As a military spouse and mother of 4 children, I've found a lot of different ways to keep sane. During deployments and times of separation, I used to get depressed. I've missed 3 wedding anniversaries, multiple birthdays, and my husband has only been around for 1 out of 4 of our childrens' births (oh, boohoo for me, right?) - well, I stopped pouting and started finding ways to get through each day! How did I do it? Online garage sale hunting!
Online garage sale hunting is merely the act of doing some weekend garage sale hunting, but from the comfort of your home and from any day of the week! It's mostly convenient for me because I don't have to leave the house with the 4 little guys (all boys, mind you). The problem for me was not being able to find garage sales nearby. I mean, on Saturdays and Sundays, plenty of people have physical garage sales, but I love browsing for used items online, and I found some really cool ways to do it, so I thought I'd share.
If you want to do a little garage sale hunting from home, and locally, there are more options than the big names like Craigslist.
1. Facebook Groups
You can find some really cool and location-based groups for "Buy, Sell, Trade" or "Online Yardsales" near your base. In fact, the majority of these Facebook groups are moderated by military wives of the actual base itself! I highly recommend using Facebook groups or pages!
2. Basewives.com
This is a fairly new community, but it seems very unique and location based. The reason I know about this community is because one of the women stationed out here with us in Hawaii owns and operates it. It's an incredibly unique way to do some online garage sale hunting from home, exclusively for military wives (my favorite part).
3. Bookoo.com
These guys are great, and have been in service for quite a while. I used them back in South Carolina, but they aren't very popular out here in Hawaii. They're like a Craigslist, but they have a very big military spouse community at some of the locations I've been at. It's not very fun to look at, but it does the job for buying or selling with others!
A few other things that keep my sanity are just being able to take an hour out of the day for myself. Some people look at me crazy and say, "An hour!?" - but yes, an hour. It works wonders! And I usually spend that hour buying an item from a garage sale, cleaning it up, and reselling it to make a little more money. Hey, mamma needs some fun money!
Ashley has been a Marine Corps spouse for some time! She has given birth to three of her four children while her husband was away. After successfully fighting for her sanity through this entertaining and challenging military lifestyle, she has decided to share her experiences and offer advice to other military moms and wives just like her!
