Fifty cents: Part two

Fifty cents: Part two

After 26 years of living in Australia there is still an intrinsic strand of stingy Dutchness left in me. My way of selling the left over landfill in our garage sale is to put prices of what I thought the item was worth. A stack of vinyl LPs and singles, worth fifty bucks right? WRONG! Julie’s flat rate for everything was just 50 cents. How much is this dress please? A customer would ask. ‘ 50 cents’ Julie replied with a sideways glance at me. Our customers immediately gravitated to Julie – funny that!

People came in droves. Word of the 50 cent shop spread like ticks on a roo. Many returned for a second and third helping. Our stock was picked clean like vultures around a fresh kill.



We had all sorts coming to our garage sale.



Very early in the morning a young Kiwi fly-in, fly-out worker came around and selected a few items. He stacked them up in a corner and asked how much it all was. I told him that it was about $20 dollars. He said that that was very cheap but that he had to go home and get the money to pay me. When he came back he gave us fifty dollars and refused to take the change.

One man came on his bike.  He was dressed up in orange and red lycra while the whole world was wishing he wasn’t. He bought some knick-knacks and revealed his best advice for the ‘Aussie’ traveler like us how to wash your clothes. He took a good half hour to explain how to wash clothes by hand in a small bottle. Excitedly he started making hand gestures while his jiggly bits bounced up and down “you just got to shake it” and it did. Other customers were rolling their eyes in the back of their heads. Good thing he came back ten minutes later with the actual bottle he uses and gave another jiggling demo.  He was a lovely man with such disarming helpfulness which may have been too much for some.

Just as we were about to pack up on our second garage sale we were suddenly blinded by a flash of sunlight on chrome. A sleek Mustang appeared as in a nostalgic time-warp back to “Happy Days” and canned laughter. A middle aged non-Fonzy lookalike hopped out with his daughter. No greasy comb job in sight. To my surprise Julie was clearly batting a few eyelids at the man with the car. “Ohh” Julie lovingly uttered. “Is this a 65 model. I was born in 1965”. In a suave voice the man said “Sorry Mam! It’s a 64….. and a half.” Would you like to take her for a drive, Mam? “Hah!!” I thought. Julie would never fall for that trick. “Oooh. Yes please.” She said. “You clean up the garage sale dear and I will be back soon”. She hopped in the driver’s seat and drove off leaving me to pick up my jaw off the ground. Many times after we have laughed about this. It turned out he was a Federal police man and bought lots of our junk.

The people we met during the three garage sales were very nice to us and definitely not a bunch of galahs. 

Many were interested in our semi grey nomad story. The whole thing was just a great experience and hey!? If 30 customers per day buy 20 items for a minimal of fifty cents it is worth doing. Even this stingy Dutchman has to admit that.

More semi grey nomad tips for a Garage sale.

·         Try and detach emotionally from the merchandise. Sometimes deep breathing is required.

·          If you can’t detach yourself find somewhere to store it.  Ask yourself how important all this
           stuff is to you when you are about to take off on the adventure of a lifetime.

·         Give it away. You will have to bin it anyway as you can't take it all. Be generous to others that
           may need it more than you.

·         To enable to get the most out of your stock start several months before you leave. This will
           reduce overall stress.

·         Move into your caravan way before hitting the road. This will enable you to test all the
          equipment, give you an indication what you need on the road and distance yourself from the
          house and those things in it.

·         You will find out during this process that you can live with very little. I have taken this as the
          biggest lesson out of this.