World's Longest Yard Sale Adventure 2015

As you know, I'm a bit of a yard saling geek. So needless to say, 690 miles of yard sales, flea markets and community garage sales totally rocks my world.

No, this didn't come home
with us!

I originally heard about the sale from Erin at About.com's Frugal Living page. Trucker and I went for the first time 4 years ago, and have gone every year since. It's too fun not to!

This year, we'd planned to take a four-day trip, but then life happened. We got bumped up the list at the antique mall unexpectedly, and then moved in the weekend before the yard sales, and we were too tired for a multiple day trip. We decided we probably shouldn't go. However, we still wanted to go, as this is one of our favorite traditions. The morning of, we decided to go for just one day. We save coin every year for the yard sales and usually supplement this mad cash with some from our joint account to cover gas, food and lodging. This time, we decided to go for one day and use the coin for all of our spending. While we drove the 1.5 hours to route 127, I rolled coin. We had saved $150. We planned to stop at a bank and cash it in, but never ended up seeing one. We had to pay for everything with rolls of coin. Most people were fine with it, but next year I'll make sure I get a chance to stop at the bank to exchange the coin for singles.

The lady who sold this to me said she never could figure out
if it was a bear or a monkey. Thoughts?

In the ten minutes between when we decided to go and when we ran out the door, we scrambled to get everything ready. Trucker filled our travel mugs and thermos with coffee, cleaned out the car and tossed in all of our tote bags. I made ham sandwiches and grabbed some nectarines, baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, protein bars and apple chips for the road. We ended up only having to buy coffee on the way home.

We got off the highway halfway to 127 to go to the bank to exchange our coin (only to find that the search hadn't mentioned that this was an ATM, not a branch location...oops), and saw a yard sale and stopped. They were selling everything for fifty cents! Can't beat it!

We finally got to 127 and decided to go north instead of south like we have the last two years. WOW! What a difference it made. This part of the route was filled with yard sales. We found two towns having community yard sales and we sidetracked down side streets hitting those yard sales that don't get quite as much traffic. We got some great scores this way.

We were walking down one country road hitting yard sales and a couple offered us kittens. They were too cute for words (so cute, in fact, that I forgot to take a photo for all the cuddling). Trucker had to drag me away, but I think he was as torn as I was. Still, I'm not sure that Ray would be happy with a sibling stealing our affections.

We bought lemonade and cookies from every kid we saw who had a booth set up. I spent $2, but it was totally worth it to invest in some young entrepreneurs.

I thought this beautiful shell would
be perfect for storing jewelry or
other small items or for holding
business cards at a store.

Mainly we bought items for the booth, but got some things for us. Trucker has been needing a mitre box saw and found one for $1. He has been wanting to set up a CB radio and had almost everything he needed. He bought 6 antennas for $10 and will sell the 5 he doesn't use. I got a dress, two tote bags and a nightgown from a free box. It was really hot and I forgot a hair tie, so I bought a $.25 bandanna. I got a cute little head scarf in sea green for $.25; this goes well with the corals and cornflower blues I've been wearing lately. Trucker bought me a $.10 ring tree to help me organize my jewelry.

This photo does not do this cute dress justice.

We spent 6.5 hours yard saling and covered only 6 miles of the route! Usually we cover 30-35 miles in a day, but this part of the trail was chock full of sales. Especially when you stop for the flea markets and community yard sales, it takes a lot of time to cover a mile. In years past, we've gone south at the spot we get on and usually have to drive a bit farther between yard sales. Since we only drove six miles on the route and usually walked to multiple yard sales for each stop, we barely used any gas. That was great as it saved us a lot of money to use for yard sales!

Did anyone else hit the World's Longest this past weekend? Share your stories or scores!