Losing Money When Decluttering?

[brett]

Don't sweat the small stuff (or the big stuff if it is an old piano).

Just get rid of the stuff in any way you choose and move on with your life. But do get rid of it.

 

[sengsational]

Decluttering: CRTs

I had a plan to get rid of every CRT in the house (old TV's and old monitors). I'm sure there are plenty of you that got rid of the last CRT device many years ago, but I have a pretty big attic

On the topic of losing money, I spent a few minutes testing a vintage Sony TV after seeing someone got $77 for one like it on eBay. I got it to work, but it would randomly stop and only start again if I shook it, so to the recycling center it went, along with a few other CRT's. You can see it has plenty of company!

Unfortunately, I'm still not CRT-free. My first HD 1080x1920 TV was a CRT and I made the mistake of looking on eBay for that one too. Well, apparently there are gamers that still use these monstrosities. If it doesn't find a home, it will be sad to see it join the pile at the dump, even though it works perfectly.

 

[Ed B]

Funny you should mention this. I was getting rid of our remaining CRT TVs too, but before the most recent county clean-up day my wife pulled an old Nintendo box out so the grandkids could play vintage Super Mario and Duck Hunt. We can't get them to work on our flat screens. So I am on the hook to move an old corner TV cabinet (made for 27" CRT) into a the den so the kids can play these vintage games without being cloistered away in a back bedroom.

I had a plan to get rid of every CRT in the house (old TV's and old monitors). I'm sure there are plenty of you that got rid of the last CRT device many years ago, but I have a pretty big attic

On the topic of losing money, I spent a few minutes testing a vintage Sony TV after seeing someone got $77 for one like it on eBay. I got it to work, but it would randomly stop and only start again if I shook it, so to the recycling center it went, along with a few other CRT's. You can see it has plenty of company!

Unfortunately, I'm still not CRT-free. My first HD 1080x1920 TV was a CRT and I made the mistake of looking on eBay for that one too. Well, apparently there are gamers that still use these monstrosities. If it doesn't find a home, it will be sad to see it join the pile at the dump, even though it works perfectly.

 

[Ronstar]

I found myself thinking about this today. I'm having a garage sale in 3 weeks and started getting things ready. I keep finding myself trying to repair stuff to sell for more $. But I have to remember that the objective is to declutter, not avoid losing $. I lost the $ years ago when I bought the stuff.

 

[dadu007]

Funny you should mention this. I was getting rid of our remaining CRT TVs too, but before the most recent county clean-up day my wife pulled an old Nintendo box out so the grandkids could play vintage Super Mario and Duck Hunt. We can't get them to work on our flat screens. So I am on the hook to move an old corner TV cabinet (made for 27" CRT) into a the den so the kids can play these vintage games without being cloistered away in a back bedroom.

Yeppir. Old video games do NOT play well with modern flat screen TVs. This is a whole thing. We kept one CRT TV specifically for use with the kids' old Nintendo 64. Good on you, Grandma and Grandpa!

 

[HadEnuff]

I have never sold on eBay. I've bought lots of stuff, but never sold. Decluttering and learning how to sell on eBay was a retirement goal. I have a few 20-some year old bicycles, two of which were pretty pricey bikes in their day. I checked out a few other bike sales and saw what was being charged for shipping. Around $70, so I figured that had to be close. I put two bikes out there, both for 150. Got a buyer for one. $150 + 70= $220 coming in. I went to my local bike shop and paid $5 for a box, full of nice shipping stuff. Bought $4 in other stuff I thought would be handy. I was feeling pretty confident.

Packed it up (thanks, YouTube) and took it to the local place to have it measured, weighed and shipped. I was pretty confident I was going to make out on the shipping. $141.00 to ship within my state. So before PayPal and eBay took their bites, I was down to $75....BUT, I did get rid of a bike.
I took the other bike off. Too much hassle. I'll try Craigslist or give it to someone.

 

[travelover]

..........$141.00 to ship within my state.........

I've heard that Greyhound is the cheapest way to ship a bike, but have not done it, personally.

 

[iloveyoga]

I have done a lot of decluttering since I retired. If you have the time and patience, a seven day auction on eBay will give you a good idea of an item's value.

 

[FUEGO]

Funny you should mention this. I was getting rid of our remaining CRT TVs too, but before the most recent county clean-up day my wife pulled an old Nintendo box out so the grandkids could play vintage Super Mario and Duck Hunt. We can't get them to work on our flat screens. So I am on the hook to move an old corner TV cabinet (made for 27" CRT) into a the den so the kids can play these vintage games without being cloistered away in a back bedroom.

Yep. I have a 32" CRT in my crash pad / play room (it's a small foyer with a few beanbags in it plus my toolbox). The super nintendo and regular 8 bit nintendo are hooked up to the CRT and we play some Super Mario Bros, Tetris, and a few other games occasionally. Our 4 year old loves it.

The playstation 3 looks much better when hooked up to our HD TV, unlike those old gaming systems from the 1980's and 1990's.

 

[travelover]

It is getting harder to get rid of CRT TVs here. Salvation Army quit taking them and Best Buy excluded them from their free electronics recycling program.

 

[rayinpenn]

The Sony tv was probably one of the biggest ones available when we bought it. My god it was a monster. Throwing away anything that is still 'working' is a major no no. A younger me hoisted it on the TV Cabinet perhaps 10 years earlier. It was still useable but the color wasn't all that good and it was a dinosaur. At least that is what I told myself. The prices on really big thin TVs had dropped significantly. So we went to Best Buy and bought a biggie. I was amazed at the ease of carrying it and sliding it into the car - this baby was light. Now how to get rid of the dinosaur? I took my hand truck out and put a couple of blankets on it. I positioned it directly below the TV and slid the tv off its home of ten years. Bam but no broken glass. Out to the curb it went. I don't miss it one bit.

Never look back.. could I have gotten more for that investment property - I don't know and I don't care it is out of my life, the tenant isn't calling me and I feel liberated..

Never look back.
Did you ever think -how much does the weight of all the clutter wear on you? There something to be said about a clutter free well organized space... and of course you cant trip on what's not there.

 

[brett]

We are downsizing and de cluttering again after four years in our 1300 sq foot rental condo. We moved four years ago from of 3800 sq ft home into an 8X8X16 container. Then we travelled for six/seven months.

We are now moving to a larger place. Guess what? Even after giving away a few furniture items and bedding to folks who lost everything in a flood several years ago we still need to get rid of things. We have a basement storage locker full of unopened boxes and an in unit storage area of the same size filled with unopened boxes.

Time to open them up and get rid of half or more. There may be some value. We will be glad not to have to move them yet again. We originally did three waves of downsizing prior to moving into our current condo. We thought that we did a good job. And we have been very careful over these past four years not accumulate 'garage sale' inventory. Turns out to be not quite good enough. Character flaw I guess.

 

[Olbidness]

The 27" CRT TV in the master bedroom was still working but the remote wouldn't work anymore, so out to the curb it went. I was contemplating if I would replace it when I get a catalog from work to pick out my 10 Yr anniversary gift. New TV on the way. Problem solved. Love the weight difference between the old/new TVs. About 60 lbs.

 

[GrayHare]

I often experience a certain sadness when pitching old stuff. No, it's not a "Wilson!" moment, but rather it feels like an admission that I was wrong to keep the item so long, and that I'm getting to old to even imagine using it. Not a happy thought.

 

[travelover]

I often experience a certain sadness when pitching old stuff. No, it's not a "Wilson!" moment, but rather it feels like an admission that I was wrong to keep the item so long, and that I'm getting to old to even imagine using it. Not a happy thought.

I felt that way when I gave away my baseball glove and bat. But honestly, I'm never gonna play baseball again.

 

[bradner]

No. life is too short to spend a lot of time trying to get the best price for things you want to get rid of. We've given huge amounts of stuff away and only sold the obvious and straightforward pieces. We had other priorities and wanted to get on with our lives.

Money on the table and all that. Gosh, we left oodles behind by deciding to quit earning our nice wages when we were quite young.

+100

I've tried to put a total value on the "stuff". For example if I thought I'd be happy to get $1,500 for everything and I sell some of it and get say $500 total I then write-off the "lost $1,000" against my internal charitable donation budget. That seems to help me let go of things easier.

 

[kcowan]

The Sony tv was probably one of the biggest ones available when we bought it. My god it was a monster...

We got rid of 3 tube TVs, 2 Sonys and a Toshiba. All working perfectly including the remotes. A classic case of technology-driven obsolescence.

If in doubt, throw it out is our motto now. If Good Will rejects it.

 

[brett]

It is difficult to break the accumulation habit. After almost four years in a large one bedroom condo we are happy to report that we have not accumulated anything in the past four years. It took us nine months to downsize and de-accumulate the last place.

We are however getting rid of some items that we moved four years ago and have never opened/looked at/needed. Not my skill saw of course, or my heavy duty drill. May need them in the future, along with my pressure washer (almost new). It is HER stuff that seems to be the problem for me.

We are downsizing again in terms of possessions even though we are moving to a much larger place. I will make a mental note to revisit the challenge in two years to see where we stand.

The big surprise has been clothing. We had far too much and some of it has gone. Suits, all but one, have been donated along with about 10 almost new dress shirts, too many ties, dress shoes, etc. For some very odd reason I kept the cuff links...perhaps a touch of sentimentality. It is surprising how our closets have shrunk since retirement and downsizing.....and how far they have yet to go. I was in the IT business. I must have had 10 jackets with various logos on them. I only need/want 1, maybe 2.

 

[W2R]

We are downsizing again in terms of possessions even though we are moving to a much larger place.

I downsized quite a bit while packing for my last move. I thought I was already pretty well downsized when I started packing. Still, for each box that I filled I probably threw out or donated three trash bags full of stuff. I gave my guest bedroom furniture to F since he wanted it, and put a few pieces of (fairly worthless) furniture at the curb, where they were quickly scarfed up by scavengers.

I am SO GLAD that I downsized that ruthlessly, and honestly I haven't missed or even remembered a single thing that I ditched. The move was hard enough on me without dragging all that unnecessary junk to the new house, and I have lots of space in my closets and cabinets now.

 

[ArkTinkerer]

Been at this for a while now. Still struggling to clear stuff out. But one item to think of with regards to the OP's post. What is the additional floor/shelf/storage space worth? What about the time freed up from not having to search thru so much when you want something? Not having to clean odds and ends on shelves? Such things are usually worth the small loss of net worth for something you weren't using anyway.

 

[kcowan]

We had a major downsizing when we moved in together from two estates.
Then we downsized again when we started home swaps.
Finally we downsized to make room for our tenants (sublessees) when we went south for 6 months.

Of course, now we have 2 places to manage and so it takes discipline. In Mexico, we give stuff away to the staff. Up north, we move much on craigslist and used clothing stores.

 

[misshathaway]

What is the additional floor/shelf/storage space worth? What about the time freed up from not having to search thru so much when you want something?

Last year, which was my first retirement year, I cleared out the attic and the basement. This week I am having the house insulated. I did not have this project in mind last year but:

- They need the attic empty: check

- They need the house's original paint to repaint the holes they drill for blowing in the insulation. How convenient that when I cleaned the basement I got rid of all the dried up cans and put the rest in one spot. House paint? No problem. Right here.

Per original thread topic, losing money. I did lose about $2000 on heirloom diamonds taken out of the safety deposit box and consigned with an auction house. At the time, I figured it was nuts to keep paying $60 annually to keep things I was never going to use. Lets see - $2000 divided by 60.

 

[Milton]

No. life is too short to spend a lot of time trying to get the best price for things you want to get rid of.

Exactly!

 

[Fedup]

Been at this for a while now. Still struggling to clear stuff out. But one item to think of with regards to the OP's post. What is the additional floor/shelf/storage space worth? What about the time freed up from not having to search thru so much when you want something? Not having to clean odds and ends on shelves? Such things are usually worth the small loss of net worth for something you weren't using anyway.

My husband and I are going to add more storage space in the garage for this. Something to do in retirement. But my kids don't want her books to be thrown out. Not yet anyway.

 

[sengsational]

Unfortunately, I'm still not CRT-free. My first HD 1080x1920 TV was a CRT and I made the mistake of looking on eBay for that one too. Well, apparently there are gamers that still use these monstrosities. If it doesn't find a home, it will be sad to see it join the pile at the dump, even though it works perfectly.

Came back here to report that the 34" Sony SOLD on eBay, and a guy came and picked it up!

So not only am I $150 richer, I also know that it's getting a longer life and staying out of the dump.