We Bought WHAT?!

When I was little, I NEVER went to yard sales.  Either my mom wasn't interested, or they just didn't occur where we lived.  I suspect it was the latter reason since I don't remember neighbors ever putting their old junk outside on the lawns!  Because of that, I never understood yard sales.  What was the point? Why not just donate or throw away what you don't use anymore?




When I started having kids, and realized how overpriced pretty much everything in stores is, I discovered Craigslist.  I thought that was the bees knees!  I can buy stuff I want SUPER discounted and still in good condition. How cool!!

Not too long after she was born, I was told about freecycle. HOLY SMOKES the stuff some people just GIVE AWAY!  And it was so easy to give away our old junk.  People will pretty much take anything, plus it made me feel better not throwing away stuff that we didn't need that was still good... I even gave away my unused wedding dress to a charity! (That's a story for another post!). 

Then we moved to the military housing.  What I have experienced makes Freecycle and Craiglist look a little pathetic.  Because families are constantly moving, they are always trying to get rid of stuff that they either can't or won't move with.  Sometimes we drive down the street on trash morning and people have put out perfectly good scooters, kids desks,bikes, this past week we got a sand/water table. Once the temperatures get above 60, you can guarantee at least three or four yard sales in our neighborhood every Friday/Saturday.  As like most yard sales, some stuff really ought to just be donated, or prices are too high, but I am lucky (or unlucky depending on how you look at it... I say lucky, bank account says unlucky) to find at least one item we could use... Notice I didn't say NEED.  Ha ha!

Well... now going back to the title of this post... this is the item we purchased this past weekend. I swear, I normally only spend between $1 and $5 per weekend at yard sales, but this item was WAY TOO COOL to pass up!  I checked out the yard sale, bought a container of stamps for $2 because my son really wanted them (and we do actually love doing stamps), and I saw the bounce house.  No way would my Hubby EVER agree to this, so when I got home I hesitated to tell him.  Much to my surprise, he asked me to take him back to the yard sale to show him.  He bargained with the seller, and we got it for half the original retail price!

Now we just need to move somewhere like Hawaii where we could use the bounce house all year long!