Garage sale season is starting!

If you are hosting a garage sale, be sure to place a classified notice in The Monroe Evening News. You can do that on line or during business hours at our downtown Monroe office, 20 W. First St., 242-1100.

Yes, you can attract drive-by customers with a sign if you live on a busy street. But you’ll attract the serious garage sale shoppers with a classified ad because many of them carry that newspaper page around them all Saturday morning as they hop from one sale to another.

I live on a side street that nobody needs to drive on except residents and guests. The last time I had a garage sale, nearly all my customers came to the sale because of the classified ad. Only one person said she noticed the yard sign and decided to walk over.

The Monroe Evening News classified department also has garage sale kits available. If you place your ad in person, you can buy a combo package for $20 that gets you a three-line, three-day garage sale classified ad with a garage sale kit containing three signs, a post, a sheet of price stickers, how-to tips and a sales tally sheet. The garage sale kits sell for $6 each if you buy them individually.

Non-profit, neighborhood association, church-sponsored or charity fundraiser garage sales, rummage sales, and Mom2Mom sales can be listed at no charge on the MonroeTalks calendar and in the Community Page of the print and e-editions of The Monroe Evening News. (Please send those notices to the newsroom at least a week before your sale begins. You may also want to consider placing a classified ad in addition to the Community Page notice to attract the attention of those who look at that list first.)

And while you are planning your garage sale, be sure to read what Lynnae at Being Frugal.net has written at 10 Tips to a Wildly Successful Garage Sale.