Hello Dear Reader,
In these current economic times, everything has a currency. Now, I love a good clear out and like to have a reasonably minimalist home so I don’t like clutter or any unwanted items lain around. I thought I would take a moment to share all the ways I make extra money by recycling. Over the years, we’ve accumulated a few mobile phones, usually ones we’ve bought second hand in the first place but I had three to get rid of. I want all of you to go and find that retro brick you’ve got and you think is totally worthless and consider selling a mobile phone. I know that environmentally they need specialist recycling and disposal and you can’t just throw them away. We checked out the companies that offer cash for mobile phones and after research found one that offered ease of use, a sturdy freepost bag, fast payment and the highest prices for the phones we sent. We no longer had any use for them but were certainly glad of the money for what is essentially a recycling service.
Take another look around your home. We still had some of the kids’ DVDs, computer games and CDS as well as some DVDs of our own. Charity shops here get a few of them but some of them are worth a few pounds and again, we did our research and found, via the internet, recycling services that paid us for items we didn’t need any more. We escaped all of the ebay fees, hassle and simply popped them into a freepost bag and were sent the money via paypal. It couldn’t be easier. Of course, some get taken to the charity shop but ours are fussy about any of the 18 rated games or DVDs so we sold them and recycled them at the same time.
So, let’s see how far we’ve got in this clear out. The mobile phones have gone and they’ve sent you some money. The CDs, DVDs and computer games have also disappeared from under the TV. You’ve got lots more room and the front room looks at lot tidier as does your bank account. No need to rest yet, go upstairs and check out all the clothes that don’t fit or never fitted in the first place! I’m quite happy to buy clothes from ebay and I know other people are too. I had a collection of work suits in every shade of black and grey and I have no use for them any more! I had them dry cleaned on a two for one offer and then photographed them and got them onto ebay when they were having a free listing weekend. It’s a bit of work to get that done; to check there are no holes, or marks or stains and take a close up of any imperfections and clearly state they exist in the description. They all sold and there’s much more room in my wardrobe.
Parts of my house resembled a book shop and many books were gathering dust. I had kept every book, including university texts which cost me my week’s food budget when I bought them. As a mature student, every word of every text was read and for many years I was loathed to part with them. I shook myself one day in the realisation that books were over running the house and some/a lot had to go. I listed all of the academic texts and sold all of them via the internet bookshop. I listed them cheaply and covered the cost of postage and made valuable space and recycled at the same time.
Now there’s the advice for ‘everything else’. When we’ve needed a really good clear out, we’ve taken everything to the car boot sale and had our own version of Poundland and we’ve had the last hour of so of three for a £1 just because we don’t want to take it home. If you look at the few items here and there, and the small but welcome extra bits and pieces of income it can bring you, then you can recycle and help the planet at the same time.
Over to you. Have you ever recycled anything to make some much needed cash? Who has a brilliant car boot sale story to share? Was anyone else surprised like me that their old relic of a mobile phone was actually worth any money.
Until tomorrow,
Love Froogs
Disclosure - this is a sponsored post, however I used the mobile phone recycling service, received the payment and the opinions given here are my own.
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I went on one of those sites for money for old cd's dvd's etc, one was willing to give 89p for a dvd of my sons, i listed it on ebay and got £15 for it, i had no idea it was a limited edition one. Just goes to show eh? xx
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Thanks for the. Reminder
I am going through my DVDs tomorrow…….off they go!
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I ebay and boot. Should do cds dvds and phones. I am inspired. I also sell rags and old clothes if I have a lot of them. They are typically third hand by the time I get rid so have no qualms selling them by weight. Kids clothes and shoes mostly.
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Don't overlook donating books, CDs, DVDs and games to your local library. I don't know if you can do that in the UK but we can here in Aust.
You won't walk away with money in your pocket in payment for the goods but the reward is knowing that there are kids, families, and a lot of older folk who cannot afford these things and so can borrow them for free.
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Oh I just discovered I have about thirty pounds worth of old mobiles, I just sort that out! Thank you
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For books, Amazon Trade-In is great and they offer you free postage. Worth knowing 😉
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I'm on the last leg of sweeping through the house jetisonning everything that isn't needed or wanted. It's a brilliant feeling space and money instead of clutter.
Most of ours hais going (or has already gone) through car boot sales this year although I did sell some collectable Dvd's on Amazon.
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I use clear outs as my charity donations instead of giving them money. All my stuff goes to Oxfam. They now have 'tag your bag'. when you get 100 nectar points for your donation.
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For UK tax payers it's worth remembering to Gift Aid donations to charity shops. Just leave your name & address when donating & the shop can claim back 25% of the money raised when your donations are sold. A tax efficient way of maximising your donation when decluttering. Win - win!
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These days we don't have much left to recycle, having sold almost everything we owned a few years back, I'm more likely to be receiving other peoples recycled stuff than clearing out myself!
The phone's we are currently using are over five years old and although they may look a bit dated and don't do a fraction of what most people expect from a phone these days, they still do the job they are meant to do so I've never felt the need to renew them. In the past I always passed my old phones onto my kids rather than using any of the trade in schemes, of course the kids were much younger then and just overjoyed to have their own phone, now they'd probably look at it with distaste and offer to 'upgrade' me with one of theirs. lol
We used to do boot sales quite often though. After hubby had his first heart attack and we were struggling with the rent until he was back at work, we would do a bootsale about every other week and we often made £70 or £80 which went a long way towards keeping a roof over our heads. Some things I wish we'd held on to, but having both been through a divorce we decided that anything we hadn't bought together was good to go. It was good to have a clear out and not only did it solve a financial headache, it meant we started our new life together with a clean slate.
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Interesting post. I'll have to check on the phone recycling here in America. I have a few of those in a drawer doing nothing but taking up space. I have had success selling on Ebay and Craigslist, too. Clothes and old baby items I have no use for any more. It is time to clean out again. Thanks for the reminder. Have a super day!
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Hello froogs
done the mobile phone resale and will do it again in the future, easy money I say! Also done the ebay selling but it gets a bit gritty after a while so am leaving this alone for now. DH recently sold over 400 CDs at work and we split the money 3 ways, him, me and the community first responders (DH volunteers for them). We also carboot and will do again this summer. Interesting to read about swopping books via amazon, didn't know about this but will look into it as we have tooo many! We also put 'stuff' at the end of the drive with please give me a new home and it always goes. Done this with an old bike, plastic garden table and chairs and paving slabs - I wish we did the same as in the US and on the continent whereby you put unwanted items on the roadside during specific weekends in the year and people can help themselves….
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I met my boyfriend Xmas 2011, however he lived in Canada and I lived in England! We made the decision to move me over to Canada, but this would be impossible as I needed to save money and I currently spent £240 on my car per month (before petrol), £400 on debt repayments and I had a £1000 overdraft. To get myself back on top I sold my car and lift shared to work. I will not be buying a car so lightly again! Next I did just as you have listed here - I ebayed my life possessions and found that I didn't miss them at all!! Then I started out at boot sales. The money I made was enough to get me to where I am right now writing this - on a sofa in Canada! I still have a credit card and a loan I have to repay, my debt totals £10000 but it is on it's way out- bit by bit!
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