The magic is gone... (Car Boot Sales)

Member Name: katyboo123

Product:	Car Boot Sales
Date:	27/10/09 (70 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You could make a little bit of pocket money here a few years ago

Disadvantages: Not really profitable anymore

When I was little every weekend on a Sunday morning at 5am my Mam would creep in to my room, gently wake me, take me downstairs sit me in front of the fire (we had no heating), give me a hearty breakfast and a cuppa, then give me my clothes which were warm from being over the clothes horse in front of the fire and tell me to get dressed. I would pull myself round, get dressed, have a quick wash and race out to the drive where my Dad would have the garage doors open and the car boot up filling it full of all the junk he had to sell at the bootsale.

I used to get £5 wages for going to help, and I was allowed my own little table at the end of my Dad's wallpaper pasting table with my own things to sell on there. We would arrive at the bootsale at 6.30am. First you would have the dealers who would come round trying to buy your most prized junk possessions at a fraction of their worth, then it would get busier with various hagglers looking for a bargain. I found it fascinating, what on earth could someone want with only one of my former pair of Reebok blue and yellow rollerboots? Who cared, I'd just made myself 25p and I was on a roll! Dad would send me with some pennies to the food van, and I would buy us a bacon butty each, navigating my way through the hoardes, back to our stall, where my Dad would be pouring us both a hot cuppa out of the flask my Mam had made up for us. Steaming hot strong coffee with enough sugar to sink a ship, no wonder I have a mouthful of fillings!

By the time it came to packing away I was shattered, we would only take home the good stuff we had left, and maybe a little trinket or two we would buy with our earnings from someone elses stall. I still have a Whitby lucky duck I bought for £2 from a bootsale when I was little, they only cost that new! And it's not even my birth month?! Then we would drive home, unpack, tidy the garage, eat our Sunday Roast that my Mum had cooked with my sister whilst we were out and then, only then, would we count our earnings. I have seen my Dad make over £300 from a bootsale.

As an adult, it is no surprise I wanted to do my own bootsale. I lived in a flat at the time; I sneaked around the house at 5am, packing the car up, running up and down the stairs to and from the flat, I drove to the bootsale site around 10 miles from my home. I paid £15 to enter the site as a seller, and I stood from 6.30am until 12 lunchtime. I had some good gear, I had a hoover, various Ikea cutlery and dinner services, expensive clothing and jeans, cd albums, dvds, ornaments, cermics all kinds of good stuff. And I was only asking less than £1 for most of the stuff. I couldn't sell anything, someone wanted to buy a pair of original Evisu jeans, which cost me £200 (well my partner I would never spend that on clothing for myself), for 10p. I had only wanted £5 for them, would have settled for £2.50 I guess, but I thought, you know, I would rather give them to the charity shop. So after almost 6 hours, I packed my wares away, loaded my pasting table in to my car, and left. I pulled up outside the charity shop in my town and unloaded everything there - couldn't face hauling the same loot all the way up my stairs again; and I drove home.

I counted up the pennies, and less the entry fee I made £6. This experience seems to be common now with Car Boot Sales, I have a lot of friends and family who have tried and failed to get rid of things at a reasonable price. So now I simply stick to Ebay. You can get rid of your junk and you can do it from the comfort of your own home. Nice and toasty warm. The magic of the bootsale has dissolved for me.

One last note, as a frequent 'buyer' at bootsales, it makes me laugh that I didn't manage to make a profit. Last weekend I picked up a copy of a Martina Cole book I hadn't yet read, it was a paper back, the spine was creased and it had been well read. It had a tear on the front cover. I said how much for this? The woman replied £3. I have never put something down so fast - I mean you can buy paper backs brand new for that in Asda! Dear me...

Summary: Stick with Ebay