Moving across country - how to responsibly thin stuff?

[Landor n Stella]

In a month or two we are going to move across the country, and I see this as a golden opportunity to get rid of a lot of extra stuff that we don't use. Some of it is complete junk and I will recycle it if I can. Other stuff is nicer, like furniture and kitchen gadgets. I will list those on Craigslist, I think. Any other ideas if Craigslist doesn't sell? Does a garage sale in January in the midwest actually work?

[spider1204]

I'm not sure, guessing it'll probably tougher in that nobody is looking for one, but perhaps you'll have less competition at the same time.  Probably even more important to have a great location than in the summer since people will be less on the lookout and less willing to go out of their way.

What's happening with the house?

[Karl]

I wish you good luck with your move.

I admit that I have never done well with a single-family rummage sale.  Could you combine your sale with stuff from other households in the area and, together, rent a decent space? 

My default, however, has always been to donate it all and let the IRS sort out the soles! :)

[James]

You could look into thrift stores or pawn, you might get some cash that way.  But like others have said, I often just donate what I can't sell easily and take the tax benefits.

[DoubleDown]

Sounds like an exciting move, congratulations on that and your willingness to get rid of excess clutter in your life!

After selling the higher-end stuff on Craigslist, what I would do if I really wanted to get rid of most everything, is to hold an auction right inside the house or garage. That way everything will be guaranteed to sell at some price, or you can just give away anything that doesn't. Bin loose things together rather than selling everything individually so it won't take forever. For example, you could auction off all your pots/pans together, or all the plates/dishes, etc. It doesn't matter if something only sells for one dollar, take it and move on! And people will bid up the nicer stuff.

By guaranteeing a sale of everything at some price, you'll probably end up with a pretty decent chunk of cash at the end. This is generally how estates dispose of entire household contents.

[shadowmoss]

There are people who will do 'estate' sales.  See if you can hire one to sell your stuff.  If you have enough, and an empty apartment/house to stage it in, they might do the sale at your place.  If you don't have enough stuff, they will add it to their next estate sale.  The most recent ones I've heard of are basically inside garage sales.  The person doing the staging takes a cut.  One blog I read where the person let them use her now empty condo prior to selling it had a down side of all the traffic getting her nice carpet dirty and other related issues.  You won't get as much as if you did all the work yourself, but you would get something.  My Mom lives in a senior housing apartment complex and there is one woman who has these sales fairly frequently in the apartments of the people who no longer need their stuff, usually because of going into a nursing home.

[Landor n Stella]

What's happening with the house?

We're going to finish it in record time! I'm submitting my 2 weeks notice tomorrow but don't have to be at the new job until March 1. So we will spend 5 weeks in January and February finishing the house and packing and downsizing. Then, list the house for sale and move!

[Landor n Stella]

Also, just a note that having savings in the bank is the best! We couldn't do it without that. Thanks MMM and the community for teaching us the way.

[chucklesmcgee]

Unless it's worth some serious cash, it's probably best to donate. You can claim market price when you donate, even if no one on craigslist would have taken it. You can do it in masse and it's extremely efficient.

[Emg03063]

Freecycle.org is a good way to get rid of stuff that can be useful to someone, but is not worth selling.

[kolorado]

We never have enough stuff to itemize deductions so I didn't donate too much when we moved across the country. I spent three months selling books and other media on Half.com, collectibles, toys and baby gear on Ebay, various household and niche items through two local Facebook yard sale(rummage sale is another term to search)pages and holding two joint yard sales with my mother. I ended up much lighter and with almost $1000 in my pocket for the effort(and we never owned anything particularly valuable in the first place, I earned it $3-5 at a time over 3 months) The remainder of our yard sale stuff that wasn't sold was left with my parents. They held two more sales after we'd left and then donated the rest of the items to a hospice thrift.
You may be able to have a successful cold weather yardsale if you team up. For example, do you belong to any social groups that could get 5 or more people to run one in a good location together? Offer hot coffee, music and a festive mood to your shoppers and be sure to hound your social group members to come. Make it a benefit by having all the sellers pledge to donate a percentage of the sales to a good charity.