Comments

  1. We usually use Craigslist to sell at least one or two things every time we move. We’ve slowly been paring our stuff down and it feels really good! I can’t say we make a ton of money by selling stuff but it is pretty sweet to have someone pay to make something disappear so you don’t have to move it. Can you guess we sell a lot of heavy stuff? Last time we moved a friend was setting up her first apartment and we sold her a bunch of housewares and an enormous Ikea puzzle of a bookshelf for really cheap. We left a key under the mat and she and her boyfriend moved it all to her place while we were out. It was excellent.

    • Having the other person move it is the best! Also if you consider the hassle to get rid of a large piece of furniture if you live in a large building, it is much more worth it to sell it for cheap, even give it away, instead of having to pay for disposal. Of course you can always just leave it by the curb, but that is usually frowned upon…

  2. I usually call The Salvation Army or Vietnam Vets to take it away. When we moved from a house, I had a yard sale and sold many things. We scheduled The Salvation Army to take what was left.

    • I never had them come to pick stuff up, but if you have a lot of stuff left over that could be a great option, too. Hopefully won’t end up at that phase for a while now that we moved into a new place.

  3. I think women can definitely be better negotiators than men, especially if they’re dealing with a man. Guys don’t like to tell women no, and women have a way with getting what they want that I only wish I could replicate.

    That’s awesome to take them to Salvation Army. I have a pile of books I’ll probably never read again, and I should probably just donate them to the library. Nothing like spreading the gift of literacy. 🙂

  4. It has been a long time since we moved, and we rarely have garage sales. I do give a lot of stuff away to Goodwill. Sounds like you had quite some stories out of the experience. I would have felt bad for getting someone a parking ticket also.

    • Yep, I was a bit annoyed with the guy for asking for money off after we agreed on a price over the phone but in the end he still got his discount, in a sense. 😉

  5. When we moved last summer we gave away one of those round chairs that has a full size round cushion. I had gotten it for free years earlier on Kijiji and it was still in great shape. Mrs. SPF thought she’d use it more but it ended up more of a cat bed than anything. So I posted on Kijiji that it was free and within an hour had a call. The woman wanted to pay for it but I told her it was good karma to pass it along as it had been passed to me. She arranged a time that evening to pick it up. Around 7pm our doorbell range and a man and woman were at the door – the people i’d spoken to. The man enters and grabbed the chair parts while I chatted with the lady. She produced a paper bag and in it were two bottles of preserves. Beets and a jelly. I accepted. They were yummy and the chair found a new home.

    • Sounds like it was a good trade for the both of you. Sometimes that’s the best form of payment. 🙂

  6. It’s interesting to know that people are still out there buying mattresses and couches. I thought for sure with the spread of bedbugs that it would be a lot harder to move those kinds of items in the second hand market.

    I’m glad you were able to make a few bucks to have it to decorate your new place.

    • Hmm I don’t know if that problem has hit Canada. The guy was from out of the country and maybe from a place where they don’t worry as much about that.

      How does one get bed bugs anyways? I’m lucky to have never had that problem but I wonder how it starts. Warm temperatures and humidity + eating in bed?

  7. We had a garage sale and sold a bunch of stuff on Craigslist when we moved. Hopefully, we are here for a long time because moving really sucks. 🙂
    I agree with First Gen about the mattresses. Old mattresses aren’t comfortable at all….

    • Haha, moving definitely sucks. For most of my life I’ve been moving every couple to every few years… I hope to settle in here for at least the next 3 to 5!

    • As long as good stuff doesn’t end up in the trash. 🙂 This time was rather unique cause I had so much accumulated from years of apartment living and most of it is gone now. I think it will be a while before we have to do this again… hopefully! 🙂

  8. My boyfriend lets me to the negotiating, even though he took a negotiations course at work.

    I love Kijiji and Craigslist, though I found that sometimes even when I want to BUY something off Craigslist, people can be very flaky at responding. I always like meeting people when I buy stuff off Craigslist because i get to see how other people live 🙂

    Glad to hear your moving sale went well!

    • The flakiness goes both ways; sometimes I had people leading me on and then in the end they never ended up buying. Gotta watch out for that. My girlfriend loves to negotiate so I let her do a lot of that, too. 😉

  9. I’ve been wanting to sell a couple of things, including a mattress that’s about 5 years old and in great shape, but not being used. Hopefully there’s someone out there who’ll buy it and maybe be an interesting character as well (hopefully not crazy though!).

    As for women being better negotiators….when negotiating with a man, they’re better than other men in that same situation based on what I’ve seen. Many men just can’t say no, and in some subconscious way want the woman’s approval. When dealing with another guy, it can get competitive. So yes, at least when negotiating with a guy, women are a little bit better at it in my opinion. Of course, I’m speaking in general and I’m sure there are some cases where the opposite is true.

    • That’s true, the competitive aspect can make the negotiations more tense and difficult. Usually I try to meet in the middle but I also don’t like it when we agreed to something on the phone and then they try to get an additional discount just for showing up. That seems kind of cheap to me. 😉

    • Over here I find Kijiji works even better but I love how these guys have destroyed the traditional classifieds, and we’re all better off for it.

  10. Sounds like you got a good deal! I agree that women are better negotiators. Studies have shown that. Although men are more firm, women always get the best deals!

    • I guess negotiation is a very personal thing, that’s why good salespeople have to be aware of how emotions can be manipulated to help swing the terms in their favor. 😉

  11. It sounds like its worth selling your furniture just to be able to meet such an interesting array of characters! I’ve sold things on Craigslist in the U.S. and Gumtree in Australia but have never met such interesting people … perhaps Canada is in my future?

    • It always gets more interesting when you’re in the middle of a big city where there a lot of immigrants. You get to meet people from all around the world…

  12. Humourous piece. Glad you could pare down, and start fresh.

    Just a point: the queen sized bed/mattress situation is believable, depending on the years that the two were produced. At some point in the past (not sure when, but I’d say in the last 20 years) the standard sizes were changed. I think it was due to average heights increasing over time.

    My parents had this issue a few years back. They bought a new mattress for their old Queen sized bed, and quickly found out they needed a new frame to accommodate it. A foot-board can also cause problems.

    • My frame was only a few years old so I wonder if either his mattress was too small though he thought it was a Queen, or maybe the guy was just mistaken. Surely he would know if he had a King?

  13. Big fan of kijiji over here as well, I’e been selling the old room of my girls since we bought them a new one (they’re growing fast).

    Unfortunately, I haven’t found a buyer for the 2 Dora beds still sitting in my garage!

    • Craigslist over here too but I find Kijiji to work even better — I think the search is more well developed. It’s been a while since I used Craigslist though so maybe they’ve improved.

    • I guess it depends on who they’re working with. I have seen that woman vs. woman can cause problems, too. 😉

  14. Mrs. 101 would just as soon hold a yard sale. I’m not in that camp, I would rather donate everything to charity, take the tax deduction, and save the time and hassle. I’ve become less and less interested in *selling* our “stuff” at yard sales, only because it’s done at a loss. For the same reason, I’m a huge fan of *buying* at garage sales: the seller’s loss is your gain.

    • That’s a good point; you can find some great bargains at those sales. I don’t think I would hold another sale like this anytime soon, but this time I had a lot of furniture to offload so it was a great way to get other people to come and pick it up, and pay me in the process. 😉

  15. I’ve sold everything a few times before and am selling some stuff now as am moving again. It feels great to get rid of things and get a little fun money from it too!

    Never used Kiji to sell but have used it to buy. I have had success with eBay and Craigslist.

  16. One of the latest trends in home furniture is buying antique furniture that looks old or distressed. I love old furniture very much. Persons who know the right value of this furniture can find good quality antique furniture with a predictable variety. Thanks for taking time to discuss such a nice post.

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  9. […] Invest It Wisely talks about how you can sell a pile of stuff on Kijiji instead of thowing it out. Very handy when you’re moving. As  a side note, I bought a $550 portable dishwasher from Kijiji for $80 and it works like a charm! […]

  10. […] get stuck. However, even though I didn’t keep this furniture for more than a couple of years, I was able to offload it pretty quickly when it came time to do so because Ikea furniture is always in high demand. In the end I still spent a few hundred a year, but […]

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