Most of the personal finance gurus out there advise you to sell your belongings to raise quick cash to pay off debts or cover a big expense. As someone who frequents Craigslist for the buying and selling of items, it always made perfect sense to me. If you’re not using something and it has some intrinsic value (not everything will sell), then you should sell it on Craigslist or EBay.
Since we’re moving into a new house, we’re trying to decide where all our furniture will go. We’re currently trying to sell our dining table on craigslist. There is no place to put it in the new house. Since we bought it on craigslist originally, it is not a big loss to sell it again. We’ll have a good-sized garage to store items, but I would like to buy a nook-style dining table for our new dine in kitchen so hence we need to sell some things to buy some things. Since I’ve been spending some time lately on craigslist, I’ve also found a nice desk that I’d like to buy for the living room. It is compact and has a fair amount of storage. The real reason that I want it is that it would be a good sewing table. Otherwise, I really won’t have a place to sew. It is a good price for a wood desk but…I need to sell something else to be able to buy it. I’ve been thinking about what I might sell.
Here is where it gets tricky. How do you decide what items that you should keep in case you might need them someday? Furniture in my opinion is pretty easy to sell because you can usually find something similar again later unless it is something unique that you absolutely love. You can usually sell something for close to what you paid for it if you’ve kept it in good shape and you bought it used originally. I also have no problem selling baby/kid items. We’re done having kids so as soon as the girls are through with something it is either sold or given to someone with younger kids. I also don’t mind parting with personal possessions like books and things that are easy to repurchase or better yet borrow from the library.
My question is then what about other things? For instance, we have a washer, a dryer, and a refrigerator that we bought when we moved into our first rental house six years ago. The house didn’t come with any of these. We bought bottom of the line appliances new. We used them for four years. Then, when we moved to this house, we’ve only needed to use the washer. The other appliances were provided. Now, the new house has a refrigerator, a washer, and a dryer provided. We can bring our appliances with us and store them in the garage. But I hate to keep lugging them along if we won’t need them. We could sell them and get a couple hundred dollars. All are in good working condition. However, what if we move again and need appliances. We’d have to purchase either new appliances or take the risk and buy used and have to borrow or rent a truck to move them too. Either way, there would be a cost involved. I don’t want to be penny wise and pound foolish. Sell off my appliances and have to turn around and purchase new ones in a year or two. It would also be a waste to let them sit in the garage for another couple of years unused.
Should you keep something that you might need someday or let tomorrow worry about itself?
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