Why piling things up could be good for your pocket

» By MichaelMoneyMaker | the 01-22-2010 at 14:16 | 26 views (15 unique) | 1 comment | Report post!

A good spring clean isn’t just tidying up – it’s a great way of generating some extra cash. And here’s a step-by-step guide how to do just that...
** Organise the mess – First things first, you need to go through all your things and sort out what you need and what’s superfluous. To get the best out of the process, don’t just rifle through your junk; look at everything you have, even those things you just recently bought because you ‘thought’ you needed them. Sort everything into ‘definitely need’ and ‘definitely get rid’.
** Be Ruthless – Take another look at your ‘definitely need’ pile. Take a real look at it: do you DEFINITELY need everything in that pile? Probably not – see if you can get at least three more items from your ‘definitely need’ over into your ‘definitely get rid’ pile. It’s a good idea to call in your partner or a friend and ask them to take a look. They’ll be able to look at the items objectively and question if you really need that decorative bronze duck!
** Price it up and flog it – Now go through everything and put a price on it. How much do you reckon you could get for it if you put it on ebay or took it to a car boot sale, rather than just chucking it away? A great way to gauge how much you could get is to actually search for it (or a similar item) on ebay. Look to see how much interest the item’s getting. If a lot of people are looking at it but aren’t purchasing, it means it’s over-priced and you could sweep in and undercut them.
** Don’t clutter – If there’s an item that you just can’t seem to sell, take it down to the local charity shop and see if they’d be interested. You might not get any cash for it, but you’ve already established you don’t need the thing and it would otherwise be cluttering up your home. Someone somewhere might well be able to put it to better use.