Last updated June 20, 2023
Spring is officially here and with the brighter weather the annual Spring Clean beckons. It’s well known that as a nation of hoarders, the Average American wears only a third of their wardrobe and sits on multiple unused electronics with no real intention of clearing them out. Indeed, we reported not long ago that most of us in the US have two unused phones lying around in drawers at home, and 10% of us are holding onto five or more old devices!
We naturally also collect more items over the winter period. Indeed 11 million of us suffer from the Winter Blues and are not as naturally motivated with the colder climates to keep things as well ordered and tidy
A tidy house apparently equates to a tidy mind, so to kick the winter excesses into touch we have to face up to the inevitable annual spring clean & declutter! For a lot of us, this sounds like a lot of hassle and hard work for very little incentive. But what if selling your old stuff could make you some extra cash?
Rather than the traditional Yard Sale, let’s explore some sites online, where at the touch of a button you can declutter your home and put some extra money back in your bank account
6 Ways to Make Money from Your Old Stuff
1. Sell Your Old Clothes
One of the key areas that usually requires a declutter is your closet! As summer approaches we need to “get rid” of the old winter wardrobe to make a little space for the new season!
One of the US’s largest online stores for selling clothes is TredUp. The business position themselves and the largest ‘online consignment store’. Ladies and children’s clothing, handbags and shoes can be traded on this site. It’s a very simple service. Each user fills a ‘Clean Out’ bag and then can send the items into the company free of charge. They then value the goods and typically pay around 80% of the value. If there is no value the item can be donated to charity. They have a neat calculator for each user to estimate roughly what they may make for the item prior to sending them in
There are other sites that may work better for you and get you more money depending on the type of item you are selling. Poshmark, is a good example and focuses on selling higher end goods like designer bags and clothing
It would be rude to forget the gents, WellSuited is a consignment store that targets just men who want to sell their old clothes and like it’s sister company My Sister’s Closet, focusses on more upmarket clothing, shoes and accessories
Vinted.com is also a winner if you have a few designer bags and nice clothes kicking around that you would like to sell for a good price. Vinted have recently also moved into entry price clothes, shoes and handbags for men, women and kids. For pure ease for the ‘family declutter’ Vinted are one of our favourite sites to use to sell clothes
2. Sell Your Old Books
We all love a book and research indicates that books can actually be some of the most difficult things to get rid of as part of a Spring Clean because of our emotional connection to a particular story. According to a popular research study in the ‘Journel of Consumer Psychology’ you may hold onto an item like this as it is associated with self worth.
If you can pryze yourself from your book collection that is bound to be gathering dust, then take a look at BookScouter. BookScouter is a great comparison site that allows books to be valued online and offers prices from as many as 40 vendors using a really neat search function. The vendors on BootScouter feature big book buyers and sellers in their own right including Amazon and TopDollar4Books. TopDollar4Books are a well established site and have the highest BBB rating in the industry, so are worth reviewing directly also
3. Sell Your Old Furniture
In addition to the old favourite sites like eBay, Chairish, specialise in the consignment of used furniture. Charish have developed an online platform that helps users list and sell their old sofas, chairs, storage and lighting. It’s free to list your product and the business have vetted all of their buyers for user peace of mind. They also state that the seller will get paid out for their old piece of furniture quickly. The business also support the seller with guidance about the shipping of the goods as well
Another good option for more vintage and bespoke furniture is Trove Marketplace. Here there is a wider range of furniture and decor items sold, including old pictures and sculptures. The app is pretty slick too and easy to work
In addition to these bespoke services we would be remiss not to mention the power of listing goods like furniture and larger items on Craigslist, so worth reviewing too
4. Sell your old Mobile Phone & Tablets
SellCell are the US’s largest and most established comparison site for selling old mobile phones and tablets. They compare all of the leading electronics BuyBack companies in the US, so the user doesn’t have to scour loads of different websites to get the best price for their old mobile phone or tablet. With hundreds of pounds of equity in phones now, the company offers a Best Price Guarantee to sellers as they are so confident of offering the best price for their old device. If the seller, post sale, spots a higher price on another site for their old device they will refund double the difference. The company has been in business since 2008 and have sold over 2 million devices through their site
They also vet all of their buyers to provide users peace of mind and list some of the biggest names in the industry like Decluttr, Gazelle and ItsWorthMore amongst many more.
It’s important to note for those device hoarders that even broken and damaged phones can be sold. Phones depreciate quite quickly, so best to get them sold as quickly as possible before they lose their value
5. Sell your old Gift Cards
We’ve all done it for Christmas and Birthdays, gone for the easy option – the gift card. In many cases gift cards lie in a drawer and then it can be too late to redeem them. If you don’t want the product or service on the gift card they can be sold online.
Indeed a company that claims that they can turn your unused gift cards into cash is CardPool. The business has over 18,000 user reviews. The process is simple, you just enter where the gift card is from, it’s monetary value and bingo they will give you the how much the card is worth. The seller then has two choices, for a check to be sent or they can be remunerated via an Amazon gift card for an additional 6% value on top
6. Sell your old CD’s & DVDS
There are still a lot of people that have held onto their old CD’s & DVDs for nostalgic purposes, even if they have made the upgrade to Spotify. Believe it or not CDs & DVDs do carry some value. There are multiple places online that will buy old CDs & DVDs from you.
Secondspin, buys CDs, DVDs and BlueRays. The prices vary by the artist but the average price looks like it can be around $3 – 5
Ziffit also buy CDs and offer flexible payment options such as BACS and Bank Transfers. Both of these online tools are worth a shout during that cleanout
Decluttr are also an excellent option when selling your old DVDs & CDs alongside their additional BuyBack programmes for a wide range of old electronics. They have excellent user reviews so provide peace of mind for users
How much could you make in a Spring Clean?
If you have a fair bit that needs cleaning out, even in the attic, you could be surprised with how much you could actually make by selling through some of the businesses we have listed. Let’s take a deeper look.
| 20 Old DVDS & CDS – $80 | Could be worth about $4 each from SecondSpin |
|---|---|
| 5 Old Books – $25 | Prices can range from $2 to $30 on Bookscouter, depending on the condition and author, but a likely average price per book would be around $5 |
| 15 pieces of Old Clothing – $100 | On Vinted.com the average amount can vary from a couple of dollars to over a hundred. So let’s say you are likely to generate on average $100 for 15 items of old clothing |
| 1 Unused $20 Gift Card – $18 | A $20 gift card can generate you around $18, depending on the retailer on Cardpool |
| Old iPhone 7 – $227 | If it’s in gook nick it can still being worth $227 with SellCell |
| TYPICAL TOTAL VALUE = $450 | |
So, is it Worth the Hassle of Spring Cleaning?
There is no doubt that there is money to be made by selling your old stuff. The specialist online brands will probably get you a little more money than the more well known sales channels like eBay and Craigslist, so check out the prices on these sites too. There is no doubt that it’s worth decluttering and selling old items. The services are hassle free and tried and tested, so yes it is worth the effort of that annual declutter
So there is no excuse but to get motivated and start the declutter and potentially bag yourself a few hundred quid in the process
Let us know how much you made from your recent Spring Declutter and which online platforms your recommend?