Retail therapy. Shopping addiction. Following in the footsteps of Cher Horotwiz*. I have a lot of stuff. Way too much stuff, in fact. While I’ve written about decluttering my office and the whole first floor of our house, I’ve stopped short of sharing the nitty gritty details of the upstairs. Because it’s kind of embarrassing.
But since I’m no stranger to awkwardness, I thought I’d write this post as a confession of sorts. The short version of it is that I used to shop. A lot. Growing up, I had multiple closets. Truth be told, I still have two closets. And some stuff at my parents’ house. See? I told you. It’s embarrassing. And maybe a little bit pathological. But that’s neither here nor there right now. For the past year, I’ve spent my time curbing those shopping tendencies and decluttering instead.
Because I had such a good run on Poshmark and Tradesy last year, I committed to topping that goal. Last year, I sold $871 worth of stuff. Most of it was clothing and shoes and handbags and accessories. Part of that figure also includes knickknacks and bric-a-brac and small home goods and a whole bunch other junk I should have never bought in the first place. So this year, I wanted to top that amount by December.
Well, it’s the end of May, and I’ve already hit $1039.
Insert full stop here.
In five months, my closet has netted me over a grand. I don’t flip things. I don’t refurbish things. I don’t make listings for friends and family members. I snap photos of things I own and sell. That’s it.
I promise that one day, I’ll share photos and amounts and spreadsheets. I promise one day I’ll run the numbers for what I had to put into my closet to get $1,000 out of it. I promise one day, I’ll have a bells-and-whistles post with all the lessons I’ve learned and personal growth that I’ve made. As for today, I’d love to share more, but I have clutter to clear.
*Seriously, if you don’t get my Clueless references, stop reading this post and find it on Netflix**.
**Also, I have no idea if it’s actually on Netflix. I own it. Duh. And I only get movies and TV shows from the library. Because I’m actually 87.
So Tell Me…What’s your favorite way to resell items? Do you want to know how many pairs of shoes I used to own? I’ll give you a hint. I stopped counting after 100. And no, that doesn’t include boots.
I wish I had learned about these sites before I donated 10 bags worth of clothes (some with tags still on) to the good will! I cringe thinking about the money I could have made! I did get receipts for the donations so I can at least write them off on my taxes. Thanks for sharing this! I will definitely have to start selling any wardrobe items I want to get rid of going forward 🙂
I donate more than I sell – it’s not worth the aggravation sometimes. But you should definitely give it a try! I usually wait about a month and then I take the batch to a consignment shop and a donation center if I can’t sell online. I mostly just want it OUT! 🙂
Thanks for the honest confession! I have had poor results from trying to sell clothes, but that’s probably because I don’t have anything that nice. I think it’s awesome that you’re tackling the closet, decluttering, donating, and already made $1k!
Kalie, I’m actually shocked. I wear a lot of LOFT (hello, teacher clothes), but even my Target stuff sells well. A lot of my sales are shoes, too. Oh the shoes. Oof.
You being a frugal person, I didn’t expect to have that many clothes and accessories. How much money you spent to buy all of those items approximately?
Oh my goodness, I don’t even know if I want to know. I have shoes and handbags and purses from when I was in high school! I guess there’s the one benefit to stopping growing when you’re really young?! I mean, 100 pairs of shoes between 20-80 a pair. That should give you a starting point, right? It’s horrific. That’s part of why I keep them all. They’re all in usable condition — some brand new even. I haven’t really shopped in over a year when I hit the breaking point with the clutter! I will definitely crunch the numbers and share out eventually 🙂
Congrats on being ahead of last year’s bounty when you’re only 6 months into the year. I don’t have any clothes worth selling. But when we’re ready for our next move we’ll try to sell of some furniture. We already know we ‘re not taking our dining room set.
Wow! That is awesome! I wish I had known about Tradesy and Poshmark before massively Kon-Mari’ing my wardrobe last year! Actually, they are still good to know about. I’m a big fan of buying used clothes, so I’ll have to check them out when it’s time to get a few more things for work. Thanks for the tip!
There are so many steals on the sites. I know a few people who try to “flip” finds because you can get such good deals. Kudos to you for going full Kon Mari. I’m doing a weird, slow version of it!
I will selling secondhand clothes is just as easy here in my country. I end up just donating loads of them – no regrets tho. Congrats on being able to get that much money!
Thank you! I do try to donate regularly. It’s much faster…and I think the real payoff is having less clutter to worry about!
Thanks so much for posting about Postmark!!! I learned about this site from your blog in April and have already made over $700 selling clothes just sitting in my closet. I used the $ towards our debt reduction and we are on target to be debt free by November. Any money earned from Postmark is just moving the pay off date closer!!
That’s amazing, Jennifer! Definitely let me know when you hit that date. So excited for you!
Wow – Love this! We are starting the closet (and house) purge this week! This is the year of preparing to “downsize”! Thanks for the ideas on where to sell too. I was thinking just donate or try ebay. Need to do some better research with my time now!