Never fear!  We’ve got the perfect prep for you before going garage sale shopping with your kids.  The checklist below represents a well-stocked car which is ready to keep your kids fed, entertained, and happy while you scour the yard sales for deals.

Garage Sale Shopping with Kids: The Well-Stocked Car Checklist

• Coffee in travel mugs for mom and dad
• Bug spray (mosquito repellent)
• Sunscreen
• Emergency snack bag
• Baby wipes for sticky hands and faces
• Extra change of clothes for each child
• Diapers / pull ups
• Potty chair (if you have a potty training toddler) and plastic grocery bags for potty liners
• Small portable stroller (for a child too tired to walk)
• Reusable shopping bags (to hold all of your purchases and keep them from rolling all over the car)
• Bottles and formula (if you have babies) or nursing cover if you are breastfeeding
• Sunglasses for each child
• Travel bingo game for the kids to play together
• Neck pillows and baby blankets for quick snoozes
• A mini backpack for each child filled with:
  1. A few small toys
  2. A small book
  3. Crayons and color book (only if you trust them not to lose crayons in the car where they might melt)
  4. 2 snacks and a juice box or water bottle
  5. A few quarters to use as their “shopping allotment” for buying goodies

Print this checklist out and keep it in the garage to make an easy project of stocking up the car for your next garage sale day with the family!

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Saturday we weren’t so lucky.  The weather shut us down before we even got our yard sale set up Saturday!  At least we made enough money on Friday morning to pay for the newspaper ad.

However, I’m a trooper with a mountain of decluttered items I must get rid of, and so – the garage sale round 2 is coming up next weekend.  I’m hoping the weather will cooperate and there will be no rain.  Please cross your fingers for all of us garage sale-holders in Fairbanks for some sunshine and warm temperatures next Saturday!

Special thanks to my friend, Barb, from the Forever Neighbor for sitting with me and occupying Truett during the garage sale on Friday.  She’s the best!

Lucky for me, my friend Barb from The Forever Neighbor will be joining me to sell some of her garage sale clutter as well.  There’s nothing like making a day of it with a good friend!

Lucky for me again… one of the best ways to get more people to come to your garage sale is to advertise that your yard sale is a multi-family venture.  Potential shoppers will realize that 2 families have more junk to sell than one! 

Here in Fairbanks, Alaska, the fashionable garage sale trend is to have an early morning Friday sale, and then a day-long sale on Saturday.  Our garage sale will be from 8am to noon on Friday, and we’re sure to have tons of early birds.  Wouldn’t it be nice to sell everything Friday morning and have all day Saturday for fun and games with the family?!  If not, we’ll be peddling our goodies Saturday from 8am to 3pm too.

With three bloggers, lots of blogs, twitter, and wi-fi, I don’t think we’ll be bored if the garage sale crowds don’t show up.  I’ll have to take some pictures to post, and might even have time to share my tips for having the best (most profitable) garage sale.  Wish us luck!

We found a fantastic tool called Garage Sales Tracker.  This site is a place where you can list your garage sales along with detailed listings and pictures of items you’re selling.

Shoppers:  Use Garage Sales Tracker to Find Yard Sales

• Driving directions are provided by Google maps so that you can print out a map of exactly how to get to the garage sales you choose.
• The “items for sale” filter lets you search for certain items.  If you’re looking for yard sales in Dallas, Texas selling baby clothes, you can narrow your search to find sales that have those items.
• They offer a way to contact the seller ahead of time to ask questions before you drive all the way to the garage sale.

Search for garage sales by zip code or city.  You can also search by dates, which is a priceless feature.  When looking in a local newspaper you’ll only find garage sales for the coming weekend.  But with Garage Sale Tracker you can see sales planned for the future, so you can look for sales to check out next weekend, or 4th of July weekend, or whenever you like!

Sellers:  Use Garage Sales Tracker to List Your Yard Sales

• List the days, times, and location of your yard sale for a flat fee of only $5.  The best part is that Garage Sales Tracker allows you to give 40% of your listing fee ($2) to the charity of your choice!
• Shoppers get free driving directions and maps to your sale so they won’t get lost.
• You can post pictures in your listing. This is great for big items, such as furniture, that people may want to see before arriving.
• You can post unlimited details about your sale.  List the types of items for sale, describe products, etc. to entice people to put your garage sale on their shopping route.

You’ll definitely want to spread the word about this helpful (and cheap) garage sale tool, since the more people are using it, the more helpful it will be!  Stay tuned for our other garage sales articles to help you have more profitable yard sales.

For more frugal tips and tools, check out Frugal Friday at Life as Mom.