Take a look at your bedroom.
Chances are, you’ll have a bed, a nightstand, a dresser drawer, a closet, and maybe a TV. You may or may not have memories of how you got those pieces of furniture, how long you’ve had them, and who you’ve shared them with.
Now imagine that room empty.
While that may at first invoke feelings of sadness, eventually that should turn into feelings of hope and excitement! After all, if you’re seeking to travel the world full time, turning your possessions into income is a good way to develop an initial financial cushion.
While there are multiple ways to sell your stuff, here are the top five that we’ve settled on for selling all of our stuff:
1. Garage Sale
A garage sale is a classic way to get rid of stuff. Just toss all your items onto your driveway, put some signs around in your neighborhood, and just sit and wait for people to arrive and peruse your belongings. I’m starting with this one because it’s one of the most common ways to sell stuff. Is it the best way? It depends. Garage sales are good because they take very little preparation. However, it’s not really a passive way to sell stuff. You have to sit in your driveway all day, waiting for customers to arrive and pretty much haggle with you for the best deals. This method is good for getting rid of large items and bulk items (like DVDs, toys, etc).
2. eBay
eBay is the first of several websites that allow you to list your items online. With eBay, auction is the name of the game! If you have items that you could reasonably expect to have a high demand, then setting up an auction may be the best way to go. Some examples of this may be collectible items, certain electronics, or things that are no longer made or available publicly. You never know, your item might start a bidding war that would send your sale price skyrocketing! Or, you can also expect no bidders or your item to not hit the minimum price you were aiming for. Make sure you set realistic expectations and look at the prices that the same or similar items are selling for as well.
3. Craigslist
Craigslist is one of the most popular platforms to list your items, primarily because you can post easily and anonymously. The popularity of the site may vary depending on where you live, but if you price your items competitively by researching retail vs. used price, you may be able to find a buyer that will either drive to your house or meet you at a location of your choosing.
4. Facebook
Facebook recently released their “Marketplaces” feature as a way to compete with Craigslist when it comes to selling items online. The main difference between this and Craigslist is that since Marketplaces is tied to your Facebook account, your profile is tied to your listings. However, with Facebook having such a massive user base, your listings have the potential of being seen by far more people than Craigslist. Additionally, there are plenty of “Buy – Sell – Trade” Facebook Groups that you could sell specific items to. These groups also allow you to ship items to people that may not live close to you but still desire your stuff. You can easily search for these groups by putting “Item X buy sell trade” on the Facebook search bar and filtering the results to show Groups only.
5. Consignment
A consignment store is a place where you can take your items to be sold. While this may be more convenient if you don’t want to spend all day doing a garage sale, you do end up giving a percentage of the sale to the consignment store.
There are also some online consignment-style marketplaces that you could use. For example, thredUp is a company that will send you a bag for you to put all your lightly worn clothes and ship them. They’ll inspect them, buy certain ones from you and return the rest. While you may receive way less than you expected for this, it’s a relatively easy way to get rid of women’s and kids’ clothing.
Selling all of your stuff is certainly a daunting task! However, if you make a plan and set realistic expectations for the prices you would sell your things for, then before you know it you’ll start seeing your rooms get emptier and emptier while your bank account bottom line will grow and grow! While it may be tempting to spend that money right away, make sure you have your heart set on your goal to travel! Forming that financial “runway” will not only help kickstart your full-time travel, it will also give you the time to build your online business until it eventually becomes your main source of sustainment for your trips.
As always, if you have any questions or additional ways to sell things, don’t hesitate to send us an email at [email protected] or post a comment below!
