Welcome to Saving Money with Andrew! If you’re new, you might want to check out my top 9 money-saving tips.
Last week, we moved out of our longtime apartment. Moving is a huge hassle and quite a workout, but it also presents a great opportunity to declutter and make some money while doing so.
In February, I talked about best practices for decluttering. Ask yourself:
Do I need this?
Is it worth anything?
If so, where should I sell it?
If not, can I recycle or donate it?
For me, the major things I didn’t need anymore fell into three categories:
Books - most books aren’t worth much, but plenty are worth $5-20 used. Long ago, I sold used books on Amazon or eBay, but it’s tedious to ship each sale individually, and selling commissions are often very high. I’ve started using Bookscouter, which lets you search for books you have and shows you a list of sites that will buy them. I had about 15 books (including a number of cookbooks) to sell, and Bookscouter directed me to Sellbackyourbook, which had the highest offer for most of them. Then, all I had to do was print a prepaid shipping label to send my books in. Results - $64 in 30 minutes of work
Old Cellphones - During the move, I found several cellphones dating back to the early 2010’s that I had always kept around “as backups”. Really old cellphones don’t have much value, but more recent ones (particularly iPhones) do. And it’s always better to recycle a phone than let it collect dust until you throw it away, which can be particularly bad for the environment given the materials in phone batteries. I used Sellcell, which lets you enter the phone model and shows you companies that will buy your old phone at the best price. I sold several useless old phones to BuybackWorld and Gazelle. Make sure to factory reset your phones and remove your personal info/accounts before sending them in. Results - $98 in 30 minutes of work
Old Electronics - We tend to accumulate electronics, particularly old/broken laptops. Surprisingly, even broken laptops have value (people can try to repair or use the parts). In our case, we sold a Chromebook laptop with a broken “m” key (really hard to communicate without the letter “m”) for $202, and another with a completely broken hinge (thanks kids!) for $108, both on eBay. After fees, we netted $271 for an hour of work.
Overall, we made about $433 in two hours, and got rid of some clutter. And there’s more to go; we have a few more boxes to go through.
Finally, thanks for reading to the end! Here’s Andrew’s pick of the week:
Lincoln Center at Home
Lincoln Center, home of the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, and Juilliard, has always had a great YouTube presence, but they’ve really gone a step further during COVID, posting many of their greatest performances on their YouTube channel. One of my favorites is this 2013 production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s beautiful and somewhat strange Carousel. And if you have kids, their #ConcertsForKids series has incredible artists performing kid-friendly concerts from home. Enjoy!
I hope this has been helpful. If you liked it, please share it with a friend! Also, please send me your feedback, requests, and success stories.