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Everyone needs extra money. In fact, Iād go as far as to say that nearly all of us just plain need more money and itās not even āextraā.
Iāve gone from times in my life where I needed extra money to buy diapers to needing extra money to pay my car payment to needing extra money to (hopefully) save for retirement.
Wherever you are in life, a little more money can be the lubrication that just makes everything work as it should.
In fact, that was the entire premise when we started this blog, to help people make an extra $1,000/month by selling stuff online.
The average home has around $7,000 of āstuffā that can be sold.
Just look around the room youāre in right now, everything random thing you see was once money and that money was once time. Youāve traded pieces of your life for stuff.
What if we could change some of the stuff back into money? Well, we can. Letās do it.
The best way to make extra money in the short term is to sell your unneeded items locally or online. Look for items with value that can be easily photographed and shipped and list them on popular platforms such as eBay, Poshmark, or Mercari.
5 Things You Can Sell To Make Money Online
If youāve visited many garage sales, youāll know that just about anything can be sold. The problem is that selling a shelf full of trinkets for $1 each isnāt going to make much difference in your life.
We actually spend most of our āfree timeā in thrift stores looking for items to sell but, since youāre just starting out, letās figure out how you can make extra money by selling your own stuff.
Here are a few items that almost everyone has around their house that can easily be turned into extra money:
- Clothing. If youāre like me, you probably wonāt make much extra money selling clothes on eBay because most of your clothes are already from eBay or thrift stores. However, if you (or your significant other) make a habit of buying expensive items, your closet can become a veritable gold mine. (Read Our Best Selling Clothing Brands Article)
- Shoes. Iāve seen Instagram posts of people with an entire closet full of Jordan still in the box. If that was my house you can bet that I would be turning those shoes into extra cash. Shoes of all kinds can be sold for good money including athletic shoes, work boots, dress shoes, specialty shoes, snow boots, etc. (Read Our Best Selling Shoes Article)
- Electronics. Iām not talking about pawning your T.V. There are tons of electronics around the average personās home that can be sold for a bit of extra money. Look for old phones, laptops, kitchen gadgets, window air conditioners (if itās winter), old stereos, video games or consoles, etc.
- Tools. Power tools, hand tools, crafting items, sewing machines, yard equipment, all of it sells. If you are able to ship your items you can put them on eBay and open yourself up to a huge pool of buyers!
- Unused Baby Stuff. If you have had kids, you probably have unused baby stuff around. Our youngest is only 3 but weāve already sold a car seat, a jogging stroller, crib, highchair, bumbo seat, nursing pillows and much more!
We covered many more items you can find around your home (and at thrift stores) to sell for extra cash in our article 31 Best Non-Clothing Items To Sell On eBay. You can also check out some other articles to learn the types of things we sell for extra money:
11 Dr. Seuss Books Worth Money (Most Valuable Books List)
10 Most Valuable Cabbage Patch Dolls ā A Price Guide
11 Types Of Antiques Worth Money (From a Full-Time Reseller)
Once you start seeing the stuff around your house as little stacks of cash your life will never be the same. Clearing out your extra items for extra money is the best possible āhave your cake and eat it tooā scenario as you get a cleaner living space and extra cash!
Where Should You Sell Your Stuff Online?
Figuring out where to sell your items is going to depend on a lot of things. Namely, what youāve found to sell and how quickly you need money.
If youāre down to the wire and need money to pay bills then your options are pretty limited. Selling items online is not a route to fast money. The sooner you need money (in other words, the more desperate you are) the less money youāll have to accept. If youāre in this boat you are limited to local sales.
So, if selling online isnāt an option, this is the order Iād go about it:
- Facebook Marketplace
- Pawn Shop (for more expensive items)
- Yard Sale
Now, if youāre in cleaning mode or youāve got a little more breathing room, I hope youāve found items that are easy to take pictures of and ship because weāre going digital!
The best items for making money online are small but valuable.
So where should we offer them for sale? Well, the places where theyāre most likely to sell, obviously! In my opinion, the best places for most people to make money are:
Now, if you are selling specialty types of items then you should try some of the alternatives to eBay where there are more focused customers.
While each of these platforms has its own requirements, there are few tips that will help you maximize your profits:
- Take Great Pictures. A picture is the first impression your buyer will get and will often dictate whether or not they actually click through to your listing.
- Give Complete Descriptions. Donāt leave anything out! Mention every little thing you can, including flaws. Youāll have happier customers and fewer returns.
- Offer Excellent Service. Pack well, ship fast, upload tracking, etc. Customers will feel more comfortable with you and future customers will be reassured by your positive feedback.
- Price Items Competitively. Weāll all want top dollar for our items but if you need quickly, price your item to sell. You already bought the item so itās all just a bonus at this point anyway!
- List Your Items On Several Platforms. The more platforms your item is on the better your chances of selling. Since itās super time-consuming to list your item in several places we use an inexpensive program called List Perfectly which lets us quickly crosspost our items onto 11 different platforms.
While making āfast moneyā online is kind of a misnomer (since itās usually quite difficult and time-consuming) if you follow the above tips you should be able to make some extra money to stretch your budget or take that vacation!
How Much Extra Money Can You Make Selling Things Online?
Believe it or not, some people make six-figures flipping random stuff online.
In the past year, weāve sold around $80,000 worth of goods on eBay and another $13,000 on Mercari. However, we make a full-time hobby out of buying items from thrift stores and yard sales to resell.
If you are like most people, you probably (hopefully) donāt have hundreds of thousands of dollars of random stuff sitting around your house.
When we first started out, we were able to make $2-3,000 selling online before we started buying items specifically to resell.
It has been estimated that the average home has around $7,000 worth of āextraā items that can be sold online. Personally, that number seems a bit high but I feel that most people could make at least $1,000 from things sitting around their house that theyāll never miss.
How We Made An Extra $1,000 Selling Our Stuff
Itās been over 5 years since we started selling on eBay so I donāt remember most of the things that we sold in that first purge of our house. I do remember some car parts, textbooks, and clothing but thatās about it.
However, the prospect of writing this article inspired us to go through our house again and de-junk to see if we could make some extra money. Long story short, we did. We not only found two iPhones that we had stuck in a drawer after our last upgrade but decided to sell my wifeās old laptop, some books, some of my clothes, and some kidās clothes.
While we still have more than half of our items for sale, check out the ones that we have already sold:
Now, every online selling platform has fees (Mercari fees are the lowest, eBay fees are mid-range, and Poshmarkās are the highest) but even after shipping all of our items and paying our dues, weāre expecting to make over $1,000 in āextraā money this month.
Conclusion
So, at the end of the day, making extra money is not impossible but it will definitely take some work! However, being able to sell some of your items online to turn them back into cash is a life-changing discovery.
Now, every time you upgrade or move on from something you can simply sell it! Itās good for the environment, makes someone else happy, and funds your next venture.
Happy selling!
Looking for other ways to make money? Weāve tried just about every method there is and these are the best methods if you need to turn $100 into $1,000 quickly!