Garage Sales: The Homeschool Classroom You Never Expected!

Is it a yard sale, tag sale, garage sale, moving sale, rummage sale?  I don’t care what you call it, but I will be there! 

For my family, the end of the school year coincided with the beginning of my favorite season: garage sale season! That’s what I call it here in the Midwest. We’d visit towns near and far who were having neighborhood sales and spend the day seeing what treasures we could find!

For my kids, they might have thought, “no school today!” but truthfully, they were just learning and reviewing those skills out in the real world. Sometimes that meant a bit more work for me, as I spotted opportunities for them to put their mind to work. Looking back, I see how those days at garage sales helped reinforce a variety of skills we were learning at home.

The most obvious skill we practiced was working with numbers and money. So many tags and signs posted prices, which were usually nice, even numbers that young kids can work with, rather than the 3.79 price tags they see at retail stores!

Before we left in the morning, I would give my younger children each a small allowance for the day. Lots of quarters, dimes, nickels, and some singles, depending on their age and how many sales we planned to visit. So when they saw something they wanted, they’d have to decide if they wanted to spend their own money on it and count it out. Later, I would see them mentally calculating how much money they had left to spend. 

Related to the money skills is learning negotiating skills. As a hard-core garage sale shopper, one of the first sentences I’d teach my kids to say is, “Would you take a dollar for this?” Who can say no to a sweet 3-year-old with their own wallet asking that?? I taught them how to evaluate the asking price based on what it originally sold for and its current condition. Then I would remind them that before you negotiate, know in your head the highest price you’ll pay if there is a counteroffer. 

In the buying and negotiating they also learned the value of a dollar. Sometimes buying secondhand means you end up with a bum deal. There are pieces missing, or it just wasn’t as fun as it looked. Caveat Emptor, as they say. Next time, think carefully, inspect carefully. Decide what is really worth your money.

Another money skill they learned is budgeting and delayed gratification. If you spend all your money at the first sale, you’ll have nothing left for the next. Pace yourself. How much do you really want this thing-a-ma-bob? There might be an even better one at the next sale!

Taking my kids to lots of garage sales also provided so many opportunities for socialization, namely, making conversation with strangers. If they were old enough to talk and want to buy something, they were old enough to walk up to the adult in charge and ask to purchase their item. Sometimes mom had to do some coaching, but they all learned quickly how to make a polite transaction. Most adults we met loved talking to children and asking them questions.

If we were shopping in May or September, we’d often get the “Are you off school today?” line. They learned how to proudly say, “we’re homeschooled!” and share a bit with adults about what that meant.

Garage sales were a great time to reinforce their manners. Say hello to the homeowner. Ask respectfully about an item. Don’t pick up something that might break. Don’t make derogatory comments about items you see. Say excuse me if you bump into someone.

And sometimes, we’d end up at a garage sale that smelled funny or felt dirty. I taught my kids just don’t touch anything, please- and how to quietly walk through a sale, smile at the host, and say “have a nice day!” as we walked out. Only a couple times did a preschooler accidentally blurt out, “Mom, it stinks in here!”

And along the way, we balanced socializing along with teaching stranger danger. You can talk to a stranger, but we never follow an adult into their house if we don’t already know them. Or if you feel uncomfortable about how an adult is speaking, it’s okay to not engage in conversation and mom will take over. Once in our vehicle, we’d have a conversation about how the adult’s behavior or language was inappropriate. 

As we explored neighborhoods in our van or on foot, my kids also strengthened their geography skills. Many times, neighborhood sales would have a map available that listed all the houses hosting a sale. I’d hand this to my older kids who would help me navigate the neighborhood. Which street should we go down first? Where are we on this map? Or as we would drive along, I’d ask, wait, have we gone to this sale already? And my kids could look around and spot that yes, we had indeed shopped on this street already. My spatial intelligence skills aren’t that strong, so I appreciated my kids’ help with this!

Shopping garage sales also exposed them to different family cultures and traditions. We got to see and touch antiques, housewares, and toys that were unfamiliar, so I answered a lot of, “Mom, what is this?”  and “How does this work?” Nothing like digging through someone’s castoffs to learn a bit how other people live! 

Lastly, they learned patience. There were times we traipsed from sale to sale without any good finds. We all got tired. But “let’s just hit one more sale” often translated to hitting the jackpot of all the things. All good things are worth waiting for! Especially when those good things are only a few dollars!

Now that my kids are grown, it’s fun to see them take those skills into their adulthood. Buying secondhand taught them frugality, responsibility, and contentment. And, they still share with me when they find an especially great deal at a garage sale: “Mom, I got this for a dollar!”