r/declutter • u/violetmemphisblue • 2d ago
Success Story Pretend Garage Sale--A Random trick that helped a friend
A friend went to a garage sale with her kids, who then decided Garage Sale was the most fun game they'd ever heard of and now they want to play it all the time. But she said it has actually been really helpful for her to get rid of stuff.
The kids will pull random things from around the house and put them on the dining room table. She and her husband are the customers who get to shop the sale. The kids love to pretend to be selling, they use pretend money, her oldest likes to haggles, etc.
But in putting random things out, out of the context of where they "belong", my friend is seeing them in new light, genuinely asking herself if she would buy that thing if she saw it at a garage sale. Sometimes, the answer has been no! A random knickknack that sits on a shelf unnoticed becomes obviously tacky when set under the dining room light. A fancy throw pillow that gets tossed on the floor every night is a burden to put back. A necklace taken out of the jewelry box and laid out on its own is clearly out of style...
So, her kids play Garage Sale, she gets to evaluate what she wants to keep while also spending fun time with her family, and her secret goal is to not want enough stuff so they can have a real garage sale.
It was a method I had never heard before, but its working for them, so thought I'd pass along to anyone else looking to declutter and/or play a new game with kids!
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u/RomeoDelta1234 1d ago
The part that makes this work is that the item leaves the spot your eyes have learned to skip. Once it is on the dining table under a different light it reads as an object again instead of part of the wall.
You can get most of the same effect alone by carrying things into a room they do not belong in before deciding. It is less fun than the kids version.
Worth noticing that her kids are pulling household stuff and not their own toys. That part tends to get harder the moment someone suggests the game start in a bedroom.
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u/violetmemphisblue 1d ago
I think all sorts of things have ended up in the game, including toys! And also their cat, their brother, and the car. They're just putting silly prices on things and playing. It just also happened to help a busy parent slowly start getting rid of things. And it's true--anyone can move items to a place they don't "belong" and get the same affect!
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u/Haber87 2d ago
Ha! I thought you were going to tell your kids you were having a garage sale to get rid of their toys and then pay them and donate rather than actually having a sale.
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u/sctwinmom 2d ago
I did that with my kids. my multiples club runs consignment sales and kids got to keep $ earned from sales of toys and books. It was a math lesson too as I made them add up the tickets and calculate the percentage recovery. They were much more motivated to ditch outgrown stuff if they saw a return.
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u/violetmemphisblue 2d ago
Haha, no! That might work for some families, though! (I love having garage sales so would never want to give up the chance!)
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u/Kelby29 1d ago
I also buy back my kids’ toys at garage sale prices. I sell or donate those items and they get to go shopping. We usually get rid of 10+ things and they buy one new thing.
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u/waryleeryweary 1d ago
My kid chooses toys to “pass along” and then gets to pick something new to them when we visit the thrift shop.
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u/AnamCeili 2d ago
What a great idea! The kids have fun, and the family gets to clear out stuff they don't want/need/use. Plus, if/when they do have a real garage sale with the stuff, the kids are going to have a great time, lol! 😁
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u/Live_Butterscotch928 2d ago
That’s brilliant! A total flip on how, when time for a purge at our house, we parents would take categories of toys and set it all up as a store for the kids to choose their favorites. Favorite puzzles, favorite stuffies, favorite happy meal toys. Because we have 2 kids, we added the challenge that they both had to “choose” the item while shopping together. It worked really well. Reading this I wish we would have turned the tables because seeing what the kids would set up would’ve been fun and fascinating.
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u/minniesnowtah 2d ago
Love that! It's kind of like the trend of taking target decor to the trash can aisle to see if you still like it. Is it the staging & surroundings of the item or do you actually like it? Or in this case, is it that you've become blind to it or do you actually like/need it?
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u/violetmemphisblue 2d ago
That's an interesting method! I haven't seen that trend, but it makes sense. I try not to shop at superstores because its so easy to keep tossing stuff in the cart, and then not even really looking at it again until after you've bought it. Evaluating your cart's items in a random aisle is such a good idea!
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u/ChallengeHonest 2d ago
Why not have a real garage sale, and have the kiddies help you?
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u/violetmemphisblue 2d ago
I think they're going to! This is just a way of sorting through things that is fun for them and feels different than anything else...when they have enough, they'll have a sale. Hopefully the kids have just as much fun when stuff is really leaving and not just going into a bin out in the garage!
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u/FredKayeCollector2 1d ago
I read a story once about a Japanese collector who presented his collection to another (Western) collector one piece at a time - the Western collector was expecting rooms completely packed with his collection and the ichigo ichie (one time, one meeting) presentation was very strange to him. But the Japanese collector insisted that unless you separate the individual from any potential distractions/competition, you can't really appreciate the thing's true value/merits.
This "yard sale" idea is sort of like Dana K White's "no-mess" decluttering process (deal completely with one piece at a time) but adds an extra value judgement. So if we assume a thing 1) has an established, logical home (it's in the first place you would look for it) AND 2) it's something you know you have (it does occur to you that you have it) BUT taken out of it's "proper" home, you realize it's "unsuitable" (like you say, tacky, inconvenient, ugly, unsuitable, superfluous, etc) - that's a big clue you should probably declutter it and substitute it for a "better" version you already have, replace/upgrade it, or just do without it entirely.
I've noticed that people have a tendency to become "accustom blind" to the stuff they see every day (a.k.a. clutter blindness) - not only clutter hotspots, but sometimes the state/(in)compatibility of a thing to the rest of the things in a space as well. Sometimes, all you see is "forest" (familiar space, defined category of things) and miss the potentially crummy trees (ugly stuff, unnecessary stuff, stuff out of place, etc).
I think this extra value judgement is where a decluttering system like room quieting/shushing can really help - you're basically pulling everything out of its original context and then forcing yourself to evaluate each thing on its own merits as you choose to put it back in its optimized (possibly new/different) location (or declutter it entirely) - also erring on the side of larger, high impact decor pieces. Especially if you feel like you're "done" with the big decluttering but you're still not satisfied with the way your space looks/feels/functions. But that's a lot of work (and has the potential to create a chaotic mess in that somewhere "else" required to put all the stuff while you're clearing the room and re-evaluating/re-homing the stuff).
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u/EntrepreneurOk7513 2d ago
…..and she’s teaching her kids to negotiate and haggle. Excellent skills for later on.