Yard Sales: The Reason I Pay Full Price For, Well, Mainly Nothing

25:1. That is the approximate ratio of new to secondhand things in our house. I came to this number by the highly scientific method of sitting here at the computer and thinking for .03 seconds. Like I said, scientific. But science isn’t always totally foolproof, right? Take Marie Curie for example.

Seriously, secondhand stuff makes up the majority of my house. I don’t pay full price for much of anything, and don’t buy much of anything brand new. Thrift stores are okay (the ones around here can have ridiculously high prices), but yard sales..they are the fudge to my brownies. The ice to my cream. They are, to me, what radium was to Marie Curie. Until it killed her.

Because really, where else can you get 10 clear (they really aren’t blue), cut glass plates for just $2 total?

Where else can you get all four of these lights for just $13 total?

Where else can you get these two ornate picture frames for $6 total?

Where else can you get 6 regular, non-ornate but still perfectly acceptable picture frames for $2 total? (Side note: I will not pay more than $.25 for a plain, wooden small picture frame and generally not more than $1 for a large one. Why? Because I know I can find them for that cheap somewhere else, if not at that particular yard sale. Thrift store frame prices are generally too high for me. I might be a dying breed.)

Where else can you get a globe on a stick for $4?

Where else can you get a brassy scale for $3?

Where else can you get two fancy bathroom fixtures for $1.25 total (and from two separate yard sales, nonetheless)?

Where else can you get a photo of a guy and his beloved fastened to a plastic plate and a wooden paddle?

You know you want to pin that.

If you enthusiastically chanted “Nowhere but a yard sale, of course!” because I tricked you with that whole repetitive question and answer thing, sorry. Not this time. Because that plate gem was free, from a trash can next to a yard sale. I can’t decide if it was tossed because the relationship ended badly or the concept of screwing a picture to a plastic plate and then a wooden paddle ended badly. But I have big plans for that wooden paddle. Big plans. Okay, just plans.

Do you buy mostly new, or mostly used? What are your price limits for typical yard sale fare like picture frames? Who is going to run out and plaster a photo of themselves on a plastic plate?

Don’t forget: the Pretty Prints digital print giveaway ends tonight at midnight! There will be two winners!

P.S. As you might have noticed, I just became part of the BlogHer publishing network. Rick just emailed me to say there was a floating ad on my blog when he loaded the page. I fiddled with some settings and hope it’s fixed, but if you see a floating ad yourself, please please please let me know—I opted out of those because they are, well, annoying. How can you see pictures of picture plate paddle art when there is an ad hanging out there?