Bargains to boot....

Car boot sales.....something very British and totally fascinating (for me).

In a bid to prepare for our impending house move we (John) thought that we should start sorting through all our (my) crap (stuff) and although slightly reticent, I suggested that we do a car boot sale.  Earn a bit of a return on my many fashion investments over the years. We could have taken our unwanted belongings to one of my beloved charity shops but a) there was so much and b) we thought it would be fun.

And fun it was, aside from the stupidly early start at 5.45am to pack the car.

We went to a huge, local car boot sale that charges £7 entrance fee per car and one that even at 7am upon opening, is packed full of bargain hunters.  And when I say bargain hunters, that is being polite. Some of the "trawlers" you find at car boot sales want something for nothing. If you sell a book for 10p, they want it for 5p and they walk off in disgust when you laugh at them.  You need a certain degree of patience, a quick tongue and eyes in the back of your head.

Many of them are traders of course that hope to catch you unawares so that they can walk of with something of yours to sell on a stall of theirs for twice the price.

  As you can see from the pictures, I had two full rails of clothes, mainly ex-uniform that I no longer wear but also some treasured pieces that despite our initial love affair, have somewhat fallen onto the "no longer worn" list.  If I could and if I had the space, I wouldn't get rid of any of it, I would store the items carefully and keep them all for life.  Alas, I am not in that lucky position.  It literally broke my heart to say goodbye to some of the pieces but it had to be done.  Even though the promise of a dressing room in the new house will satisfy my childhood dreams, the reality is going to be somewhat petite and so I have to be selective with what stays and what goes.

I did however, offset the pain but hearing many comments from shoppers on what a lovely stall of clothes we had.  They were really complimentary about the clothes and said how nice it was that we had taken time to display them and not just throw them on a dirty picnic blanket on the floor.  I started selling dresses for £5 each or 3 for £12 (mainly brand new or hardly worn) and by the end of the morning I was selling them all for £1 as we agreed that we wanted to bring as little back home as possible.

 I also had the chance meeting with a lady (that was in fact a friend of someone I work with) who bought probably 50% of my clothes. She owns a vintage lovers website where no doubt, if I looked, I will see all my items on there with a substantial mark-up but like John rationalised.....we had neither the time nor the interest in going down that route. I could have done, I could have easily sold them on Ebay or Etsy for a lot more that I would have got at any car boot but the effort required would have been phenomenal for the amount of clothes that I had.  But, after chatting to her, I do believe we may be kindred spirits and when I find a spare hour in my hectic day, we have agreed to meet for coffee. 

She enticed me with her comments about her 5 dressed mannequins at home and her dressing room.

Anyway, I am still amazed at this but we made £340. What a result for a couple of (early) hours on a summers morn. And, that £340 is pure profit as we had already taken off the entrance fee, breakfast, ice cream and drinks budget......and the £10 that I hid in my pocket on the way to the toilets.  Well, a girls gotta have some kind of a wage for all her hard work. So on the way back from the local portakabin conveniences, I managed to find a brand new pair of shoes (that I posted about previously)and two beautiful glass vases pictured below. 

 

 

 This is John and my stepdaughter.  Reaching DEF CON 3 level of boredom towards the end of the morning.