decluttering to sell? sorry long post

[eeky]

ok, I am the world's worst hoarder of Stuff That Will Come in Handy one day. Also useful nice stuff that I don't use but Keep For Best, and find I am still keeping for best several years later... . Dh is relatively neat and tidy so would be a great relief for him if I actually got on and did the decluttering.

Complicated by fact that we live in a house that we bought to renovate and extend - 5 years later haven't started yet due to dh ill-health (he is in construction and was to do the building himself..), and lack of cash to pay anyone else to do it . So space at a premium until we can afford to get the building done.

Main reason is we have dd 18m and ds 6 weeks old. DD is in her own large room which has a huge wardrobe unit full of more crap (clothing/bedding).

Ds is in our room (only have 2 bedrooms) and the plan is to put up a stud wall to make 2 small rooms for dd and ds. Downstairs we have tons of clutter and plenty of building tools which are limiting dd's ability to safely run around - she is only just walking, but would like her to have more space.

Things to get rid of:

MOUNTAINS of books - paperback fiction, quite bit of travel/factual and tons of university textbooks which are now at least 10 - 15 years out of date

Clothing and shoes, most new and either will never fit or will never use it now.

Baby clothes and stuff (Bumbo, bottle warmer, etc)

Funiture - old tables and chairs, lots of IKEA book/CD shelves (so will not be tempted to fill them up again with more books!)

What would you do - dump and charity shop, or try and make some cash on the stuff? I do use ebay every so often to sell clothes but with 2 kids under 2 I'm not sure would ever find the time to list them all! Looked at Amazon for book selling but seems like a lot of effort. Have had 2 carboots before ds arrived but didn't sell enough sadly. Anyone tried selling books to second-hand bookshops, or at university book sales (textbooks)? It's a balance between getting some extra cash which would be really useful at present, and not spending hours for very little return - any advice?

you won't make much money on the books, charity shop em.

furniture - if you couldn't sell at carboot, I would donate them to samaritans or somesuch.

New clothes are worth ebaying.

Baby stuff - NCT sale (see NCT website). They will take a cut but you should be able to make a bit of money.

I saw a programme once - one of those decluttering ones where a man came out and bought books, videos cd's and DVDs by the foot metre/yard, something like that. They found him in the yellow pages.

A friend also sells bags of old clothes to a man that comes to the door to collect.
Its not a lot of money but its a couple of quid for something you might have given or thrown away.

Phone a secondhand bookshop to get an idea but probably not worthwhile - I phoned a local one and they would need to see boks to make an offer but her guide was that v good condition chick-lit for instance would be 10% of cover price - so looking at maybe 40p for a book. As the shop is an hour's drive I decided it was better just to get the good feeling of giving to charity shop and getting more space in the house. I had a couple of high-price unwanted gift resipe books that I did put on Amazon - one has just sold so I should get £5 after postage/fees, but would only do for these 2 books as if they sold I'd get £5 or more - you could be waiting ages with them cluttering your house in the meantime.

NCT sales great - I just made £138, of which 4 were higher priced items (baby slings etc at £10/£15 each) and the rest was on clothes/toys. The "ticket sales" (you give your stuff to them and take back what's not sold) seem to get more money for the sellers than tabletop sales (the ones where you man your own table)