Losing Money When Decluttering?

[meierlde]

I tried to sell an art deco chandelier on Craigslist for $800. No bites. I was contacted by a local antique shop; he offered me $400 and I took it. Now he has it on his website for $1300. Ouch. Oh well, it was something I can't use and otherwise would just be stored.

Watch American Pickers and you see the folks offer enough that they can pay their business expenses off the deal. They seem to like a 50% margin between what they pay and what they hope to get. It is just like the difference between what a car dealer pays for a trade in and what they sell it for.

 

[HadEnuff]

I tried to sell an art deco chandelier on Craigslist for $800. No bites. I was contacted by a local antique shop; he offered me $400 and I took it. Now he has it on his website for $1300. Ouch. Oh well, it was something I can't use and otherwise would just be stored.

Someone will come along and haggle him down to $800. You made the same $400 he will make but you didn't have the bother of showing it to customers. Time>money. Don't forget that.

Yup.That's the difference between being someone who wants to get rid of something NOW, vs. someone trying to make a living at buying and selling 2nd hand stuff. The dealer is paying for a showroom space of some sort, and taking the risk that it won't sell fast, or at all.

 

[Teacher Terry]

I had a friend that was a antique dealer and she said she had to hold pieces for long periods of time before they sold. The more expensive the piece the longer it take to sell. So they also have these types of costs. I either sell or give away depending on my mood and how fast I want it gone. We live on a fairly busy street so when we remodeled our house we put all the stuff in front with a free sign and it was gone in hours.

 

[unclemick]

+1000

999,999 times out of 1,000,000, it's just the hoarding instinct rearing its ugly head and whispering these things in one's ear anyway. Well, that's my opinion, anyway, based on the opinion (fact?) that we are all squirrels hoarding nuts at heart. I think that if you look at the big picture, the best price for one object is not worth chasing.

When I'm decluttering, I give books to the public library (which then sells them to raise money). So, if one is worth more than I thought, then my donation to the library was more as well. Consequently I feel more virtuous. It's all good.

Libraries, Prisons, Neighbors - over a thousand books spanning 50 years. Plus six tractors, three pickups - one a ten wheel convert to a 50 foot mobile crane with hydraulic outriggers to lift roof trusses for your next ag. machinery building. Two machine shops - one for autos, tractors etc. and another for general metal welding, milling, forming, grinding, 100 ton punch press(home built), etc. Sawmill and log handling equipped diesel tractor plus a dozen chainsaws from 4 foot down to 40v battery mini. most brand new never been started.

I could go on - jewelry making shop plus artist studio(painting) plus telescopes, cameras, microscopes, guns, knives.

heh heh heh - last farm crop was in the 80's but he never threw any thing away and had a variety of passions over the decades. Retired mega corp gear head who liked to buy and repair tractors.

No longer an ER(22 yr. run) I am slowly with some reluctance morphing into a 'born again' professional de-clutter person. I am open to a new name for this occupation.

And then there is the cut glass, clocks, collector plates and did I mention extra furniture. Inheritance can be a gotcha.

 

[Walt34]

It doesn't bother me. Just yesterday I threw out of bunch of old R/C model airplane stuff that I probably paid $300 for. I could have put it up on eBay or CL but it wouldn't be worth the bother.

 

[braumeister]

When we moved last year, I took 19 large boxes of books to the library (over the course of about a month). They store them in a warehouse full of library shelves, roughly organized by subject matter. They have big sales twice a year where people come into their warehouse and buy what they want at bargain prices.

The library gets the proceeds to help their budget and I feel that my old books go to a good home. Win-win.

Thanks for reminding me — I need to bring them another 2 or 3 boxes of books I should have given up last year. The next sale is less than a month away, so I'd better get moving.

 

[Amethyst]

We've given about 1,000 books to the Purple Heart charity, which sells donations to benefit veterans. PH and several other charities participate in GreenDrop, which sends a truck to your home to pick up donations. We still have at least 500 books, but they're ones we like to re-read, consult, or use (my artist's design books, for example).

 

[CaliKid]

Asking price means NOTHING. I see crap on the Bay that they are asking $50 and I can list the same exact item for $10 and not sell it. People list stuff for years just hoping one desperate sucker comes by. Quick cash is a lot different than asking price. I sell a lot of stuff on the Bay and CL so am pretty well versed in the same. You look at sold listings to see what stuff has sold for and base your price in that range. My goal is selling stuff within a few weeks and then off to Goodwill it goes. If I get money great and if it doesn't sell that's ok too.

 

[NgineER]

A lot of stuff goes to goodwill from our household. If it is worth selling, eBay or CL. Usually put stuff that doesn't sell at the curb the day before the garbage goes out along with a curb alert on Craigslist.

 

[brett]

We downsized and de cluttered from 3600+ sq feet to an 8X8X16 container.

The only things we sold were items that were not worth giving away and would have cost us money to shift. An old freezer was one. Put it on kijiji to sell for an nominal sum and it went immediately. Same with an unsafe extension ladder and a few other things.

Books went to friends, library, schools. Same with school supplies. Bedroom sets to friends, relatives, etc. Everything else of value want to Battered Women Society. Never had a garage sale, never wanted one.

We had lots of use and enjoyment out of everything we disposed of. Besides, we have saved a great deal of money by downsizing and by renting vs. owning in our real estate market.

Be happy with what you got for those books. I assume that you also had a degree of enjoyment from them. And remember...something is only worth what someone else is willing to pay. Asking price does not necessarily reflect value or attainable price.

 

[Lsbcal]

If you itemize deductions on your taxes, you can come out a little ahead even when you give things away to the thrift store. I keep track of everything we donate and use the "it's deductible " website to help set the value of each item. So far this year we've donated $1,958 worth of stuff to three different charities. No single item was worth more than $30, but all those household items and clothing added up. We will save roughly $548 on our taxes.

We do this too. Generally we just give it to Salvation Army or the library. I take pictures of the stuff with my phone and store these in a folder for tax time.

Most of the time we don't claim more then about $600 on the donations. Maybe I should be more careful and bump up that number? What's a bag of nice women's clothing worth? Ugh.

 

[DustyMom]

I love this thread! I am currently going through the down-sizing process and I find myself continually see-sawing back and forth between "just give it away" and "somebody would pay money for that". We have had some limited success selling items online or to acquaintances but it seems more bother than it's worth and the amount of money we make is not going to change our retirement lifestyle. Once I have myself convinced of that, I am quite happy boxing up loads of stuff and dropping off at charities. But .....eventually that little worm starts eating away at me and I start to think I should be trying to get money for this stuff. It's like whack-a-mole. Every time I feel like I've got those urges under control, they pop up again and I start to despair of all the (theoretical) money I am leaving on the table.


Is there a way to flag this thread so I can quickly pull it up and re-read whenever I need to whack that mole?

 

[athena53]

DS just reminded me again today that if I ever find the black binder with his Magic cards from late 1990s/early 2000s, there are valuable ones in there! I swear I checked them on e-Bay, found nothing valuable and then chucked them. Not a single Black Lotus in there. Really.

 

[Lcountz]

Check out nextavenue.org...they have an article called "No one wants your parents stuff".

Eye opening and a little sad at the same time......

 

[nwsteve]

Check out nextavenue.org...they have an article called "No one wants your parents stuff".

Eye opening and a little sad at the same time......

Here is the link Response to 'Nobody Wants Your Parents' Stuff'

 

[bingybear]

we've been selling off my inlaws stuff. what they thought would sell well doesn't and some of the junk sells well. Value is in the moment.

 

[jonat]

I had thousands of old science fiction magazines (from early 70s and later). I'm sure a few of them were worth something but I just wanted them out of the house and put them up on Freecycle. One woman took half for her daughter, and another took the other half for hers. Win-Win.

 

[Ticker]

I have a small collection of night watchman's clocks, mostly very common, one very rare one. I also have a racing pigeon stamping clock. Why did I buy these My kids have no interest in them, and there are very few fellow collectors out there that I could solicit to sell them. Although I was intrigued when I initially bought these years ago, I sincerely doubt that I can recoup even the initial costs of these devises. More junk for the kids to toss.

 

[Lsbcal]

I have a small collection of night watchman's clocks, mostly very common, one very rare one. I also have a racing pigeon stamping clock. Why did I buy these My kids have no interest in them, and there are very few fellow collectors out there that I could solicit to sell them. Although I was intrigued when I initially bought these years ago, I sincerely doubt that I can recoup even the initial costs of these devises. More junk for the kids to toss.

Sounds like your had a lot of fun buying these. Maybe that is the reward?

 

[RobLJ]

It took us almost 9 months to declutter the Houston home before we moved to Reno. I gave away more than 1/3 of my library; someone will benefit.
In my experience, if you worry about value what took 6-9 months will never happen (my AgedP's garage is still loaded with stuff which she can't part with--I just always hope no fire starts there.)

I just sold some racing pigeon books from my collection. I had quite a few books. As best as I could come up with prices, they were worth about $400 brand new.

Some were out of print, but I had the most recent prices. None were really old.
So I figured that $150 for the entire lot would be an good price. One buyer, one place to collect. Hopefully a fast sale, which it was.

I later found out, like hours after I sold them, one was worth $450 or so. I guess I have a bit more shelf space and an extra $150 n my pocket.

Here is that book, listed for $450, of course it is still not sold... You can see the book here.
https://racingpigeonsbooks.wordpress.com/champions-reveal-their-untold-secrets/

Did you ever start to declutter and find out you could have made more money off things you tossed or sold too low?

 

[brucethebroker]

I love this thread! I am currently going through the down-sizing process and I find myself continually see-sawing back and forth between "just give it away" and "somebody would pay money for that". We have had some limited success selling items online or to acquaintances but it seems more bother than it's worth and the amount of money we make is not going to change our retirement lifestyle. Once I have myself convinced of that, I am quite happy boxing up loads of stuff and dropping off at charities. But .....eventually that little worm starts eating away at me and I start to think I should be trying to get money for this stuff. It's like whack-a-mole. Every time I feel like I've got those urges under control, they pop up again and I start to despair of all the (theoretical) money I am leaving on the table.


Is there a way to flag this thread so I can quickly pull it up and re-read whenever I need to whack that mole?

Sounds like you need a good one day garage sale. Start at 8 or 9, and put everything on 1/2 off 3 hours into the sale. Take any left overs to Goodwill, etc. Use 4 different colored stickers to price, with a "menu" posted (red=$1, etc.) to save time pricing. You won't make tons of $, but certainly enough for a couple of nice evenings out. And the stuff is gone in one day. Good luck.

 

[brucethebroker]

If anyone is really concerned with losing some money on selling items too cheap (craigslist, garage sale), put together a list of those items and research on ebay (for free). It's easy to do. Be sure you are looking at SOLD listings. Compare the condition of your item to those sold, and price yours about 20% less for a quick sale. Cherry pick the highest priced items and give the rest to charity, or freecycle, whatever. Kind of the best of both worlds. BTW, a garage sale is not the place to try to sell your "valuable items"-people shop GS to get great deals, not pay ebay type prices.

As a garage sale junkie, and ebay seller, I can tell you that many things you think are valuable may not be worth enough to invest the time involved in selling online. But a selling a dozen or so of your more valuable items (and the peace of mind of having done the research) may be worth it.

 

[brucethebroker]

I have a small collection of night watchman's clocks, mostly very common, one very rare one. I also have a racing pigeon stamping clock. Why did I buy these My kids have no interest in them, and there are very few fellow collectors out there that I could solicit to sell them. Although I was intrigued when I initially bought these years ago, I sincerely doubt that I can recoup even the initial costs of these devises. More junk for the kids to toss.

Consider doing the kids a favor now by selling/donating even if you don't recoup your "investment". They may not be interested in them, but leaving them behind could create emotional "baggage" after you are gone.

MIL left her "collection" of Christmas village houses, storefronts, etc. None are worth more than she paid for them, plus, they are fragile (china?) and hard to ship. DW struggles with selling them for emotional reasons, yet has never set up the "villages" at Christmas-not her style. So the boxes sit on a large storage shelf in the basement. I would donate them in a second to charity, but the timing isn't right.

 

[RetiredGypsy]

There are a few buyback sites for books, video games, and DVDs that let you scan with an app or type in the ISBN or whatever barcode number.

I'm going through a major decluttering with the help of my SO. I decided to burn to hard drives the movies I wanted to keep. I just kept a number of books. The criteria for both was anything kept had to be something I've watched or read repeatedly.

The buyback site we used saw a small return compared to the original costs, but it was still a few hundred dollars.

In order to clear off shelves I bought a nice DVD case and recycled several dozen DVD cases.

The rest were boxed up in enough boxes to fill the trunk and then dropped off at the library. They don't take cash donations so I'm hoping plenty of these will get sold off in their rummage bin.

All the decluttering has made me more conscious of what I bring into the house. I'm just one person and managed to fill up several recycling bins and still had tons left over to donate.

 

[Ticker]

Sounds like your had a lot of fun buying these. Maybe that is the reward?

certainly it is. there is something fascinating to me about mechanical clocks, and how they represent the emerging technology of the past. imagine looking at a coiled piece of steel and realizing that you could use that energy to power a time keeping piece. who'd thought? fast forward a few years later and you have the beginnings of the security business with watchmen's clocks-a way to insure that your security guard is doing his job and monitoring it with a piece of punctured paper-all of that powered by that same coiled piece of steel. Later we see transportation and factories dependent upon accurate time keeping, and eventually we all become slaves to the clock. You can see parallels in the development of cell phones.......