I love spring cleaning!
Spring is the time of year that I start to clean out all of the things in my home that no longer make me happy, in order to make room for the wonderful new things that will come into my life! It also provides an opportunity to make some extra cash for my used items. I have a secret ultimate list of places that I sell, trade in, and swap my items. Today I’m sharing that list with you. It’s a good one so be sure to save it!
Best Places to Sell
1. Kid to Kid
Kid to Kid is a second-hand store for all things kids! They ACTUALLY PAY for used kids clothes and toys! I’ve taken kids clothes and toys to Kid to Kid for my busy friends with kids and have received a ton of money back. Enough to say that it’s definitely worth a quick trip on a Saturday with a tub or two of clothes and toys.
Brilliantly Frugal Tip: Get a nice friend to do it for you if you don’t have time. Offer to take the kids on a playdate for them and ask them to stop by while they are running other errands.
2. PoshMark
Poshmark is a great app that lets you sell brand name clothes like Forever 21, H&M, Victoria’s Secret, Calvin Klein, Vera Bradley, Target brands, and so many more! People go here purposefully looking for specific brand names for cheap. Poshmark handles charging for shipping, sending you a shipping label, and provides many helpful articles for being successful in your sales.
Brilliantly Frugal Tip: Be sure to use code DANIELAMCL when you sign up for an instant $5 bonus!
3. OfferUp, 5Miles, Facebook Market Place, etc.
Offerup, 5Miles, and Facebook marketplace are meant to sell items locally. These apps are great for selling furniture, home goods, and electronics (ESPECIALLY Phones). I’ve made hundreds of dollars selling items online this way.
You can find Offerup and 5Miles in the app store.
4. GameStop
GameStop is a good option to sell video games, consoles, and accessories, especially if you have a membership. However, you will definitely get back more if you sell these items yourself. Be sure to double check their offer(s).
5. Half Price Books
Half Price Books is a great place to sell BULK books, magazines, board games, DVDs, video games, or old textbooks that Amazon and the bookstore won’t buy back anymore. You probably want to bring at least a tub or two of items to make it worth it. You can either get CASH or use the cash towards your purchase. I almost always use the cash towards my purchase because I have a book buying problem.
The best offer I’ve ever gotten from them is for two boxes of old textbooks. I got back $76 for those boxes. Amazon and my bookstore where no longer buying them back because they were old editions. They were useless to me and just taking up precious space on my bookshelf.
6. Old Fashioned Garage Sale
Garage Sales are my absolute favorite way to sell my used items. I can easily make a few hundred dollars in one weekend instead of selling one item at a time. Here are my tried and true Garage Sale Pro Tips:
Brilliantly Frugal Tip #1: Garage sale season starts in early spring and ends in early fall. Try to schedule your garage sale at popular moving times. Those are typically in June after school is out, and in August, right before dorm move in season.
Brilliantly Frugal Tip#2: Make sure to have some furniture available to get people to stop. Focus on ways to repurpose or spruce up furniture when talking to shoppers!
Brilliantly Frugal Tip #3: Make lots of signs! Make prices clear and low so that you have lots of shoppers. Your goal is to get a HIGH volume of items sold, not necessarily a high price for each item.
Brilliantly Frugal Tip #4: Towards the end of your sale, offer bulk prices. EX: a whole grocery bag of items for $5 or even $1. A whole table of things for $X.
Brilliantly Frugal Tip #5: Provide shopping bags! I keep all of my plastic grocery bags. When it’s time for a garage sale, I take the entire stash with me outside. If you provide shoppers with bags, they are more likely to buy more items at once. I have had shoppers ready to check out, but when I offered them a bag, they took the opportunity to fill a second bag with items they weren’t initially sure about!
Brilliantly Frugal Tip #6: Have organized tables! Keep like items together such as clothes, toys, home decor, auto accessories, etc. It helps shoppers find what they are looking for.
Brilliantly Frugal Tip #7: Hang jewelry on a cork board! It’s easier for shoppers to see the displayed pieces, especially the small ones.
Brilliantly Frugal Tip #8: If you don’t have time to do one yourself, see if you can enlist someone else to run it or give a friend your items to sell at their garage sale.
Brilliantly Frugal Tip #9: When I do garage sales I sell items for my friends all the time. The more items I have out, the more people stop at my garage sale, the more of my own items I will sell. Sometimes my friends will allow me to take some of the profit from their items as a thank you. I’ve also had friends donate whole truckloads of items for me to sell! I’ve made so much money on garage sales.
Brilliantly Frugal Tip #10: Know your city and county rules. Some require that you register your garage sale. If you don’t, you may get fined.
7. Raise
Raise is hands down the best place to sell unwanted gift cards. You won’t get the full amount of the gift card, because Raise sells it to others at a discount, but you can trade it for an Amazon Gift Card or have the money sent straight to your Paypal account!
Brilliantly Frugal Tip: Sign up through my link here and get an instant $5 bonus!
Best Trade-In Programs
1. Amazon Trade-In Program
The Amazon Trade-In program is a great way to sell all kinds of stuff for Amazon gift cards. I used to trade in my textbooks and use the gift cards to buy the textbooks for the next semester. Now I trade in old electronics, books, and so many other things!
2. Best Buy Trade-In and Recycling Programs
If your items are new enough you can trade them in for Best Buy gift cards. If they are too old to sell anywhere, recycle them at any Best Buy store. Check their promotions before going. Sometimes when you recycle your old items, you are eligible for coupons for new items!
3. H&M Recycle
Drop off a bag of old clothes, shoes, and accessories in any condition and get a 15% off coupon on your purchase. They even sometimes do promotions where they give TWO 15% off coupons per bag of clothes. They recycle the clothes to reduce landfill waste and you save money. WIN-WIN! I never go to H&M without a bag of clothes to donate. I ALWAYS get my 15% off.
Follow Brilliantly Frugal on Facebook to get notifications of the special promotions!
4. Target Trade-In
Target will take old electronics video games, or gift cards from other stores or restaurants and give you a Target gift card in return! If you shop at Target as much as I do, this is a great option for you!
Ways I DO NOT Recommend Selling Used Items:
1. Plato’s Closet
They never buy anything unless it still has tags or is from THIS season, no matter what they say. They only buy a few new trendy pieces and pay nearly nothing for them. Unless you have a whole tub of new clothes with tags that for whatever reason can’t be returned, it is not worth the trip at 30 minutes of them judgingly digging through your clothes only to tell you that they can’t buy anything from you because they’re “out of season”.
2. Amazon or Ebay Stores
Unless you have rare, antique, or vintage items or an established store on these platforms, users are generally not going to these places to buy used items anymore. Try one of the newer apps listed earlier in this post.
FINALLY
Anything you can’t sell, SWAP or DONATE.
1. Throw a swap party with your friends!
Invite 10 friends to bring over used clothes, shoes, accessories, home goods, etc. Ask each friend to bring at least 10-15 items. Set up tables around your house for everyone to showcase their items! Stock up on wine, throw on some music and have everyone over! Tell everyone to be respectful of how many items they take versus how many they brought. Let each friend know that they have the option of taking home the items that no one grabbed, or they can leave the items with you! You can then sell the items yourself via one of the channels above (Free new inventory!) or take the items to Goodwill for them as a thank you for attending your event!
2. DONATE!
You can take the items to your local Goodwill, clothing donation boxes, women’s shelters, homeless shelters, etc. Don’t dump items needlessly in a landfill.
Remember, your trash is someone else’s treasure!