How to Have a Garage Sale: a Step-by-Step Checklist
Published · 5 min read
A garage sale is a weekend of tables, cash and neighbours who arrive 20 minutes early. The work that makes it calm is the week before: sort, price, label, tell people. This is a garage sale checklist you can print, plus the Hoardo steps that keep the list on your phone instead of on peeling stickers.
How to have a garage sale, in one page
- Pick a Saturday (or Friday plus Saturday) and a rain backup.
- Walk every room. Each thing goes sell, donate or keep. No fourth pile.
- Put sell items in a Garage sale box in Hoardo. Photograph or voice-add them, then type an asking price.
- Print QR labels via Prints in the room menu so sale bins match the list.
- Export a CSV price sheet from Export.
- Advertise, set up, sell, donate the leftovers the same day.
The pricing chart has the numbers. This page is the order of operations.
Garage sale checklist
Tick it here or print it. Copy the ticks into Hoardo the same day, while the piles are still in front of you.
Tick it, print it, then keep the live list in Hoardo.
Two weeks before
One week before
The day before
Sale day
Two weeks before
Date and rules. Saturday 8am to 1pm is the default in most US neighbourhoods. Some cities want a permit or limit signs on lamp posts. Check before you print 20 arrows.
Sort room by room. Open a cupboard, make three piles, move on. Do not start with "the whole basement". In Hoardo, make three boxes in the garage room: Garage sale, Donate, Keep. Number them. An unnamed box still shows as "#12".
List what you're selling. Walk with your phone:
- AI Speech scan is fastest for a pile: say the things, check the names, add them.
- AI Image scan for one item in the brackets, or a cluster on a table. Each item can have one photo.
- Typing for a single leftover.
Turn on Price in Settings › Show on items if it is hidden, and put an asking price on each sell item. You decide the number, from the garage sale pricing guide.
One week before
Labels. Open Prints in the room menu. Print a QR label for each sale bin, donate tote and keep box. Stick it on the end you'll see. Point the camera at it later and the list opens, so you don't unpack a donate bag to see if the slow cooker is in it.
Price sheet. Export in the room menu downloads a CSV: box, item, quantity, price. That's the till list. Share the room with whoever is taking money.
Tell people. Facebook, Nextdoor, Craigslist, a sign at the corner. Hoardo is the catalogue, not the listing site. For finder apps vs a catalogue, see garage sale apps for sellers.
Kit. Cash float in small bills, tables, bags, a phone charger, water, a chair, a rain plan.
The day before
Pull sell items into the garage or driveway. Group likes with likes: kids' stuff, tools, kitchen, clothes. Keep the Donate and Keep boxes closed and labelled so nobody sells the stand mixer you meant to keep.
Charge the phone. The list lives there.
Sale day
Open on time. Early birds will still come early. Hold the first-hour prices from the sheet. Last hour, halve what's left.
When something sells, mark it in Hoardo (a note, or take it off the box) so the person at the other table doesn't sell it twice.
At close: count cash, sweep, and move leftovers the same day. Donate bags go to the car. Keepers go into numbered boxes with QR labels, especially if this garage sale is really a moving sale.
After the sale
What's left is not a new "maybe" pile. Donate, or box it for the next house. If you're emptying a home, the storage unit inventory and QR labels pages cover the stuff that still has to travel.
Keep reading
- How to price garage sale items
- Moving sale: sell what you won't move
- Declutter and sell
- Best garage sale apps for sellers
- What is an inventory app?
Free for the whole driveway
Hoardo is 100% free. One photo per item. Printing labels and exporting CSV do not cost extra. There is no paid plan.