on Ebay

We've been living in the same house now for nine years and for most of that time, I've been stomping around like a fiend, looking for stuff to throw away or give away. The rate at which young kids accumulate stuff can be truly terrifying for someone with mild-to-moderate OCD and limited closet space.

In any case, I've been reasonably successful over the years and but a couple of weeks ago, I got hit with a second wind for clearing out the old: eBay. I had an old printer cartridge lying around the office for over a year. A year. The thing had value but I no longer had the printer! What do you do with it?

One afternoon, on a whim, I took a photo of it with my bb and made up an ad on eBay. I'd never sold anything online before and mentioned that in my ad. I had no idea whether it would sell but I figured I'd give it a shot before tossing it into the bin.

It sold in 20 seconds. Twenty seconds. Twenty. Seconds.

I did not have time to move on to another task after I hit the "List" button before I got a confirmation that it had sold for $25. So, in the space of about 10 minutes and 20 seconds, I turned about one cubic foot of used rental space into unused rental space and made $25 for my trouble. Hmm.

Now, I'm pretty busy so I try not to undertake new obsessions unless they fit in with my vast array of others but selling unwanted stuff would meet with the usual Prime Directive of Get It Out. In the past, we've always donated clothes & other items to Goodwill & on Kijiji and that will continue but that is usually for items that we figured young families might want but might not be able to afford.

There is a wonderful aspect of being Green by re-using something that someone else wants, rather than seeing it end up in a landfill. Finally, getting a couple of bucks for my trouble is nice but really, the eBay process has struck me as surprisingly fun. I'm less concerned with how much I get than I am with getting stuff out of my life so I've gotten into the habit of putting a starting price of $.99 for most items to generate interest and making sure it sells.

It has also lit a fire under the kids who are somewhat less impassioned about being Green or the concept of Simplify. They are more by the notion of selling stuff to get money to buy new stuff but I figure as long as we are only getting stuff we'd be getting anyway, tying the acquisition to the prior disposal of previously acquired goods actually does carry an important lesson.

Anyway, the next time you see me, don't be surprised if you notice my eyes roaming around the room. I don't mean to be rude but if it ain't nailed down...

Comments

[claire]

The only pain in the a** with Ebay having to ship the item. I prefer selling stuff on Craigslist and Kijiji because people will come and pick it up from you. Can't even tell you the amount of old electronics, cell phones, cameras and furniture we've sold on those two sites.

And you can even give seemingly worthless stuff away there. When we bought a houses and needed to gut the hideous 1980's kitchen, I took a picture of it and said it's free if you come with your tools and muscles to take it away. People were fighting over it! Saved us paying for labour and disposal costs, PLUS it didn't go into the landfill!

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