Garage Sales Unhinged

Julie and Jake celebrate the 100th episode and season 5 finale of Garage Sales Unhinged, reflecting on their podcast and sharing updates. Jake revisits a $10 online-auction art purchase. Julie updates on the Whatnot app and new details of the Painted Tree vendor mall collapse. They are taking a few weeks away from the microphones but will be back for season 6.

Julie recounts overdoing workouts and playing indoor pickleball for hours, leaving her sore and joking about “pickleball elbow,” while discussing how pickleball differs from tennis. The episode’s main story follows Julie spotting a restaurant liquidation in Denton, Texas, where everything was half-price; she haggles and buys two patio umbrellas. Needing stands, she attempts a DIY planter-and-PVC s...

Hosts Julie and Jake discuss recent book reads, including Jake finishing “Ultramarine” by Marie NDiaye, about a female freight-ship captain and a mysterious extra crew member after a swim stop. Julie describes her attempt to sell used books online, noting Amazon’s origins as a bookseller and recalling textbook resale frustrations from her college days. She struggled setting up Amazon Seller Centra...

Julie and Jake discuss capsule wardrobes. Julie explains that a capsule wardrobe focuses on a small set of staple, mix-and-match pieces to reduce closet overwhelm, comparing too many clothing options to the oversized Cheesecake Factory menu. She shares suggested basics for men and women—high-quality neutral items like a white T-shirt (or other neutrals), a white button-down, dark jeans without hol...

Jake shares his experience thrifting movie and TV items to help decorate his daughter's new college apartment. Julie starts off the episode with a warning: she's running on fume so watch out! She then recalls getting a guy friend to pay for a date so she could see Black Hawk Down, later naming Scary Movie as an uncomfortable theater experience with church friends. Jake says his worst theat...

Hosts Julie and Jake riff on PBS’s UK show “Celebrity Antiques Road Trip,” where celebrity teams shop secondhand, haggle, and auction items to see who profits most. Julie detours into a London New Year’s trip: VIP parade seating with dignitaries, unlimited food trucks (notably cookies and champagne), and a boutique hotel bath with a TV showing “The Great British Bake Off”. The conversation returns...

Julie and Jake discuss recent estate-sale experiences. Jake attends a presale at the property behind his home, where an out-of-state heir hires an estate-sale company; with few shoppers, Jake photographs rooms to shop on behalf of Julie and their mother, creating a frantic, competitive remote-buying process. Julie recounts another estate sale in an affluent neighborhood on the 50%-off final day, d...

Julie and Jake banter about art, including nudity in French films and public arts funding, then shift to what makes art “nice,” emphasizing subjectivity, decor, sentiment, and stories behind pieces. Julie describes art in her home ranging from big-box decor to a honeymoon vase, an Instagram print, a signed and numbered Jacques Pépin piece sold to support his cooking school, a dentist teeth model s...

Hosts Julie and Jake of “Garage Sales Unhinged” share a gossipy story about Painted Tree, a vendor-mall operator where vendors rented booth space while store employees handled sales for a cut. After the company was sold to new ownership in September 2025, vendors and local managers were abruptly notified around April 12, 2026 that all stores were shutting down immediately, with some vendors given...

Julie explains a Wall Street Journal article about pawn shop chains serving the K-shaped economy, where higher-income consumers remain comfortable while lower-income individuals struggle with essentials. Jake and Julie then discuss how pawn shops buy and resell luxury goods like Hermès Birkin bags and how pawn loans work, including typical loan sizes, collateral value offered (about 10–60%), and a...

Julie and Jake riff on buying restaurant polos at Goodwill to sneak into places like Applebee’s for appetizers, noting the security issues of employee apparel being resold. Jake discusses regularly checking an online auction site where he buys cheap essentials like unopened toilet paper, alongside impractical temptations like samurai swords, prompting a conversation about self-awareness and why pe...

Hosts Julie and Jake discuss unexpected “extras” found in secondhand purchases, focusing on books with notes in the margins (“marginalia”). Julie shares a Nashville-area news story about a woman who bought a suitcase at a yard sale for $5–$10 and later found jewelry inside—an engagement ring soldered to a wedding ring, David Yurman pieces, and more—possibly worth tens of thousands of dollars. They...

Hosts Julie and Jake, co-hosts of Garage Sales Unhinged, chat about their weekends: Julie attended a duo birthday/pool party and Jake, who usually sticks to online auctions, detours to a nearby first-day estate sale. They discuss some of the estate sale items, including a tall Art Nouveau-style floor vase, an immaculate baby grand piano, elephant figurines, an electric organ, and a butter-colored...

Hosts Julie and Jake introduce “Garage Sales Unhinged” and banter about music’s effect on shopping behavior and how garage, yard, and estate sale hosts can use it to shape atmosphere and encourage buying. Julie cites research showing slower-tempo music increased sales by 38% by making shoppers slow down and linger, and shares that 59% of younger customers stay longer in stores when they enjoy the...

Julie and Jake discuss the World’s Longest Garage Sale, a nearly 700-mile event through Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, happening August 6–9. Julie recounts an article about a vendor preparing for the sale who, while sorting long-stored boxes, got derailed by “side quests,” found help from neighbors, and faced rain that reduced traffic. The hosts reflect on clutter, movi...

Podcast hosts Julie and Jake describe a field report from Texoma Trade Days, held at a run-down, mostly abandoned “ghost mall” with an eerie backrooms vibe. They recount meeting a wide variety of vendors—from casual yard-sale style setups to curated booths—and talking with longtime resellers and people who transitioned from corporate careers, emphasizing how secondhand markets help reconnect with...

Julie shares a print newspaper she found in Colorado: The Mountain States Collector, covering antiques and the secondhand market. She highlights an article by DeDe Horan on unusual postcard categories collectors seek (e.g., stilts, rolling pins, hot dogs, lawn mowers, tarpon fish) and encourages subscribing and using it as a local events resource. The Mountain States Collector online = https://mou...

Julie and Jake discuss a real yard-sale dilemma: what to do when you urgently need the bathroom while shopping at someone’s home. Jake says he’d leave to find a nearby public restroom rather than ask the homeowner. Julie describes planning ahead by using restrooms between stops, notes differences for women, mentions adult briefs as an option, and recommends Home Depot and Lowe’s for cleaner bathro...

Jake brings up an Edmonton man running a garage sale for three consecutive months that neighbors call an eyesore and are complaining about, prompting a discussion of rules around sale duration and permits. Julie explains that in Texas, even without municipal permitting, state law limits homeowners to no more than three sales in a 12-month cycle or they may be treated as a business, and notes a wee...

Julie tells Jake about spotting a sign for five coordinated garage sales on a nearby cul-de-sac and visiting three of them, meeting neighbors and hearing about a massive ornate hutch left by previous owners. For $8 total, she buys a hand-painted piggy bank, an unopened 500-piece Dowdle downtown Nashville puzzle, the book “My Best Friend’s Exorcism”, and three half-moon wicker wall decor pieces to...

Julie announces the season four finale of “Garage Sales Unhinged,” noting she and Jake will take a few weeks off and return in May. Julie recaps how the podcast was started and wanted a show celebrating the secondhand sales market. The episode focuses on “The PriceMaster,” a viral Denton, Texas performance-art yard sale from about 25 years ago in which a costumed “mystic” amplified with reverb sho...

Julie shares that National Garage Sale Day is observed on the second Saturday in August (August 8, 2026), sometimes allowing permit-free sales in certain municipalities and encouraging coordinated neighborhood sales. Julie explains it began in 2001, created by C. Daniel Rhodes of Alabama, who also founded other unofficial holidays, and notes that people can check local rules for permit waivers and...

Julie and Jake chat about an online auction site (TexasOnlineAuctionHouse.com), how bidding works (waiting until near closing and the timer resetting), and the logistics of local pickup. They describe the mix of lots—contractor supplies, storage-unit finds, estate sales—and mention preview (“purview”) hours. Julie shares she’s watching/bidding on a mini projector for mural tracing, a telescope kit...

Hosts Julie and Jake discuss “arbitrage” as it applies to reselling items from estate sales, thrift stores, and garage sales for profit. Julie shares research from Reddit suggesting many part-time resellers average about $12,000 a year, while experienced sellers with a following can reach six figures, but only after building systems and community. They break down why profits are less straightforwa...

Hosts Julie and Jake discuss an ethical question: what to do when you find items in your possession that belong to someone else and might have resale or emotional value. Jake reveals he has Julie’s vintage metal Disney lunchbox from elementary school, complete with her name on it, displayed in his house; they discuss whether value changes the obligation to return it. Julie shares similar situation...