Turning Clutter Into Cash

In spite of my best efforts…..  I still somehow have a house full of clutter. You know, the stuff you save “just in case you might want to use it later”…. that’s “too good to throw away”…. or that you throw into a closet, a drawer, or the basement dumping ground because you don’t have time to deal with it now. And then there’s the stuff that I don’t even think of as clutter…. but it really is… take my closet for example. I haven’t worked in an office environment now in 5 years. But I have every suit, jacket, skirt, blouse, and pair of pants that I owned and wore to work, and I haven’t pulled them out even once. My closet is kind of divided into two sections- one side where my husband installed shelves, and that’s where I keep my sweaters and shoes, and one side where hanging items go- and that side I rarely even look at. Now the argument could be made that having all of those hanging clothes there certainly isn’t hurting anything, it’s not like I need the room to house something else (I generally no longer purchase clothes that need to be hung up!)…. but really, these old work clothes are just gathering dust. It’s time that they move along.

But What To Do With All of This Stuff?

So I could start heading into closets, and drawers, and that scary basement dumping group, armed with garbage bags, and begin separating items into piles….. what should be tossed, what should be donated, and what should be carted away during our upcoming charity spring clean-out event held in our town. But I am wondering….  could I get money for any of this stuff? A garage sale perhaps might earn me a little cash (out here in the Northeast they call them “tag sales”). I tried a garage sale once, back when I lived in Florida, and frankly I decided then- never again. I had thought the garage sale was going well, until a group of thuggish men showed up and started negotiating hard for things they wanted- pointing and grunting and refusing any counter-offer I made. They made me feel so uncomfortable, that I gave in to whatever price they wanted, just to get them to leave. And a tag sale now would mean my kids would see all of this stuff (some of which would inevitably have been previously theirs) displayed on the lawn, and would decide that they needed to keep all of it…. so I am fairly certain that tag sales are not for me.

Let’s Try Some Clutter-Into-Cash Experiments!

So my fingers got to typing and searching, and I found some online guides for how to sell stuff on Ebay, how to sell stuff on Craigslist, and how to sell books, gold, and old electronics online. Would any of this work for me? I decided to find out….  and the next few days I will be sharing the results of my turning clutter into cash experiments with you!