Cutting Costs: Selling "Dust Collectors"

So for the past few months, Rich and I have been going through all of things and putting them in categories of Keep, Trash, Donate and Sell. Since we turned our storage room into a bathroom and lost our storage in the spare bedroom, we were running low on places to put our things. Since it was nice out, we left the car out of the garage and used the extra space to keep our donate and sell items. We were trying to make one trip for each.

It's amazing how much stuff you can accumulate and how much stuff goes unused. We had hundreds of CDs that we never listened to anymore. Countless DVDs we never watched anymore. Several TV box-sets that we'd never view again. And kid's toys...there's always an endless supply of those here.

We took our CDs and DVDs to a chain that gives cash for them. We probably had a Rubbermaid container full. For thirty minutes of our time waiting, we were given $390! We still had another half of a container that they didn't take that they said to bring back at a later time and they might need them then. They just had too many copies right now.

Next, we took a few of Nathan's toys that he'd outgrown or wasn't interested in to a children's place that gives cash for used items. We had to wait about 20 minutes and they gave us $31 for the few items we brought in!

In under an hour's time of waiting, we made $421! And this is on junk that was just sitting around collecting dust! We plan on taking the rest of the CDs/DVDs back at a later time and will probably end up with close to $500 by the time we are done. What I love is, we didn't have to spend an entire weekend going through a garage sale, where we probably wouldn't have even made half that amount.

We plan on using the extra cash for some last minute stockpiling before the baby comes, a little cash on hand for a few pizza orders on those days we are struggling with all the newness of two kids and the rest...goes straight to bills!!

If you have items like these that are just sitting around collecting dust, consider finding a CD/Game shop and/or Children's store that will buy your items for cash. You might be surprised how much you end up making!! If you have lots of books, there are Bookstores that buy them, too. Another option is to do a Google search for "Sold It on eBay" stores in your area where you can drop off your stuff and they will sell it for you. You'll only end up with about 60% or so of the sale but 60% is better than clutter!

Just be truthful to yourself. Do you really listen to all those CDs? Do you really need ALL those game systems? Are you ever REALLY going to watch those movies again? And does your kid REALLY need all those toys? Your clutter could turn into a nice hunk of change that might put you that much closer to becoming FREE of debt!