A month later, the tidying process based on the KonMari method continues. Earlier this week, I mailed out 2 more boxes of books and CDs to sell. Over the last few weeks, I’ve sold to 6 different companies that give you a quote for your used books and CDs and will pay for shipping to their facility. Then the money shows up in your PayPal account. I’ve found this a great avenue to take because I didn’t want to just throw these things out when someone else could use them.
We also finally donated a very full bag of clothes and household items to the local Arc Thrift. It took us a while to find somewhere that would be convenient for us but would get the items to those who might need them.
Additionally, and this was the BIG PROJECT!, I went through all the papers I had in the house, including old school notes. I was a prolific note taker in college, both grad and undergrad. I had been holding on to everything because I had some minor illusion that I may ever go back to school or go into teaching, since I have a teaching certificate from Vanderbilt. I rid myself of that illusion and attacked all my notebooks and binders with a fury!
I wish I had thought to take pictures of the process but I can paint you a picture: multiple small steno pads, 5 divided notebooks, 4 4″ thick binders, and random other papers. Plus I went through all our filling boxes to get rid of anything we didn’t have to keep for tax purposes and such. I kept a very few important papers I had written, ones that mostly aligned with my area of research and interest. That was it, everything else was to go. Which of course meant: we had to shred it all! The good news is, I finished all the shredding a couple days ago but K and I had been working on it for a solid month, 1 trash bag at a time. I think we ended up with about 10 trash bags full of shredded papers (I do not let anything out of the house with our names or personal information on it and my personal notes meant too much to me to let them out without shredding).
So, let’s see, that’s 10 bags of shredded papers, 1-2 bags of trash (maybe more but it often got mixed in with our normal daily trash), 1 bag of donated clothes and shoes, and 5 boxes shipped out for payments. Not bad! But we’re not done yet. Racer K has yet to tackle his stuff (or to read the book), though he has remarked that he likes how my reorganizing and purging has given me more space in my dressers. I offered to tackle his but really, it’s a personal thing to do- to decide what gives you joy and what has outlived its purpose.
If you are looking for ways to get rid of old books, movies, and CDs, here are the companies I’ve used:
- 2nd & Charles- this is a chain that buys your items on the spot and will give you either store credit or cash.
- McKay’s- same model as above, but located in Tennessee. We used them a lot before our move and often got the store credit instead of cash for the higher value and to replace old VHS tapes with BLU-Rays and DVDs.
- Amazon Trade-In Program- Amazon takes a very limited number of books and it has to be the exact ISBN. Also, they give you Amazon credit, not cash.
- Powell’s- This is a company out of Portland and I’m still waiting for the money to show up in my PayPal from them 2 weeks after confirmation of receipt of my books at their facility. However, they do state to give them 2-3 weeks to process the package.
- SellBackYourBooks.com, Textbooks.com, and SellYourDVDsOnline.com- all off these I found through Bookscouter.com. Bookscouter lets you know which of about 19 companies will pay for your books and how much, so you can sell to the one that offers the most. Often, there is a minimum number for the order or a minimum number of books before they will allow you to place your order to sell to them. SellYourDVDsOnline is a place you can sell your old CDs. I mean, once it is all loaded into your iTunes or cloud, why do you need the old plastic sitting around, collecting dust, and just adding to the pounds of stuff you have to move?
I didn’t use Craigslist or EBay to sell my books because I wanted to do this in bulk and just get everything OUT! Also, I didn’t want to pay fees on top of the hassle of individually packaging everything. After all is said and done, and as long as I receive the quoted amounts from each company, I will have made around $80. I was able to get rid of 4 full boxes and a tub from under the bed holding my CDs, and I cleared out space in my closet and my dressers. In fact, I was able to take my purses off a shelf and assign them their own drawer. Plus, I get the satisfaction of knowing these things will go on to help others- whether it is warmth from the gloves and shirts I donated or from meeting a new friend in a story or on an album that will cheer someone up. Further, we have 1 small box left to get out of the house and this will be donated to our local library, since all the above avenues would not buy them. Trust me, you’ll be surprised what isn’t taken and what is.
It was a great feeling the other night to finish the shredding and now, we just get to enjoy the extra space and the lightened burden of stuff we carry. Not to mention, it will cost us less on our next move. Yay, us!
Update 9/30/15: I finally received all the money from each of the sources I sold to. For Powell’s, I had to email them as it was over 3 weeks since they’d received my package but they got my payment processed that day. All in all, I made $74 and all it took me was a little bit of time. I had boxes and shipping materials on-hand from orders we had received in of household items. It was all very easy and I’d highly recommend using any of the buyers I worked with.