Yard Sale Finds

Summer Saturdays continues on the Purple Stuff Podcast! We decided to go on a little adventure for you guys, despite the 5000 degree weather: This week’s show covers our trip to the Englishtown Flea Market in New Jersey, which longtime readers should remember from several older Dino Drac

I didn’t want to let the summer slip by without hitting a flea market at least once, so this past Saturday, I braved the sun and swore to never do that again. The Englishtown flea market in New Jersey did not disappoint. It rarely does. This is the same flea market I’ve written about m

It’s flea market season, baby. An excuse to spend every weekend with grimy hands and a pocketful of also-grimy singles. We had gorgeous weather on Sunday, so it was off to Englishtown, home of one of New Jersey’s biggest and longest-running flea markets. (…which you may remember

We arrived at the Englishtown flea market late on Saturday afternoon, so there was no time to waste. Over half of the sellers had already packed up, and of those who remained, many were clearly ready to throw in the towel. I found jussst enough to consider the trip a success, and got reacq

Even the busiest weekend ever couldn’t stop me from hitting Englishtown again. Racing against the clock (and serious storm clouds), I only had around 30 minutes to turn total strangers’ trash into life-changing treasure. While the loot couldn’t be more different, I’d say that it�

And we’re off! The 2016 flea market and yard sale season has begun, and I’m super excited to spend the next umpteen weekends buying dirty garbage from total strangers. Thank God I have this site to help justify so many frivolous purchases. Remember this when I toss an iffy GoFundMe up

The flea market was much nicer than it’s been in recent weeks, with more vendors and far fewer people yelling at me over keychain prices. (I’m never going to get over that. Never slight an Italian.) It was already crazy hot when we arrived. By the time we left, we looked like we’d be

I went back to the flea market this past Sunday. Sadly, I arrived too late in the afternoon for it to be a super effective visit. Most of the vendors had already closed up shop by the time I was parking, I guess because it was a thousand degrees, and making five bucks off of used DVDs

Once again, bad weather almost ruined the flea market. I love storms, but I really wish they’d stop focusing their efforts on Saturday mornings. Mother Nature just has no regard for me needing old Ninja Turtles. Still, even a bad flea market will give milk if you keep squeezing its teats

After missing a week due to other obligations, I couldn’t wait to get back to the flea market — no matter how severe the weather forecast. Unfortunately, the rumored storms shooed away most of the outside vendors, forcing us to make do with the indoor booths. I’d been avoiding th

I had grand plans of reporting on my yard sale finds all summer long, but the flea markets have been so good to me. Why mess with success? …so, I found myself back at the Englishtown flea market for the third time in four weeks. Lightning struck twice, but would it strike thrice? Sin

Hoooo boy. This was worth every ounce of sweat and every minute of the hours-long drive. It’s a Toy Show — essentially an outdoor flea market that dealt strictly in old toys — happened last Saturday in some part of Jersey that’s otherwise populated by nothing but cow

I’d expected to lean more heavily on yard sales this season, but after my success at the Englishtown flea market a few weeks ago, I wanted to know if lightning could strike twice. It did! For me, it’s just been about developing my eye. My intuition. If you spend enough time at flea ma

The yard sales were very unkind on Saturday, so on Sunday, we switched things up with a visit to the Englishtown flea market. Smart move! Great weather made Englishtown busier than I’d ever seen it before, and since we arrived pretty late in the day, vendors were more in the mood to hag

As many of you know, this hasn’t been my favorite week. Since our apartment is currently a minefield of memories we’re not ready to deal with, getting out of the house is a good thing. Thank God for yard sale season. Longtime readers should remember last year’s Yard Sailin’ series,

So after a month’s worth of pleasant experiences, I was finally reminded of why I stopped going to yard sales to begin with. I did find some nice things, but between the sellers and the buyers, every stop brought five new annoyances. Sellers were the big problem. I lost interest in yard

Another weekend spent shamelessly rummaging through strangers’ trash! We only went to a few yard sales this weekend, owing to a late start and temperatures that could melt steel. Even so, my luck held. This is the third time in a row that I found dusty gold on foreign front lawns. Side s

After my success at last week’s yard sales, I wondered if lightning would strike twice. It did! The gods of trash blessed me even harder this time, with cheap, geeky goods that I might have expected to find at yard sales 15-20 years ago. Much of this week’s haul came from a multi-famil

We went yard sailin’ on Saturday morning, and I think I hit the jackpot. (No, that’s not the jackpot.) I don’t go to yard sales as often as I did before everyone turned into a wannabe antique dealer. These days, you can barely buy paper plates without hearing about how they’re

Remember when I went to Goodwill to find Halloween goodies? I thought it would be interesting to do the same for Christmas, so on Sunday, I went to that very same Goodwill store – the one with the stupid address that always makes my GPS explode. The results were… mixed.

Now, when you look at the above photo, and I tell you that that was barely a fourth of their Halloween “junk shelf” items, you might think that I hit the jackpot. Actually, I really needed to hunt for the goodies. Between the prices and the fact that so much of it was the same stuff yo

What should have been a routine trip home from Philly turned into an absolute nightmare, with the kind of demoralizing traffic normally reserved for setup montages during coffee commercials. This was yesterday afternoon, and as hellish at it was, the experience came with a major bright sid