Part I
If you are like the average American, then chances are that you have some things lying around. Or, you know – EVERYWHERE. With Spring Fever coming on, it’s no surprise when the urge to start purging some of our winter nests hits hard. Especially seeing as this far north, we spend a good amount of time looking at those things while the weather is too cold to really do anything about it.
Being no stranger to this urge myself, I really set a goal this year to get rid of anything that wasn’t nailed down. While the end result was still quite a bit of clutter (with us both having parents that downsized, and taking over my family home – there’s a bit!), I was very satisfied with how much I was able to put to good use – either by selling or giving to those who truly needed it. As always, I thought I would share my findings with you.
My strategy
- Sell what we didn’t need that we could actually make money on. *Except baby items*
- Donate everything else that was in good condition. All baby items specifically got donated. Instead of sold, because there will always be a need for those and I’d hate to think of a baby doing without.
- Recycle or reuse what was left.
- Finally, throw out the remainder.
Selling:
There are the generic ways that we all know about for selling items. There’s eBay, Craigslist, apps like Let It Go, or the weather dependent option of garage sale.
Here are some other specific ways you can sell items:
- Clothing:
- ThredUp – an app that sends you a bag. All you do is fill it with your freshly cleaned clothes in good condition, and drop it off to be mailed out. Easy Peasy! They pay you for them and sell the items themselves, or you can get credit towards other items on their site.
- Consignment Stores (Plato’s Closet, Style Encore, etc.)
- Entertainment
- Books
SellBackYourBook.com is a website and an app that is used to scan the book label, and then will determines how much the company is willing to pay for the book. Not every book is going to make the cut – only decent condition, and not all titles.
- Cd’s, DVD’s, Phones, Tablets, Game Consoles
DeCluttr is an app that allows you to scan your items on your phone. It will then tell you if it wants to buy them or not, and the price they will pay. A printer label is emailed to you to print out. Just box your items up and drop them off at fedEx. You can also sell books on Decluttr, and they are usually willing to take the labels that SellYourBooksOnline doesn’t want.
- Books
- Toys
Once Upon a Child is located on Route 434 in Vestal. They will pay you for gently used toys. I had 2 tricks to this to make it successful. - First: organize what we had. If the toys a). Didn’t go into a category, or b). Didn’t get played with any more c). Wouldn’t be missed, then they got donated while my oldest son was in school.
- Second: Let your child pick a few items he no longer wants to play with. Let him get the money for turning his toys in. If he decides to use that money buying more toys, make sure they fit into the criteria for things to keep.
Those tips and tricks helped me get through the majority of my clutter. Clothes that had never been worn, movies that had never been watched – what good was any of this doing me, except making me claustrophobic in my own house? I have quite a big book collection, so I made about $30 off of books. You won't make a ton, but a dollar here and there adds up. Entertainment items made me the most at about $60. Clothing items did well at $50. Toys made my son $18. All in all, we made $158 for cleaning out unwanted items!
Your turn – How do you plan on making your clutter work for you?
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