Garage Sale Saturday: Lite Brites, Cassette Tapes, and the $10 Bike That Got Away
“Did you know? $25,000.”
Dana Wilkey said this about a pair of sunglasses on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and I think about it more than I should. Not because I have $25,000 sunglasses. But because I understand, on a spiritual level, the impulse to announce the value of something you acquired.
This weekend I found a Lite Brite at a garage sale for $3.
Did you know? $3.
I am not Dana Wilkey. But I am a woman who knows a deal when she sees one and I will not be apologizing for the pride I feel about it.
The Garage Sale Report
This Saturday we hit garage sales the way some people hit brunch — with intention, with a list, and with the full understanding that what you find is what you find and you cannot control the inventory.
Here is the full haul:
The Lite Brite — $3
For anyone under 35 — a Lite Brite is a toy from the 80s and 90s that involves pushing colored pegs through black paper into a light box to create glowing pictures. It is genuinely one of the most satisfying toys ever invented and I say this as someone who grew up with one and felt genuine joy finding it at a garage sale thirty years later.
My son has not experienced the Lite Brite yet. We are saving it for screen free time — which is happening today at a time I have not yet determined because I am the parent and that is my right.
The anticipation is part of the experience. He just doesn’t know it yet.
Cassette Tapes and VHS Tapes
My husband runs an eBay store — yes, we are that household, and yes it is a legitimate side hustle that I fully support — and cassette tapes and VHS tapes are exactly the kind of thing that moves on eBay to the right buyer.
Nostalgia has a market. We have found it. We are serving it one garage sale at a time.
The One That Got Away
I need to talk about the bike.
There was a bike at a garage sale this weekend. A children’s bike. Twenty four inch — exactly the size my son needs. In good condition.
Ten dollars.
TEN DOLLARS.
Here is the problem: last weekend I bought my son a bike off Facebook Marketplace for $70. A perfectly good bike. A bike he loves. A bike that retail would cost approximately $150, which means I saved $80 and felt excellent about it at the time.
And then I saw the $10 bike.
I stood there doing the math in real time. I saved $80 buying off Marketplace last weekend. I could have saved $140 if I had waited one more week. The $10 bike was RIGHT THERE and it belonged to a version of my life where I had simply been more patient.
It wasn’t Dana Wilkey’s $25,000 sunglasses. But perhaps — perhaps — I should have waited for garage sale season to fully begin before pulling the trigger on Facebook Marketplace.
This is the risk of the thrift life. Sometimes the deal finds you. Sometimes it finds you one week too late and you have to stand next to a $10 bike with complicated feelings while your son rides his $70 one perfectly happily at home.
He does not know about the $10 bike. We are keeping it that way.
The 2026 World Cup is coming and I have decided my family needs soccer shirts.
Specifically — vintage or secondhand soccer shirts, because have you seen what they charge for those retail? The answer is too much. The answer is always too much.
I went to Depop with hope in my heart and a mission in my soul.
Depop, for the uninitiated, is a resale app where people sell secondhand and vintage clothing. It is excellent. It has a good selection of men’s and kids soccer apparel for around $5-$15 which is genuinely reasonable.
Women’s soccer shirts however? The search continues. I came up empty handed this weekend and I am not ready to give up.
If anyone has a lead on a secondhand women’s soccer shirt for the World Cup please report to the comments immediately. This is urgent. This is a matter of national importance. This is my version of a $25,000 pair of sunglasses and I will find it at a garage sale if it takes me all summer.
Gizmo did not attend the garage sales. She was home managing the household in our absence. She did not find any deals but she also did not spend $70 on a bike one week before a $10 one appeared so honestly she may be the smartest one in this family.
