Description:
Attending yard sales is a great way for large families to put together a good collection of toys, books and even extra drinking glasses. Keep a jar in wintertime where everyone can add all the spare change they find, and then, no matter who contributed most, you can divide it up come sale season. Or, but this is trickier, you can plan what each person would most like to concentrate on finding, for example, books, or Hot Wheels, and then just decide you'll concentrate on finding those items even if one person ends up with more. Of course, if anyone sees something they or the whole family could not stand to live without, a consensus could be made.

Materials:
a jar for collecting change, then:



a wish list for each person



the newspaper



a map



perhaps a box or bag in the car for each person

Other comments or suggestions:
Sometimes it's ok, even prudent to have only half the crew go up the drive at a time, depending on the number in your family and their ages. Also, a toddler or pre-schooler can be geared toward finding one special item per trip, rather than expect to get something at every house.

We always try to buy from kids selling lemonade or Kool-aid because we know they are working toward something just like we did. And we usually do about 3 sale days each summer.