It had been years since I’d been to a car boot sale. After doing a stall to sell some of my children’s toys when they were younger, the 5am get-up and requests to sell items worth pounds for a pittance was not something I was keen to repeat in a hurry.
But there’s one car boot sale that’s booming right now and you don’t need to be up at the crack of dawn to experience it.
As well as the usual Sundays, Bolton Car Boot Sale now takes place each Wednesday, open to sellers from 10am and buyers from 11am. Parking is a quid, or £3 if you want to get there early.
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It was just after 11am when I arrived – as a customer this time – at the site outside the Bolton Wanderers stadium in Horwich. The place was already heaving, with row upon row of sellers and hundreds of shoppers there to scout out the bargains.
I’m pretty sure that no matter what you had in mind to buy, this place would have it.
There was everything from clothing – ‘all ladies clothes 50p’ shouted one seller – to trainers, toys, tools, toilet rolls (£6 for a pack of 36 in case you’re wondering), plants, computer games and everything in between. Someone was even selling wheelchairs, for a bargain £30 each.
One little boy looked made up with the tub of mini cars his mum had snapped up, insisting on holding the entire box while being pushed along in his trolley. And it’s places like this where it’s possible to find the toys favoured by your child that are sometimes no longer available in the shops.
Another buyer was having a good root through a box of plates, probably in the hope of finding some precious pottery that might make them a pretty penny.
But the biggest queue was to see ‘the meat man’, who is there with his big blue Nationwide Meats truck every Wednesday and Sunday and is clearly doing a roaring trade.
He’s quite vocal on the microphone, which is good as you get to hear what deals he’s got. A guy in front of me bought ‘£80 worth of tomahawk steaks’ for £30 and got a roll of beef thrown in for good measure. Another got minty lamb, ribs and chicken for £20.
I ended up with a ‘plenty for £20’ deal too. After initially asking for just some steaks, before I knew it, I was handing over 20 quid for a bag containing 770g of peppered steaks, 2.7kg of jumbo sausages and 3kg of chicken drumsticks – with no idea where I was going to store it all.
There are worse problems to have though – and it turned out that after portioning it out, I was just about able to squeeze it into the freezer.
As I waddled back to my car carrying the heavy bag, one lady was on the phone telling someone ‘the meat man’s here’. Even the car boot bosses put a message on the Facebook page last week saying: “So many people asking. Yes yes the meat man will be here every Wednesday and Sunday.”
Who knew a midweek car boot sale would be so popular. But in the midst of a cost of living crisis, who wouldn’t want the opportunity to save a few quid – and pick up some bargain sausages while they’re at it!
The car boot is on the car park of the stadium, in Burden Way, just next to Middlebrook Retail and Leisure Park. It’s operated on Sundays since 2016 and now attracts up to 400 sellers a week. The Wednesday car boot started four weeks ago and is already attracting up to 200 sellers.
On Wednesdays, it’s £10 to sell from any car or van, with sellers there from 10am and buyers from 11am. On Sundays, it costs £14 for a car and £20 for a van, with sellers there from 5.30am and buyers from 7am. You don’t need to book and can just turn up. Find out more and check for updates on the Facebook page here.