Our car boot sale would not have materialized if my sister was not on board.

major players : my sister and her husband

We read about carboot tips from experienced car booters online. We screened our items for any faults – even if one shirt has no button on it, it will not be included in the sale because kita bukan nak jual sampah, kita nak jual barang baik punya at a low price. If say after 3 attempts at selling it off, the item is not bought – the stash will go to charity for those in need. In Malaysia, there is always someone in need. We just have to know where to find them. Some are easily found through charity organizations. Others may be missed out due to location or other factors we have yet to discover.

We booked our spot early

We brought our floating money – those small change you give to buyers

We folded our recyclable plastic bags from home so buyers need not worry about how to bring back home their goods

We brought our breakfast to the site and shared it with our ‘neighbours’ – then we kept our food trash properly in our trash bag so we wouldn’t litter the area unnecessarily

We brought chairs for us to sit down and mini fans to combat the dry and hot weather

We labelled our things well and are open to negotiations

We followed every single advice we gathered through the world wide web to make our sale a success. Once our boot has been set up – there were only a few things to do

• wait for customers
• people watching and profiling

It seems that our area is heavily populated by generations like ourselves. Young parents with toddlers and preschool going kids. There were not many elderly parents nor were there many teenagers. Perhaps the latter were still in bed on a weekend which left us wondering where the younger uns are. It’s like if we  have to go to war, there will be a lot of widows and orphans left behind. So our baju nenek2 were not selling fast enough including my stickers and planner related items. I should just pack them and sell them online. Or have a try setting up a booth at a planner related event.

Then I noticed that we have a lot of young foreigners working as domestic maids and contract workers looking for cheap clothing. The contractors were looking for worn out T-shirts they could use for their daily work whereas the maids were looking for fancy blouses. What we were not expecting was that the ladies were not looking for the sizes that we have – in fact even the locals were the same. They wanted bigger sized clothes. I almost forget Malaysia is an overweight and obese country as compared to the other ASEAN nations. So yeah.. my kurus clothes did not have as many buyers as opposed to my maternity clothes.

One thing stood out though on that day of how a foreign contract worker was looking for books to read. I love people who read and this particular man was looking for an English novel. I handed him a few to choose and he bought one off the shelves. It was a rare sight but I thought it was cute to have this big man in his safety helmet and boots, looking all rugged and bulky  – having in his hand a pink plastic bag with my book and 2 free owl bookmarks and a self-made calendar. I hope he finds the book interesting. I was a bit disappointed that no one wanted my older edition of Reader’s Digest – where are all the bookworms? It’s only RM5!!!

My sister and I were not there to make big bucks. It was more of an activity we can do together as sisters. Married with kids plak tuh..  At the same time decluttering our home. We felt like we achieved something at the end and now we are planning to do a Sarawak themed car boot sale. It would be interesting the next available weekend. Time to plan! Where is my washi and stickers!!

Later I will tell you what I did with the money I got. It’s got something to do with my Tabung Minci.