client money and I'm like, man, if I could just not spend so
much of my own money, that'd be great.
And if I could catch a red eye somewhere, I would totally do
it. And if I could wake up somewhere
magical, I would do it. And then also if I could get
home for free I would do it. Oh, for sure.
Yeah. It's something to think about.
So three months is too long for a garage sale?
Yes. And small talk is too long for a
social gathering. But if you have thoughts about
what businesses you'd like to have, you know, a kind of
closing time fire sale, go on, let us know about it on the
places on the garage sale at Hotmail dot biz and we'll be
checking it. No, if you would like to e-mail
us, you can e-mail us at garagesalesunhinged@gmail.com.
I swear Jacob just makes me say extra words.
There's a lot of domains that really never took off.
I feel like dot Biz didn't really get a good good shot at
stuff, but one can hope. Yeah, there's still hope yet.
All righty. Thanks, that's what I got going.
Good one, appreciate it. Have a good day, bye bye.