Hard to sell today because everyone's giving stuff away free?

@MistressoftheDarkSide DH got house clearence in too. You would have paid more in storage then paying someone to take the entire lot away.

People are only giving things away for free so they don't have to pay for a man and a van to get rid of stuff.

I play the piano and this is particularly obvious for free piano. Almost none of them have any value. You also have to pay quite a bit to get one moved because of how heavy they are. Everyone with an old piano and listing on free sites are hoping they'll find someone to take away for free.

I've heard the same about sofas. Basically anything that can't be taken away in a normal family sized car.

I have been getting stressed about what to do with charity shop things recently too. The shops often have signs saying they are full, and the only one I can find that does genuinely want donations is in a town centre, so it costs a lot to park there.

I don't have the time to drive around looking for somewhere, but the clothing bins are all overflowing with stuff spilling all over the ground nearby, so it feels just like putting it in the bin. Maybe that's what I should do with it ...

I was just searching for businesses that sell for you and found a couple. maybe that's the answer.

Trash nothing usually works well for getting rid of stuff. But have had someone fail to respond to a message yesterday so trying to rearrange that

Selling is a right faff tho

I made over 2k on vinted last year, it's worth doing for certain items. Low resale value kids toys etc I now list for free on marketplace or olio as it's not worth the hassle of arranging packing materials to sell on a resale, or haggling with local buyers on market place. Once I've had a clear out, I want it gone.

I typically leave stuff outside my house or donate to a charity shop.

Sadly, I don't have time to sell things or to do shopping in a charity shop - I tend to buy everything online for efficiency!

DS sold his A level revision books, nerf guns and his two old childhood bikes. I used to take my a few clothes to a dress agency, doesn’t exist anymore but it was great because you could try stuff on, it only sold very good quality items. When I needed rid of loads of craft supplies my teacher mate happily had them for the primary school she taught in. We have a road whats all group that gives stuff away.

I just give everything that’s ok to the charity shop.

I found the opposite, I always gave unwanted stuff to charity shops or clothes bins but have noticed people will sell anything even for a couple of pounds.
I've had a big clear out and so have been trying to sell somethings which are worth a lot more than I'm selling them for but would find it hard to bother with posting/waiting in for a collector for £5.

We are having a clear out. I am
listing some things for sale but just dumping a load, after 2 weeks if things haven’t been sold they will go to a charity shop or clothing bin.

Selling is too much hassle now with —chancers— ‘buyers’ trying to haggle and lots of time wasters. Much better just to give to someone who turns up collects and takes away.

I also think what you pay for an item is often less relevant than who you're selling to. MIL had to give away a huge mahogony furniture set that cost thousands when she downsized.. She thought it would sell easily for £££s. Even auctions wouldn't take it.

I think a lot of people selling second hand items get bogged down in how much they paid for it when it was new, and ask silly prices as a result. There was a thread on here a few years ago where the OP couldn’t work out why no one wanted to buy her Sofology sofa… for £1000. Everyone told her she was living in cloud cuckoo land expecting anyone to pay a grand for a second-hand sofa, but she just kept shouting “But it’s from Sofology!!!”

I ended up giving a perfect high sleeper for free as despite a small fee I wanted for £ 100, the bed new cost over £ 1000, I only got time waster, once I put it for free it was no messing around and was collected straight away.

Watched Call the Midwife last night and Jumble Sales were mentioned, Whatever happened to them?

Last time I saw one DD1 was a bay - now 19 - we found her favorite red dress.

I got guilted into lending it to Dsis and her DD by Mum and it was then sold on e-bay so DD2 never wore it.

We've end up selling some exam text books on-line as charity shops here won't take them and don't know anyone to pass them on to. It was more of a hassle and took longer to get the £20 for pile of books than stated.

I fully admit that I have too much stuff, particularly clothes, shoes and handbags. A lot is good quality which I was going to have a go at listing on Vinted or EBay but it seems such a faff for little reward so I've packed up several bags and will take them to the charity shop tomorrow. Anything Primark/Tu etc goes in a bag which I take to H&M for their donate scheme where I get a £5 voucher to use on a later purchase.

Nope. Way more people are selling stuff now that would have been donated in the past.

When my mum died we cleared/took as much as we wanted and then got house clearance in - they auctioned what they could and I don’t know what they did with the rest. All in we only made a couple of hundred quid but it got the job done and we didn’t lose money.

This is the problem. The technical worth is a few thousand, but has to be weighed against "the market" which isn't apparently interested, and then the costs including time, of either selling, by whatever platform, with no guaranteed buyers, or disposal, both of which would amount to more than the storage fees. Consumerist Catch 22. It should be as simple as you suggest, but it really isn't.

Equation: How much is the stuff worth vs how much you're spending on storing it. Easy maths.

It's a joke, it's often online

I remember seeing someone - and this is genuinely true - trying to sell a half eaten Chinese on Facebook Marketplace one Friday night about ten years ago, and decided then and there that I couldn't deal with it 😅

Where I live there's a great 'free stuff' FB page that doesn't allow selling; anything of any value we put on there, one price, collection only. Don't think is ever taken me more than a day to get rid of clothes, cookware, beds, unwanted gifts, furniture, all sorts.

For anything worth less than 20 quid or so I put it on the local selling page then don't take the money. Saves the hassle of people not turning up.

I buy secondhand a lot, so I'm glad for some people it is worth the hassle to sell stuff, because it means there's stuff available for me to buy. I'm quite fussy though, and often looking for specific things/sizes/brands. The joy has gone out of a charity shop rummage because I think people tend to put decent stuff on Vinted now, so it's mostly just racks of Primark/Shein.

I also give things away for free, particularly baby/kids things to the baby bank, as that means they're more likely to go directly to people who actually need and will use them. I'd love it if we had a more circular economy, with people choosing good quality secondhand things over cheaply made new ones, and passing them on when they don't need them. Agree with posters who've pointed out we have an overconsumption crisis!

Ha.

This whole conundrum has been the bane of my life for three years since my DP died and I had to wind up my business and downsize from a 4 bed rented house to a 1 bed flat. During the process I tried to give away / sell so much stuff but still ended up with a storage unit that is suckong 300 ish a month from my very meagre budget.

For many complicated reasons I did not have the time or energy to "just put it on Vinted / Ebay" with all the admin and potential tax implications. I tried local auction houses for my ex shop stock and they turned their nose up.

A few alleged "friends" wanted some of my late DPs stuff, if it was free of course, but as they only made contact with me in ghoulish fashion when I posted my issues on Facebook, I didn't want them to have it as they'd paid him precious little attention in the last years of his life and me even less after he died, so I was a bit petty about that.

My elderly parents split up this last year, and now my Dad has a storage unit in the same place as me, and we are both figuring out what to do with collectibles and ephemera.

Frankly I'm already at the point where it's tempting to lob a Molotove cocktail into the whole lot and run away cackling.

If there's an answer to all this I'm really not seeing it.

Yes but we also have more stuff in homes