Should You Sell or Donate When You Declutter?
'Money' and 'Stuff' are so intertwined and this decision might stall your progress if you let it
If you have an abstract plan to recoup costs as you declutter, but it’s taking longer than you thought - this post is for you.
Photo by Hilbert Hill on Unsplash
For some, decluttering just means letting go of a few things now and then to maintain a pre-simplified status quo. Maybe they never had an issue with clutter, or maybe they, like me, have worked for years to arrive at what we’ll call “maintenance mode.”
But if you struggle with clutter, it usually means you have a lot to go through. Which also means you may have spent a lot of money to get all the stuff in the first place, or that you’re the type of person who simply sees the value in everything (and therefore has a hard time letting it go). Sometimes it means you have a hard time making decisions in general, so the default has been to keep things.
As you come to the awareness that it’s your clutter that is causing issues in your life (overwhelm, anxiety, stress, lack of time, etc.), and begin to desire change, the feelings of uncertainty and the overwhelm of all the decisions that need to be made suddenly feel like they’re waves crashing over your head. There are so many choices to make that every single one feels huge and important - even life-changing. It’s scarier to make them, and you overthink every tiny detail until your head is spinning faster than you can follow.
Questions like:
What if I need this?
What if I can’t afford to replace this if I need it later?
What if someone gets offended that I got rid of this?
Should I give this away or sell it or just trash it?
Do I have to take this to a special place for disposal (think batteries, paint, electronics)?
How can I know what I’ll need and what I won’t?
…and so many more. They go around and around in your mind and start to lose meaning even as they inundate you.
In time, I will try to answer them all (or walk through all the thoughts in posts, because I know that having it laid out logically can help quiet all this mental noise), and today I want to cover the insidious temptation to sell everything you ever bought.
When I first began my decluttering journey, I tried to sell most of the things I planned to get rid of.
Finances were tight, and I had so much stuff. This was a logical step for my brain to take. It was reasonable. It was even normal - I learned eventually that it was a trap so many declutter-ers fell into.
I thought if I sold it as I went, it could help boost our bank accounts.
I thought selling the stuff would recoup the money that was spent on it in the first place so that our purchases hadn’t been a “waste.”
I thought selling it would somehow pay for the time I was “wasting” on decluttering.
I thought making money on this process would help get my then-husband on board with the entire process.
I thought if it at least covered some of the money I was already making, I might be able to work a little less and by default then become less stressed.
I thought my kid might be more willing to let some of her things go if she was compensated.
I was wrong.
And it was hard as hell to admit it.
Here is what the reality ended up being:
I often found things to buy as I was posting items to sell. I never actually tracked it, but it is very possible I drained our accounts more than filling them, as I tried to sell our stuff.
Used items, especially out-of-date and out-of-style ones… either don’t sell, or they sell at garage-sale prices; pennies on the dollar, if that. Besides, if we got use out of it, it hadn’t been a waste in the first place.
My time was worth a hell of a lot more than the pennies I was making on hours and hours of effort to photograph, detail descriptions, post, maintain ads, respond to inquiries, field ‘weirdos’, and set up arrangements to complete the sales. (Not to mention the freedom decluttering gave me in the end was more than worth the time it took to declutter in the first place!)
He never got on board. He expected me to manage as it was, the end. He judged me against his mother and sisters and their ability to ‘handle it’. And I never could make enough on the items to convince him it was worth getting rid of them.
Selling added to my workload, and to my stress - exponentially.
Her expectations of what her things were worth versus what buyers thought they were worth brought so much disappointment. All too often, things simply didn’t sell or took too long to sell, and then she would decide to keep those items after all.
Now, of course there might be scenarios where it’s “worth it”.
Bought your kid a bike last year and they grew out of it before they could even ding the paint? Perfect! Sell it at a discount, and put the money towards the new one they need.
Have an antique that actually held its value? Get it appraised, and go right ahead and put it up on e-bay or somewhere that people can bid on it, and get what you can.
Have a collection of valuable action figures, comics in pristine condition, etc.? Then, sure. Post them for sale.
Be picky about what you’re willing to spend your time and energy on selling. Most of your stuff is not worth selling, guaranteed. The effort is simply not equal to the payout. The delay in removing the items from your space is problematic in that it may make you rethink your decisions, weaken on a tough call you made, and/or keep the overwhelm top-of-mind for longer.
There are (of course) also exceptions to every rule.
If you’re desperately trying to scrape a couple hundred dollars together to pay the difference on your rent, and you have items in decent condition, and are willing to let them go at low prices, you may be able to make ends meet by selling your stuff. I won’t tell you you shouldn’t, either! This is a legitimate form of bringing in much-needed income now and then, and there is nothing wrong with it. Lower priced, decent items are also a life saver for some buyers who don’t have the funds to purchase much-needed items at brand-new prices.
Just remember, donating items means they will be able to access lower-priced items another way as well, so it’s truly just a matter of if it’s worth it for you to spend the time making it accessible.
However, selling used items as a main source of income is not very practical, and isn’t going to provide the level of income you may be imagining. And if you get sucked into the trap of buying items at lower-than-you-think-they’re-worth prices, just to resell them at a higher price? Oof, that’s the worst trap of all. The truth is, they sold at that price because that’s all most people are willing to pay outside of a store, and while you’re waiting for it to sell at your increased price, people are searching out lower prices elsewhere as you live with more clutter than you started out with. Not good.
It feels scary to declutter when you’ve had a shopping addiction for years, or you’ve become used to living while surrounded with this much stuff. Sometimes, we get comfortable being uncomfortable - in crappy relationships, at a job we hate, in clothes that don’t truly fit us well - and clutter is no exception. The prospect of change makes us come up with reasons to delay the inevitable outcome (like the choice to sell everything), invites us to cause problems to pop up that will divert our attention from the task at hand in order to be solved, and tempts us to do anything but declutter.
Don’t give in.
I won’t tell you not to sell anything, or that you’re making the wrong choice if selling feels right for you. I will only say that whatever makes it easier for clutter to leave your house for good, is the way you should go.
Selling nicer things later on when you are closer to maintenance mode and your decluttering muscles are stronger (therefore prompting you to get rid of things you never would have considered letting go of before) makes more sense. By then, you have more time - now that you aren’t maintaining all that stuff! By then, you have discovered the value of your time and understood more truly the value of your stuff - whether it’s the personal, perceived value, or the actual physical value. By then, it’s easier to do.
When you’re first starting to declutter though, your “decluttering muscles” are weak - you’re tempted to keep more, you are more attached to every item, and you need “better” reasons for why you should let it go. This makes the selling process infinitely harder.
The faster you choose and act on those choices in the beginning, the farther you will get, sooner.
So if you have to throw something away instead of taking the time to sell it, in order to let it go at all? Then throw it away. Even if it’s ‘perfectly good’ or ‘still works’, but you don’t personally need it. Even if it was expensive when you bought it new. Even if someone bought it for you. Even if you’ve convinced yourself twenty times in the past to keep it and that you’d use it (but you never did). Even if it could ‘help some poor person’. Even then.
If you don’t have a recycling program locally, and you’re worried about the environment, and properly recycling everything is time consuming and therefore holding you up, throw it away. I promise you, that as you build these practices of simplifying your life, you will open up so many more and better opportunities to do right by the environment, and do things “the right way” than you could ever have right now while drowning in a sea of stuff.
And, if you just can’t let it go unless you sell it, no matter how hard or how many times you try… then sell it.
No matter how much I know that it’s not the most effective, productive, or shortest path in the ‘decluttering and simplifying your life’ process… I also know some of us have to learn the hard way (I did, too). If that’s you, you do what’s necessary for you - just get the clutter out.
Whatever works is your right answer. Whatever gets you to start moving items out of your space. Just start, and then keep going. It gets easier in time, no matter what choice you make.
And this space is here, whenever you’re ready to uplevel your methods again.
X
Bri
Omg I talk exactly about this in this article