If you’re a bargain hunter and you love a great deal, then garage sales are a great way to stretch that dollar as far as you possibly can. You can choose to drive around and just follow the signs posted around your neighborhood, or you can choose to do a little research ahead of time and therefore potentially cash in on deals on unique items before anyone else gets there. In this article, I’ll show you how you can find and map out local garage sales with these top five sites for finding garage sales online, and get in on the good deals with all the other early birds.
Craigslist
No list of where to find garage sales online would be complete without Craigslist. Find your local area, click on the “garage sale” link (found under the “for sale” category), and see what’s happening in your neck of the woods. You can narrow your garage sale search by filtering what you’re looking for within the garage sales sub-category, as well as what price you’re hoping to find it for. In addition, you can find posted garage sales in your city as well as other cities well ahead of time, making it simple to score a good deal.
GSalr
GSalr works much like the Yard Sale Treasure Map above in that you can plot and plan your garage sales by location, with directions that can be printed for easy navigation. Input your location, click on the ads that interest you, and click on the “Add to Trip Planner” button. These locations will then be plotted on a map with driving directions for the best route so you can get to your garage sales quickly and efficiently.
Yard Sale Treasure Map
The Yard Sale Treasure Map pairs Craigslist garage sale postings and Google map locations into one convenient mashup, making it as easy as possible for you to map out which garage sales you’d like to visit. You can even plan your shopping by garage sale openings, geography, and what you’re looking for; for example, your planned route could go directly to all sales that open between 7 and 10 AM, in one specific neighborhood, that offer toddler-sized clothes. Pretty useful, and a great way to make your garage sale shopping count if you’re limited for time.
Garage Sales Tracker
With Garage Sales Tracker, sellers can post an ad for their sales (free), and searchers can browse listings for sales in their local area (also free). You can also use Garage Sales Tracker to look for consignment stores and flea markets, which can be another way to get rid of extra stuff and earn a few bucks. More about this site: “GarageSalesTracker.com offers individuals the ability to advertise garage sales on the internet. We strive to make advertising yard sales as effective and efficient as possible. By featuring tools that allow prospective buyers to more easily find garage sales, our site will give you great exposure for your yard sale.” This site does a good job of highlighting sales in your local area, along with sales that you might want to explore outside of your immediate geographical region.
Yard Sale Search
Use Yard Sale Search to find a sale in all fifty states (nice for when you’re out of town), or post a garage sale online in your local area for more exposure. You can filter your sale search by area, keyword, and date. In addition to posted garage sales in all 50 states, this site also posts handy tips for finding the best deals: “If you’re looking to have the best yard sale ever, be sure to check out our yard sale tips section where we share our decades of cumulative expertise on how to have a successful yard sale. Nothing is worse than spending your Saturday dejunking only to find that our wallet is only $10 fatter. We’ve spent countless weekends hunting for bargains and rummaging through other’s trash to find our treasure, and we’ll share all our advice with you – for free!”