Car boot sales, one of the great British pass times. Everyone gathering in a field selling their unwanted junk from the boot of their car. Well maybe not junk, sometimes there are some bargains to be had.
My dad loved getting up on a Sunday and announcing to the family 'come on let's go to a boot!' The pure happiness that spread over his face as we all piled out of the car at some disused air field filled with people selling their stuff, was amazing. However it seemed only me and him shared in the wonder. We also had stroppy hormonal big sister, and my disapproving mum in tow. I however I loved it, as the smallest I was able to pretty much choose whatever rubbish toy or nic nac I liked as long as my dad agreed. So after a few hours we would all take part in a game of Tetris on a family car sized scale, and cram our finds in. This generally included my dad saying things like ' well I'm not leaving it' and ' I told you we need a bigger car Anne!'
They have become a family tradition in our house too, usually a great excuse to get bored children (and parents) out of the house for a few hours. And it's a pretty cheap trip out too. Due to car boots being held in a field usually in the middle of nowhere, there are no cash points or places to get cash, so you can be very restricted on how much you spend. We usually have around £20 to spend and very often come home laden with finds (invariably a camouflage rucksack that Mr S really needs) and spare change.
We did a car boot ourselves a few years ago, and made around £70 which was pretty good going for stuff that was on its way to the tip. However this Bank Holiday Monday we smashed that.
When we moved eight months ago our new loft was filled with what looked like hundreds of black bags of baby clothes and many other baby must haves, several growth spurts and developmental milestones later and this has since spilt over into both kids wardrobes and Isabelle's built in cupboard. So in an effort to get our storage space back cleared it all out and packed the car up.
So Monday morning, probably far too early we packed Isabelle off to Nanny Bubble's and we headed off to our local car boot sale, via Mcdonald's (my payment for being made to accompany my husband on his great idea!). Well after a crazy half an hour of setting up amid a crazed frenzy over the things, (I was madly trying to arrange things prettily like a shop window!) we had already made £15.
Four and a half hours later we packed up and came home, more than half a car lighter and £109 richer, yes £109!! not bad for both of us taking pretty much anything people offered just so we didn't have to take it all the crap amazing stuff back home again.
We have still got probably another two car boots worth of stuff to sell so will be heading off again soon.
Car boot sales really are amazing not only can you find pretty much anything you want(and didn't realise you did want), but you can make some money back too.
Labels: children, family life, happiness, save money
