“There must be 50 ways to leave your lover.” But how about leaving your clutter? There are really 7 ways to get rid of your stuff. Watch this video and “hop on the bus, Gus” and we’ll figure out the best way to clear out your things, “make a new plan, Stan,” and “get yourself free” and open spaces! 😉
(Click here to watch on YouTube if you can’t see the embedded player. Or watch the video at http://bit.ly/tcdsell.)
Transcript:
Hi. I’m Lorie Marrero, creator of the Clutter Diet book and on-line program, and today, we’re going to talk about seven ways to get rid of your stuff. You may be stuck not knowing what to do with the stuff you’ve decided to part with. People are confused about all of this. Let’s just go over all the seven options and see which one works for your stuff today.
The first thing to talk about is consignment stores. These are local stores that have a storefront with foot traffic and people that are going to buy the stuff that you leave there. They’re going to take a significant percentage of it. The downside of using a consignment store is that it may take some time for you to get paid for that item. Sometimes, it can take months for them to sell a certain kind of furniture piece for example. So yes, they’re going to take care everything, you just drop it off, but if you want to see a quick turnaround, that’s probably not your best option.
The next thing to talk about is estate sales. If you have a whole household worth of stuff or lots of pieces of furniture, an estate sale can be a good option. You go and Google the name of your local city plus “estate sale”, and you will find some people that specialize in doing this. They will organize and manage and promote the sale for you, so it’s a really nice service. They are very good at identifying high value items and charging appropriately for them, because they take a percentage, so they’re incentivized to get the best price. So there you go. Google that and see if you might find someone in your area for that purpose.
If you’re thinking about having a garage sale – that’s our next option – I’m going to recommend that you don’t. And the reason is, is that it takes so much of your time. If you just enjoy it, that’s one thing, but most people don’t want to give up an entire weekend and have a lot of strangers coming to their house and checking out their stuff. It is probably a better option to take the higher value items that make sense to sell individually and do something else with those and donate the small stuff. So that’s my recommendation. If you want to have a garage sale there are plenty of resources online to teach you how to do it, but my recommendation is to try something else of these seven options.
So, let’s talk next about my favorite, which is Craigslist. I’m sitting on my favorite chair. This is called a Love Sack. If you buy a new one, it costs $500 to $800 for these chairs and I got this on Craigslist for $140, and then I put a new cover on it, and it’s like a new chair. They have a lifetime warranty; awesome deal. I have found so many cool things on Craigslist. So when you’re selling, it’s a very quick turnaround. I sold a bunch of stuff recently on Craigslist and sold it all in a day. I have another video on how to use Craigslist, so go check that out as well. It’s perfect for household-type items, things that are not easily shipped, that are better for local buyers to come and pick up from you. It’s easy, it’s fast, you can get a decent value for those items direct to the end consumer, who is going to use them.
So, if you have something that is a little bit more unusual or collectible, something that is a piece of electronics that has a much higher value, like an I-phone, something that’s shippable, you might want to do eBay instead of Craigslist. So, eBay has a national or international audience who is shopping for your stuff. So, it gives you a bigger pond to fish in as far as finding the right buyer. There is an auction format on eBay that may or may not be daunting for you. I’m sure you can find some information directly on eBay of how to use their service. It’s really not difficult. You sign up an account and you list your item. But, of course, you will have the risk of taking a little bit more time than Craigslist. It’s probably going to be more than a day turnaround, but you’re going to get a better price for these unusual items.
If you have books, CD’s, DVD’s, another option for you is Amazon. They have used book sales on there and so if you have books, you can list a few on there and sell them. It’s going to work better on Amazon selling books than it would on Craigslist. But my recommendation, if you have books and CD’s, is to please just donate those.
And anything left from a garage sale, anything left from an estate sale, anything that you can’t sell on Craigslist after you’ve reduced the price, please donate that to Goodwill. You’re going to help provide job training, job placement services, financial training for people who have gotten their first paycheck, and they don’t know exactly how to manage a checkbook. There are all kinds of services; people have no idea all the wonderful things that Goodwill provides to your community by selling your donated items in their stores. So, please consider that as an option. You can use givebackbox.com to make that even easier for you. You can put everything in a box and ask for a pickup on your porch by going to that website and you don’t even have to take it to Goodwill. So it’s perfect. So check that out, givebackbox.com.
Those are your seven choices. If you have comments on that, please share in the Comments below, and if you need help, we have tons of advice in our program. You can check us out for free at clutterdiet.com/learnmore. We have our expert team in our program, answering questions every day to our Plus Members and you can get that help too, so we would love to help you out.
Alright. Well, we’ll see you next time, and may you always be happy and grateful for having more than enough.
You may have been searching for what is the best way to sell things or how to have a garage sale.
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