Wednesday, October 14, 2009

How To Bring In A Few Hundred Dollars A Year From Your Junk

I'm not a big clean freak. On any given occasion you'll find a light layer of dust on almost every surface of my house and maybe a hairball or two in the corners. BUT clutter is a big one for me so I'm constantly getting rid of excess stuff. If my house is tidy and in order, I can relax. But being the type of person who likes to squeeze every bit of value out of our food as well as our belongings, I usually find a way to get some cash for our no longer wanted items. So my clutter flow chart looks something like this....


  • E-bay for small items
  • Craigslist for large items
  • Consignments stores for clothing
  • and if all else fails....donate.

I probably make about $500 a year just listing our unwanted stuff on e-bay or craigslist. Things like unused homeschool books, out grown toys, kitchen wares, old pieces of furniture, replaced appliances and outdated electronics. Things that would have otherwise cluttered up my house.

It's true that one man's junk is another man's treasure.

So if you're interested in learning how to E-bay, I recommend THIS book to get you started. Just think what you could do with a tidy house a few hundred bucks in your back pocket.

5 comments:

Becca said...

Do you better with clothes on Ebay or consignment stores? At the children's consignment store here, you only make 40% of what your items sell for. I Ebay a lot (only have bought lightly used baby clothes- too expensive to buy new ones and it makes no difference to the baby!). For the stuff I absolutely can't sell on Ebay or in consignment stores (outdated, small stain, etc.) I have a small garage sale.

Felicia said...

I love craigslist. I made all the kids summer fun money (trips and etc) off of there this last year.
When all else fails I hit up the local freecycle network on yahoo.

Gayle said...

If you have brand name kids clothes they do all right on ebay. But most of the time clothes aren't worth the effort.

Tara K said...

My husband returns from Iraq the first part of next year and we're going to be doing a MAJOR clean out, as we are moving in conjunction with his return. This would be a GREAT way to pay off some of our old debt.

Kim said...

I buy and sell used stuff all the time to resell. I sell on ebay and Craigslist. I usually just try to sell most stuff on craigslist because you don't have to deal the the fees. Although some things are just way better on Ebay, in my opinion..clothes aren't usually one of them.