Our first ever garage sale at the Highgate Village community garage sale

On Saturday July 21st, we took part in Highgate Village's first community garage sale. Proceeds from the table and parking stall rentals went towards the BC Children's Hospital. We are always in need of decluttering our house so this seemed like a good chance to do it. Community garage sales seem more attractive to those who are looking for good garage sales and since Save-On Foods was hosting it, we figured they would do all the publicizing and advertising for us. We registered and got 1 table to sell our goods.

The morning of the event it rained:( The organizers decided at the last minute to move the setup from the outside parking lot next to the shopping center down to the dark underground parking. We had to setup our tables by 9:30AM because the event started at 10AM. They decided to tuck us all near the back of the parking lot maybe because we wouldn't be so intrusive(??). Very few people came by to check us out. To make matters worst, I only saw one sign that was written on the white board in a faint marker near the entrance to Save-On Foods. Most of the people shopping at Highgate Village just didn't know there was a garage sale taking place underneath. That would be my guess since there were barely anyone walking around.

When the decision was made to setup underground, a very upset vendor told the organizer that no one was going to know we were down here. The vendor tried to get the organizer to allow us to setup upstairs. He said that the weather was predicting sunshine later in the day. The organizer didn't believe it and said it didn't look that way. The organizer was wrong. Shortly after 10AM, the rain stopped and by 10:30AM the sun came out. The sun stayed out the rest of the day. We were already all setup and there was no way we were going to move. Too bad:( The garage sale ended at 2PM and it was a beautiful day when we went outside. Doh!

This was the first year Save-On Foods has hosted a community garage sale to fund-raise. They didn't really know what they were doing but they could have definitely helped out the vendors a bit more. The weather cannot be controlled obviously but they could have helped publicize the event a bit more. Where were the big signs ready to place by all the entrances to the parking lot? Where was the big sign by the hot dog stand at the top they were using to fund-raise? Where was the big banner by the Highgate Village entrance? Why the heck was it not even advertised on their website? Why were we tucked so far back in the dark in the underground parking? The underground parking area by the entrance upstairs got way more traffic than the underground parking further away. Sadly for us we were one of the tables further away:(

Having a community garage sale is a great idea. Unfortunately it wasn't well organized and it hurt both vendors and shoppers. Everything we were selling were $5 or under. I researched about garage sales beforehand to make sure I was setting prices right. Our prices were pretty much right since only one person asked for a lower price. Our main goal at the garage sale was to get rid of our things. If we could make a few dollars in the process, that would be great! This was our first garage sale so it was a bit of an adventure for us. I advertised our sale on craigslist and I tweeted often about it. That might have gotten us a few extra visitors. Things that sold well were children books, toys, and cupcakes. The cupcakes were made to lure people to our table but in the end, at least half our of profit came just from cupcakes! I heard cupcakes and bakes work wonders at garage sales and it's totally true :)

There were a ton of bargains everywhere. It would have been a bargain shopper paradise if people knew about it. We ended up buying a couple of things too:) I was actually joking with the girl next to me saying that we were "negative" since Jean-Louis walked around and bought something before we even made our first sale. There was a table selling lots of DVDs in great condition for just $1. There were also lots of books going for $0.25 to $1. There were over 20 tables and maybe 6 or more parking stalls worth of goods.

We still had an adventure and Tristan got to learn a thing or two about garage sales so there's that :) We explained to Tristan that we were playing store that day. His job was to greet people and ask them if they wanted to try some cupcakes. If someone bought something we would pass him the change and he would give it to them. Despite being in the dark underground for most of the 4 hours, Tristan was really well behaved and was even helpful. I made conversation with a lovely lady at the table next to me. She was by herself and she had a newborn with her. Tristan talked and played with the baby a bit too. To him the baby was like a live doll! So small and so adorable. If it wasn't for good company, I think the garage sale would have been very long and boring.

Most of what we didn't sell, which was maybe 70% of our stuff, ended up being dropped off at the nearby donation center at Value Village. We tested out the garage sale but that didn't work out well but at least we tried, right? Now we know. Maybe things would have been different if the weather was better or if there was more publicity. Weather is such a big factor in these events that I'm pretty sure it would have made a big difference. Unfortunately, we will never know because that was our first and probably last garage sale:(

I don't think garage sales are for us. It's not worth the organizing, time, or even baking. The table rental was $15 so when you consider that we only made $34.57. That's kind of pathetic. Lol. We did it for the experience but now that that is behind us, we don't really have any good reason to hold another garage sale. The big things can be sold on craigslist and the rest will be donated. Our biggest take away from all of this is that it is very hard to sell things, even for $0.25. We will definitely be more careful of what we buy now, especially toys and clothes.

Daiso: my favorite $2 store

This past weekend we took a skytrain field trip down to Richmond. We had no purpose going down there aside from the fact that we wanted to ride the Canada line with Tristan. The Canada line was built for the Olympics in 2010 in Vancouver and I think Jean-Louis and I have only rode it once. The skytrain on this line is what you would call your typical subway train. It's longer and wider than your typical skytrain. It's funny because every time we come back from France, the skytrain feels a bit like a toy when we're sitting inside. It's so small and narrow compared to the big trains in France. It's awesome to have skytrains in Vancouver though and Tristan LOVES riding them:)

During our long ride into Vancouver and then to Richmond, I decided that we check out an Asian-type dollar store to find some replacement kitchen slippers. Yes, I was very particular in my search! :) I figured we could find something similar to what we could get at the night market during the summer. When I googled for dollar store in Richmond, I was surprised at so many results pointing to Daiso. The more I read about it, the more excited I got :)

Those who know me, know that I love to bargain shop. I am a big sucker for good deals! From the outside, Daiso didn't really look like your typical dollar store. For starters, it was HUGE! Within about one minute of stepping in, I fell in love. It was the dollar store of dreams! :) There were so many cool things I have never seen before at a dollar store or normal store for that matter. All for a dollar or more? Really? I started in the kids and toys area, carefully browsed and took mental notes on what the inventory was like. I could see Jean-Louis laughing at me already:) Then after careful consideration, I got yet another puzzle for Tristan. Where the toys area ended was where the gift bagging area started. Oh boy! There were so many cool things. I kind of went crazy and loaded my basket with tons of cute packing paper. I'm not sure when I would use them but I'll worry about that later. Seriously, I shopped like it was my last day in Richmond or something! And the place is only a 20 minute drive away from home. I'm CRAZY.

Like with every first visit to a new store, I slowly browsed and tried to look at everything. Jean-Louis actually took Tristan out and walked around the mall since Tristan lost interest in the store pretty quickly. I think Tristan was hungry for lunch though. I figured I had plenty of time to shop. According to Jean-Louis, I was in the store for over one hour! The store was so massive, I actually started to feel a bit ill near the end. Again, I can hear Jean-Louis teasing and laughing at me. I also had to pee a lot. Ha, there's the laughter again! To conclude, I didn't get to see everything and ended up just paying for what I had so far and promised myself I would come back another day. Who's terrible idea was it to slowly browse and shop in there anyway? Right. It was me :( Now I find out that they have over 50000 types of products in the Richmond Daiso store. 50000!!

We got slippers plus much, much more!

I shopped for an hour but I did good. I got all this cool stuff but it ended up being a lot more than I had originally thought. When things were not marked with a price, it would automatically ring in as $2. Not $1. That pretty much doubled what I thought I spent. Oops. However, most of the stuff I got cannot be purchased elsewhere so it was still a big win for me :) Dollarama in Station Square at Metrotown is still my favorite dollar store but Daiso is now my favorite $2 store!

Insulated water bottle bag for $2!

Discovering new coffee and tea stops in Vancouver

During the winter months, Jean-Louis takes the bus to work instead of his bike. As an added bonus to owning a monthly bus pass, every Sunday we can use it as a family pass. Since the weekend is zoneless and you can use any zone pass to travel anywhere, we sometimes head downtown just for the skytrain ride and walk around. It only takes 23 minutes to get down there on the skytrain and Tristan loves riding it.

A few weeks ago, we skytrained downtown and tried Bonchaz. We love trying new coffee shops, especially when they are in trendy neighborhoods. Bonchaz is a bakery cafe that serves bread and caters for lunches. They have menu items for vegans and vegetarians and serve organic coffee. The prices are very good as well. Their bonchaz look like danishes but are very similar in taste to brioches. We ordered a vegan sandwich, mushroom soup, and coffees when we visited and were quite pleased. I also grabbed a bag of ciabatta bread to make paninis at home. If I were working downtown, this would be the kind of place I would love to have lunch at. 

 

This past weekend, we tried a tea house tucked away in gastown called Après-midi Premium Teahouse. The place was a lot fancier than I had imagined but I loved the atmosphere of it. It had nice seating areas on the ground floor where you could look out of big windows. The place and location had a very European feel to it. They had cool stools made out of logs and interesting painting on the wall. The eating area was quite separate from the counter and tea purchasing area, which was quite nice. The staff were extremely helpful and friendly. I spent a long time just sniffing all their lovely teas in their tea tower. After being rushed many times by Tristan, I ended up buying 50 grams of a white tea called "One Night in Paris" and 50 grams of a black tea called "Candied Almond" based on their smells alone. To drink, I ordered masala chai tea latte with almond milk and a lavender eary grey latte, all sweetened with agave syrup. They were both very good, especially the chai latte. We also had a pain au chocolate and that tasted great also:) I was not disappointed at all about this place!

Jean-Louis and I love going for coffee and tea. We are fond of Starbucks but are very open to try other places as well. Discovering great coffee and tea shops makes me happy:) The best part is that we got to try all these places out because of group coupon sites such as Groupon and Living Social. We would have never known about them otherwise.

Saving big bucks on a Hawaiian vacation

Yes, I'm frugal. Since not working full time and having Tristan in daycare, I have become even more frugal. Hard to imagine some times. I am a bit of a coupon junkie now and I have the talent of smelling a good deal :)

We went to Hawaii for eight days: five in Oahu and three in Kauai. We did a lot of things and we had a blast! The accommodations were a bit disappointing but we didn't have a budget to stay at the Sheraton! Overall, we are pleased with how things went and would totally do it all over again.

The following are some of the ways we saved BIG bucks on our Hawaiian vacation.

Cheap flight:
We decided to go to Hawaii when I spotted a great deal on WestJet. Yes, I monitor a few sites every now and then for deals :P $139 one way directly from Vancouver to Honolulu for October dates. Even though this was Tristan's first paid flight, we only paid around $1000 for all three of us to fly there and back :)

Island hop savings:
If you book a flight from Vancouver to Kauai, you will most likely go through Honolulu and you would pay big bucks for it. There are few direct flights and they only operate seasonal. You may also have to change planes on the way there. $1000 round trip per person would not be unrealistic. We flew to Oahu and then booked a separate flight directly through Hawaiian Airlines to go to Kauai. If you book through Expedia or another third party, it will also cost you more. I booked our tickets 3-4 months in advance, which was also cheaper. It turned out that the airline raised their check-in luggage fee in August 2011 from $10 for the first piece to $17. Since we purchased our tickets before August, we were able to pay just the $10 fee. Lucky! I booked the flight and car together as a package on Hawaiian Airlines and that was cheaper than purchasing them separately. I also made it so that we had the car rental for exactly three days and that we would be at the airport in time for our flight out of Honolulu back to Vancouver so we wouldn't have to go back into town. Just like WestJet, we had all these costs taken care of before our vacation so we didn't have to worry about paying for everything at once :)

Groupon Honolulu:
Knowing that were were heading to Hawaii, I monitored the Groupon site for deals every now and then and were able to snatch four Groupons. One of them was for our hotel stay. Even though the hotel was a bit disappointing, it wasn't such a big deal since we already saved around 49% on our stay. We paid $399 for 5 nights in Waikiki, which included breakfast, Internet, and parking. You have to be a bit careful with Groupon. When I looked on our hotel website, they were also offering a deal so you really only save maybe 25%. Two other Groupons we had saved us $40 on food. The last Groupon we couldn't redeem since the business closed down but Groupon refunded us for that :)

Entertainment coupon book:
Entertainment coupon books are good until November 1st. We traveled in the middle of October. In July, all entertainment books for all cities were just $5, plus $1 for shipping. You can buy Entertainment books for places you are going to visit! We bought the one for Hawaii. 80% of the book were coupons for Oahu. We used the coupon for all our activities on Oahu, which were basically buy 1 get 1 free. We also used a ice cream coupon at the Dole Plantation and one for Senor Frog. We saved at least $247!!! Even if we bought the Hawaii Entertainment book at its regular price of $35, we would have still saved big.

Coupons from free tourist pamphlets and guides:
We checked these out for maps and activities to do. We managed to use a few of them and saved a few bucks. Every little bit counts, right?

Choosing the right activities for under 3 year old:
Besides the flight and car seat rental, we did not pay anything extra for Tristan to come along with us. We bought more food but he didn't eat much anyway. We only considered activities that were free for under 3 year old :)

Knowing where to shop and eat:
We are not new to Hawaii so we sort of knew where to shop. I also did a bit of research and I had a better idea of what was out there. For souvenirs and food, nothing beats Walmart. For instance, at the General Whalers Store, water is $1.49 for 2 liters. The same water is $0.79 at Walmart. A&B Stores are okay, if there is no Walmart near you. Costco may be better but we have no Costco card. Chinatown has the best prices for produce but it was kind of far to walk to.

We love Quicksilver and Roxy but they are sort of expensive. We shopped at Macy's and looked at the clearance sections for these brands and were able to snatch a few things that we liked :) We also shopped at Ross.

For eating out, I did research beforehand and found a bunch of local places that were good and cheap to eat at. One of those places was Rainbow Drive In. Jean-Louis found a place on Flickr called Wailana Coffee House. We bought a kid's lunch with drink included for Tristan for just $2.25. OMG. They were all great finds!

Book from home and buy your activities online:
I called and booked many of our activities from home before we flew. As a result, we didn't have to use the hotel phone at all and we saved a few bucks. For the luau on Kauai, I booked online to save $20. Again, every bit helps!

If you have saving tips for traveling to Hawaii, feel free to enter them in the comments section ;)

Save-On Foods baby program

If you are expecting, know someone who is, or just had a baby, go and join the Save-On Foods baby program. We just received some coupons from them the other day. Coupons are good for a year and some are not even baby related. For examples, we have one for Western Family raisin bread for $1.49, first 2. They are normally $2.99 I think. Daddy is going to like that one :)

To join the baby program, go in the store to get a form, fill it out, and in case they ask for it, bring your baby bracelet from the hospital or birth certificate and you'll receive their baby bag. We didn't have to show anything; the form was enough. The bag contained sample baby products such as diaper rash cream, wet wipes, disposable nursing pads, wash/lotion, and Potty training dvd. There was also 1 newborn diaper that was good for up to 9 lbs. All this is free so if you shop from Save-Ons, go out and get it!