I recently watched the documentary Craigslist Joe through Netflix and was reinvigorated to get back on the Craigslist bandwagon. (Although the movie was about Joe’s project to spend 30 days relying entirely on Craigslist for all food, housing, transportation and entertainment.) Obviously, this wasn’t going to be my thang, but it did get me off my duff and back on track with decluttering my house through Craigslist.
Because “Crap out of the house, money in” is the backup tagline for The Non-Consumer Advocate. (Remember my love letter to Craigslist?)
After years of garage sales and Goodwill donations, I no longer have a huge pile of Craigslist-able items in my house, but there is always something that I can part with.
Example #1
Demoted Upholstered ottoman. It had been serving as my living room coffee table, but the appearance of the mirror top card catalog left it unloved and shoved into a corner of our spare bedroom.
$10 from a garage sale, $30 on Craigslist.
Buy-bye!
Example #2
Two sturdy wooden chairs. These backup chairs only saw light of day on the occasion of huge holiday dinners, but the addition of one son’s Pinterest Challenge chair and the other son’s Manga chair meant I no longer needed these backups.
$6 from a garage sale, $30 on Craigslist.
Buy-bye!
I did take the time to get all three items into the best shape possible before listing them. I used my Bissell rug shampooer on the ottoman, (I was cleaning a few pieces of furniture at once) and I sprayed the wooden chairs down with Murphy’s Oil Soap and removed and laundered and then reattached the fabric from the seats.
And before you ask, I always put the for-sale item on the front porch so they buyer is not coming into my house, and all sales take place during daylight.
None of this took much time, and the end result is . . .
Say it with me:
Crap out of the house, money in!
Ahh . . .
Have you used Craigslist to sell unwanted household items? Please share your stories in the comments section below.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
I do sell items on Criag’s List, but not everything sells in my area or it takes time. I have been trying to sell an antique sewing machine with cabinet, but the only responses are from idiots who want me to send them a check and take it off Craig’s List. I don’t think so. I wasn’t born yesterday!
But I did sell a formica topped kitchen table a couple of weeks ago to someone who wanted a smooth table top for sewing.
I did sell an extra land line office phone (still in box) that I received from my company to work at home and the speaker didn’t work on it. But a pizza place needed a 2 line land phone, so I sold it. It took a few months before someone responded after listing it and removing it and listing it and removing it, etc. I even heard back from the person who bought it that it works perfect for what they need it for. And my husband said it wouldn’t sell.
There’s more crap around here that I have to get rid of.
I did have the list the chairs twice, and I’m currently selling a lamp that no one seems to want.
But I always say that it only takes one buyer.
Katy
Paid $300 for my kitchen table and chairs 16 years ago. Sold it on Craiglist for $200 a week ago! Sold a fiberglass tub and shower insert for $50, have given away old TVs to families who want one for the kids video games to be played on — crap out of the house! Money in!
Craigslist is great for some things. However, it really depends on what it is. Some things take forever to sell. Some never sell. Some sell within 1 day. It really depends on the item. For that reason, Craigslist is not a sure thing for me.
I both buy and sell on craigslist. For some reason, Ikea furniture does really, really well in my area, and many of pieces I purchased as-is or even at Goodwill I’ve been able to resell later for the same price or more.
If I am selling smaller items, like books, or clothes, I will sell in lots. This has always done really well for me too.
Since I live in a city, it is really easy for me to meet people at a gas station near my apartment. If I am selling an electronic I meet at my apartment so they can check to make sure it works.
Love Craigslist. I don’t give out my address until they are on their way and make sure my husband is home. Have met some very nice people both buying and selling, have not had problems at all. But we don’t live in a big city, just a medium one.
My hubby swears by Ebay.
Craigslist not so much as a close friend was cheated…ie listed a washing machine for $200, and a big huge guy shows up with $100 and demands to take the washing machine away. My friend had to part with it in order to not risk getting beat up. This was in Miami.
Weird.
Katy
My son (11) is saving up for a new computer and finally agreed to sell some of his toys—he’s sold Playmobil, Lego, and other kinds of toys. Many things had to be re-listed over and over, but everything sold eventually. We need to go through his closets and look for some more stuff to liquidate! The best thing was this: we got $50 for an opened Minecraft Lego set that I paid $34.99 for just last year. They were selling for well over $100 on Amazon but he didn’t want to rip people off and may of the 10 or so people who responded to my ad thanked us for asking a reasonable price! (This was right before Christmas and he wanted another kid to have the set for the holiday, he’s such a sensitive sweetheart.) We’ve had great luck with our buyers, they’ve all been polite and always showed up when they said they would, which is the exact opposite of the Freecycle people I’ve dealt with…we’ve had way too many no-shows on Freecycle. We always meet in a public place because I feel better that way.
In the last three months I have sold a treadmill, karate gear, and if fax machine on craigslist. I also like selling on eBay but it seems like the less expensive and harder to ship items do better on craigslist.
When I had to rearrange my sewing/laundry room at the behest of the electrical examiner. (Who knew that you have to have 3′ clearance around your circuit panel?) There was no room for a vintage sewing chest I had inherited from my mother.
Week in and week out I posted it over and over on craigslist and finally found a buyer. We met in a public location to do the transfer of ownership. Do I miss my mother’s chest? Sort of. Do I regret selling it No Way! $45 added to my vacation fund. North Carolina here I come.
Craigslist is not very active here in this college town except at the change of semesters, when the students don’t want to take many of their things with them.
I had seen a posting several months ago on Freecycle, looking for a five-prong cookbook binder. I had one I was not using, so connected with the person asking. Porch pick-up, and within the time frame requested.
I count this as a win-win situation.
We use Craigslist all the time, for buying and also selling. We’ve sold tons of things: a huge dining room hutch, kitchen table and chairs, kitchen island, nightstands, washer and dryer, etc. We even sold a couple of wedding bands that we had bought but I had changed my mind about during our engagement before I settled on the final ring.
We’ve also bought a lot of stuff. Our daughter’s beautiful white crib which is in awesome condition and cost about $1000 brand new. Also a small armoire, our living room furniture set in fantastic condition (which we then steam cleaned, of course), a kitchen table, a chest freezer, our gorgeous like-new refrigerator, etc. etc. All our sales/purchases have been without-a-hitch perfect, with the exception of a dishwasher we purchased. It never worked. The lady selling it totally scammed us. My husband is partly to blame since he forgot to ask her to test it out before buying it. But it wasn’t a huge loss, plus we just purchased another, better, dishwasher from Craigslist to replace the fluke one, and it works like a dream. Best dishwasher we’ve ever owned, in fact. We love Craigslist.
What a great find on Netflix, I’ll put it in my queue!
Like I’m sure others have experienced, I used to be into eBay but I’ve found Craigslist to be far superior. The reasons I don’t like eBay are because its too cumbersome to post an item, they charge a 9% fee of the final value and on top of that you’ll be on the hook to PayPal for an additional 2.9%!
Then, you have to find a box and packing material and spend time getting the item packaged. Then, you need to make a special trip to the Post Office and wait in a long line inevitably next to someone that smells an awful lot like cabbage.
Listing an item on Craigslist is simple and easy, people email you and coordinate a day and time convenient for you. They make a trip to you; if you want, right to your front door with cold hard cash in hand. And you don’t pay any fees to middlemen! Extra dollars in your pocket.
I recently sold a very expensive pair of raw denim jeans on Craigslist, the guy had to come into my house to try them on, which I normally avoid. But he was a normal looking hipster, so I let him in, and I’m still here today to write about it.
Cabbage?
Love it!
Katy
Very satisfied with Craigslist – best deal was afrer my mom passed away, my brothers wanted to donate her perfectly good electric hospital bed to Goodwill (a $2000 bed….) – I insisted on being allowed to try and sell it. It sold within two weeks to a man desperate to be able to stop hauling his elderly mom from store to store looking for a bed. I asked $200, she told him to offer $180, but he paid the full $200 – “It’s worth the extra money to stop this store-to-store nonsense!” he said. I probably could have gotten more, but this way, everyone was happy! Win-win….
I’m constantly amazed with what sells and what doesn’t sell. But you’ll never know unless you actually list the item. And since it’s free, there’s nothing to lose!
Katy
Wishing I had more to sell on craigslist. Everything I have sold and bought has been positive. And fully agree about not letting folks inside your home. I have even left articles outside my door when I have not been home and asked buyer to leave the money under the mat with no problems.
I’ve done that too, but I have people leave the money in my locked mailbox.
Katy
I’ve sold a table, given away a computer, and given away a sofa. Each time, the buyers came into my house, and I had no problems. Of course, I don’t live in a big city or a high crime area. However, if I have anything small enough, I’ll do the front stoop sell instead. Better safe than sorry.
I’ve had good luck with craigslist in the past, but sometimes I feel like it’s more work than it’s worth. For instance, I work rather weird hours, and I always insist my boyfriend come with me or be home when I’m meeting someone, and people often seem to have no patience for someone who won’t come pick up RIGHT NOW.
That said, I did have a very, very successful experience buying and rehabbing a treadmill recently despite the fact that the guy sent me literally 20 text messages before bringing it to me.
The whole story is here: http://findmefrugal.blogspot.com/2013/02/craigslist-bragging-spot.html
I’ve had great success selling on Craigslist, but I also get many, many emails from people asking me if the item is sill available. When I write back and tell them it is, I never hear from them again. I’ve heard of scams that start that way, but I don’t know what they get out of that since they are not getting any information out of me. Does anyone know what that’s all about?
They are getting your actual e-mail address. I never give any personal info with the first reply.
Katy
Just wanted to let you know how inspired I was by this post this weekend. I live in the UK, where there is no Craigslist, just a sad alternative called Gumtree. Still, I sold my rowing machine that had just been sitting around the house, plus I’ve put a bunch of things on eBay and at least some of them seem to be selling. I keep repeating to myself: crap out of the house, money in!