I went to more than 20 yard sales last weekend

“40+ Yard Sales!” the advertisement in the local paper boasted of the community yard sale last weekend. The idea was that everyone in the neighborhood where we own a vacation home would have yard sales on the same day. Dozens of households registered to be on the map of sales. The organizers placed the ad promoting the big day and made official signs pointing the way.

A part of me was tempted to host our own sale, but we didn’t really have enough stuff to warrant one. Plus, the secondhand shopping sounded fun. So, when the day came, we put a handful of items on a tarp in the front yard with a “free” sign hung from the tree nearby and headed out to cruise the sales.

It was a bluebird day, and the neighborhood yard sale began as an enjoyable morning. Something about the community-wide aspect of the day made strangers more chatty. We ran into people we knew. We chuckled about everyone cleaning out the closets and garages. But as the morning wore on and we lost count of how many yard sales we’d visited, it began to make me melancholy.

Combing through people’s castoffs in yard after yard began to weigh on my mind. There was something about going to so many sales so close together that brought all of the stuff into sharp focus. Certain items appeared over and over again: specialty glassware, board games, kid gear, toys, water bottles, books, CDs, DVDs.

There were some categories of things that were so wildly abundant and specific, they begged for a societal rethink. Children’s lifevests, for example, stood out because every family seemed to have ones to give away. I regretted the many new lifevests I’ve purchased as my son has grown. ‘Why aren’t we organizing some kind of kid life vest exchange instead of buying new ones every two summers?’ I wondered to myself.

Saddest of all was a small boat. When my son saw a “free” sign on a sailboat his eyes nearly popped out of his head. We gently explained there was a reason this boat was being offered for free. (It had been rotting in someone’s yard for years–decades maybe.) Looking closer my son could see what we meant. If its owner had given it away earlier it could have made a kid’s dreams come true. Now it was no longer sea-worthy and a project no one wanted to take on.

Perhaps as a result of the sadness of too much stuff, we didn’t end up buying much. In fact, when I went home I found myself scanning the room for more things we could let go of. The more I thought about the experience of visiting all these yard sales, I realized there might be some decluttering lessons for the rest of us.

Here’s what I learned from visiting dozens of yard sales: