Moving: Donate or garage sale or both?

[Sneezykids]

We are moving and I'm overwhelmed with CLUTTER. I need to get our house ready to show. The last time we moved, my oldest was only 5 and ds was a baby. Not a whole lot of stuff, but I still donated a ton of things and didn't bother with a garage sale (we were rural besides).

Now the kids are older and I babysit a two year old four days a week. How in the world can I find time to organize a garage sale? Would donating it and the tax write off be better in the long run? I'm thinking...my sanity here. Though the cash would be nice too. Any thoughts??

[A&A]

Donate! It's just so much faster. Or if you need lots of help fast, you could call 1-800-GOT-JUNK.

[Crayfish]

Donate. Especially if it's just "the cash would be nice" as opposed to, "I have absolutely no idea how we're going to pay the electric bill this month".

Crayfish

[ChetMC]

What I Did

I sold the stuff that would go fast and bring a good price using kijiji/Craigslist. I donated the rest.

[Ruthla]

Originally Posted by Crayfish

Donate. Especially if it's just "the cash would be nice" as opposed to, "I have absolutely no idea how we're going to pay the electric bill this month".

The last time I had a garage sale was when I was still a child, helping my parents with theirs. It was a TON of work, sitting out there all day, and then we still had a lot of junk to donate when we were finished. I remember her grumbling about it and calculating how much money she earned per hour with the garage sale, and it was something like $1 an hour- NOT worth her time.

I've never bothered with garage sales as an adult. I've sold a few individual items on ebay, but for the most part, I just give things away.

[Sneezykids]

Okay, thanks everyone...I'm thinking of listing the big stuff on Craigslist and donating what doesn't sell and the rest of the stuff! I have some kind of nice antique furniture that might be worth trying to sell. The last time I had a garage sale, I think I made just over $300, three days...lots of work and lots left over to donate. Some weirdos came by too that creeped me out, yuck.

[lairaja]

I'm in the same boat (moving soon to a smaller place and needing to get rid of a lot of stuff!) and here's our plan:

We are going to move everything we want to keep.
Then I'm going to invite friends and family (and Facebook friends) to come by the old place before we move out and take whatever's left. We'll put out a donation jar, in case anyone wants to pay us something for the more valuable stuff. We've discussed having a "cause" they're donating to, but most likely it will just be The M Family Moving Fund.

We'll schedule a Goodwill pickup the next day, and everything left is donated. Nothing is moving with us that we don't absolutely want or need!

I remember having Donation Only car washes in high school for fundraisers, and we always made much more money that way. But at this point, the money doesn't matter nearly as much as making room for more abundance!

[RunnerMommy]

We are in the same boat too! It feels good to know others are struggling with this too. Not that I want others to be struggling- just good to know I'm not the only one with clutter.

Anyway- here's our plan. We are going to have a short garage sale, like 4 hrs, one day only. We have a lot of stuff already stacked up in the garage, so I figure I'll just pull it out, minimal prep time, advertise on craigslist, not bother with signs etc. I'll just go through the house, pull all the extra stuff worth selling outside and see what happens. Then I'll call goodwill to come pick up the next day to take anything we don't sell. I was going to do everything idividually on craigslist, but I don't want to deal with people coming at different times just to "look" at things, and writing up all the postings etc. I figure I'll just dedicate a 4 hr window to selling things and then be done. Good luck!!