Mountain of clothes shrinks to hill in city's bargain hunt

Colourful artwork promoting the Classifieds.

TWO glorious two days must go down in haggling history for Redland City bargain hunters  − courtesy of the Bulletin Classifieds.
Last weekend the new Bulletin, continuing the tradition of the two papers it represents, delivered a memorable line-up of notices that garage sale and market addicts could not afford to miss.
Readers scarcely had time to top up their cash reserves as they trod the greasy floors and strolled the market aisles.

THE big headliner, of course, was the Monster Drought Relief Garage Sale, a joint project of the city's Rotary clubs and this newspaper's publisher, Fairfax Media, but the action continued with a feast of special buy-sell events, all supporting good causes.
Cleveland Baptist Church, Bloomfield St, again held its Saturday market, Wellington Point Trinity Uniting Church chimed in with a carboot sale and Birkdale South Children's Centre gamely scheduled twilight markets during a cold snap, apparently knowing a good bargain is the best winter warm-up.

THIS bargain hunter was press-ganged to the other side of the tressle to help a family member who rounded up all the unused clothing of the females in the clan for a market stall.
Such a clean-out of the wardrobes and cupboards seems a good way to free up storage space and ease the conscience over previous bad purchasing decisions, as many items still had the original price tags.
'Team Clean-out' opted for simplicity, piling everything onto a table, providing old supermarket bags with a sign offering, “Fill a bag, $10”, and reducing the price every few hours as the best items were sold and the clothing mountain shrank to a hill.
It is unknown at time of writing whether the distribution of the earnings needs to go before the court as the accounting seemed a bit loose.

ONE advantage of selling at markets or carboot sales is that vendors don't need to fear a procession of strangers at their homes − which worries many people.
Such events also promise to attract browsers and perhaps lift the sales rate.
However, the convenience of the garage sale, without the hassles of packing, carrying, parking, unpacking and cleaning up at a remote site, will always be a plus. Nevertheless, serious planning is always necessary.

THE Bulletin Classifieds are the definitive guide for Redland City bargain hunters.
It's just so easy to get the street names off the printed page, punch them into the GPS or check the directory maps and merrily cruise the sales each Saturday.
The listings also feature at www.redlandcitybulletin.com.au for those who prefer a paperless guide.
Don't forget − the launch of the new Wednesday Bulletin has meant an important change in timing for placement of garage sale notices. See the notice in this edition.