I am good at decluttering but my ebay/carboot pile has taken over my life

[WearingGreen]

Please slap me.

My car boot pile has filled its corner of the garage and is encroaching on the house. I am not going to do a car boot sale. I am too busy and it is cold and rainy. So I'll just charity shop the lot, but I can't because its worth money, there is some good stuff in there and the sheer volume of it means that it is worth a fair bit. So I'll sort it, put the decent kids clothes and a few other choice items on ebay and charity shop whats left over. Except I won't. I have had a carpet cleaner next to my bed for 2 months because there is no room for it in the garage.

Please slap me again.

And now kick my arse.

My carboot sale pile got so big that some of it is at my mums house .

I'm waiting until next Spring to do one now.

so you just pass the crap onto someone else on the carboot joblots. not such a bad idea. don't think i would want to post it though.

Wearing - it was the coffee/cake point which made me decide I really couldn't be bothered to sell it. If I buy fewer coffee & cakes, don't get the DC as many clothes or presents this winter, not fall for offers in supermarkets of things I don't really need, then I'll have saved the cash I could have made and I'll have less to ebay/car boot in 12 months time.

My DP does this - he takes stuff out of the charity bag "because I could get a fiver for it on ebay". But he never ebays ANYTHING. I have taken to just sneaking stuff out of the house - he either doesn't notice or is secretly grateful to me for not enabling his ebay fantasy. Honestly, he's like the third Trotter brother - "this time next year, Bluey, we'll be millionaires!"

I know someone who sold carboot job lots on Ebay- collection only. I think they sold three in the end - or sold the subsequent ones to the same guy outside of ebay. Can't remember.

I do this too .

I also stockpile empty cardboard boxes and jiffy bags for the purpose of sending ebayed stuff. It drives DH potty and takes over our utility room and study. I tend to have two big eBay sale binges a year, around May and October (so I'm due for one now). In my defence I usually do pretty well, paid for a holiday earlier in the year although a lot of the stuff I sell is stuff I bought on eBay in the first place.

DH has been nagging me, so I took a big bag and three boxes to the charity shop last week, and a load of the empty boxes to the tip. We can now see the floors of the utility room and study again, and get to the freezer! It does feel good, I must say.

I think I'm going to have a rule to take anything worth less than £10 on ebay to the charity shop. My life's too short.

Honestly I have been terrible for putting things in various places around the house not to mention cramming the loft full of old toys, clothes and household bits over the years. It's funny though because I'm quite minimalist in style and known for ruthlessly decluttering it's just I hide it and think I will sell it otherwise it's a waste. I finally sat down and realised that although making a few hundred quid would be handy, I just can't be asked to put in the effort and round here the decent car boots close till spring and it would be another winter of making excuses.
I could procrastinate for England but really just wanted to wake up one morning and have it all gone so I didn't have to think about it again.
Now I have a bag hanging up with the coats and every time I pull something out of dc wardrobe that they've grown out of I put it in the bag and drop it at the charity shop next time I go to town.
Just knowing the pressure to do something with it all is gone is such a relief.

" I also stockpile empty cardboard boxes and jiffy bags for the purpose of sending ebayed stuff"

not just me then

"stockpile empty cardboard boxes and jiffy bags" - yes yes, DP does this too, I can't get into the cupboard under the stairs because it is full of boxes "for when I ebay the computers". This is a pile of ancient laptops that no-one in their right mind would pay good money for.

Why not pick five things to eBay? Keep it small but high value. If you can't, charity shop it.

"stockpile empty cardboard boxes and jiffy bags" - oh yes.

I agree pick 5 high value things to ebay. Do the trick of making the listing start sometime far in the future and hopefully a free listing weekend will happen before then so you don't have to pay listing fee.

And I'm one of those people who keeps listing unsold items on free listing weekend. And often it is second/third/ fourth or even fifth time lucky.

But after 5 times -- to the charity shop it goes.

Oh I do that too (I have stacks of jiffy bags!) and have piles of lovely MOnsoon dresses with labels on that I have been meaning to ebay for ages.

I looked into the trading assistants on ebay but all the ones near me specialise in selling games or model toys etc.

I think there is a gap in the market there, a Mumnet trading assistant could rake it in!
Has anyone used a trading assistant who is not local? COuld that work?

Perhaps we shoudl all list our stuff on the for sale boards here instead...

You'd probably find a dress agency easiest Pannacotta - is there one near you?

Get rid to charity, I have done this before too, saved stuff to sell, never did, kept it all for three years then finally charity shopped it. Never again. I send straight to charity now.

Oh yes, someone please be an MN trading assistant. She could come in and have a nice while valuing the junk.

Actually they are talking about having an MN charity. So there might be a way for someone to, you know, ebay stuff for the MN charity while giving a small cut to the de-clutterer and taking a small cut for herself.

That way, you wouldn't get any moans and groans and nitpicking about percentages.

This thread could have been all about myself. I've had a 'car boot' area in the loft for years, promising myself I'd do a car boot sale every summer when 'the weather gets better!'.
Never have done and this thread has really motivated me to get rid of it all to a charity shop. I'm going to get it all down from the loft, put it in the garage and call the local charity shop who will collect if you have a fair amount.
May help me to pass on my late husband's clothes too. It's 5 years since he died and this is a really difficult thing for me to deal with. The charity shop concerned is actually connected to the hospice where he died so that may make it a little easier.

All our old stuff goes to the local asylum-seekers drop-in - people are given 'leave to remain' ie it is deemed that they 'deserve' asylum, then they have to set up home with next to nothing. The group's policy is 'if you have it in your house we probably need it'. So you could give them your old toaster, for example - i doubt the charity shop would want that, as no one would buy it.

Likewise, old clothes aren't always good enough to sell, but there could still be plenty of wear left in them - i think charity shops can be quite choosy (justifiably so) and only take stuff they know they can sell. They ragtex the rest. I would rather my stuff went to someone who could directly get use from it, not for it to, at best, earn a few pennies for a charity, or end up in landfill.

Giant box of jiffy bags and random bits of bubble wrap? Oh yes.

Maybe I can eBay those?

I've found a trading assistant who lives near me, so thanks so much for that link, Iwish.

I only want to buy all her stuff, though! How much is this acquaintance going to cost me? Wail....