Welcome to the final Part of the Financial Cleanse (part III).  Guaranteed to detox your financial-bowels to a better and more money-savvy you!  (I’m kidding about the guarantee, but I did use these suggestions for a more money-savvy me!)

A cleanse is not a cleanse without getting rid of stuff.  My fellow Yakezie, Money Reasons wrote a great post last month about ways to Increase your Savings Delta (love the title because it sounds all scientific and sexy-nerdy).  He defines the Savings Delta as:

(Discretionary Income – All Other Expenses) = Savings Delta

So how does one increase this savings delta?  Simple.  You need to find other sources of income.  One of the sources of income Money Reasons mentions is to sell stuff on eBay.

Selling stuff on eBay, Craigslist, or even at your local consignment store are great ways to increase your discretionary income.  Hey, one man’s (or woman’s) junk is another man’s (or woman’s) treasure, right?

A few weeks ago, I sold an old leather jacket and a bicycle in the same day!  I just took a picture, posted it on Craigslist, got some emails and met up with people and.. boom.  Money ($170 to be exact! AND I bought those items used last year for $150 so I actually MADE $20 hah!) in my wallet.

It was so easy.  No wonder my boyfriend loves selling his video games on Craigslist.  It’s kind of addictive really.  Now I’ve been ransacking my home to find other items to sell.  Not only does this decrease the clutter around your home (seriously, my place was starting to look eerily similar to an episode of Hoarders) but it also generates some income.

I personally like selling things on Craigslist because you get money right away and you don’t have to pay anyone any commissions for selling it (unlike eBay or a consignment store where the store will take 40-50% of the cut).  Though certain items sell better on Craigslist vs eBay vs consignment.

Also, with consignment stores, sometimes the money you receive from selling your items at the shop goes BACK to the consignment store because you see something you like.  So you need to try and resist the temptation to buy.

Here’s a brief list to give you some examples to help you start selling your junk:

Items to consider selling on Craigslist:

• Your car, bike, bike rack, motorcycle
• Video games, iPhones or other cell phones, your cell phone contract
• Furniture and other things people look for used
• Other “big ticket” items that can’t be mailed
• Tickets to events that people want

Items to consider selling on eBay:

• Clothes and bags (though usually only popular brands-think Abercrombie, Juicy Couture-seem to work well)
• Shoes (though shipping can be a pain- $$$)
• Collectible items (like the American doll girl?)
• Small items like jewelery and watches

Items to consider selling through a consignment store:

• Clothes
• Shoes
• Bags, wallets, jewelery
• Children’s clothes (there seems to be a few children’s consignment stores cropping up here in Vancouver)
• Sports items (we have many stores here that sell used bikes, sports clothes, tents, cleats, snowboards, skates etc.)

What do you think? Anything else you think sells well that can be added to the lists above?  Which method of getting rid of junk do you personally like to use?  Any great stories of selling your junk that you’d like to share?