A grand in the hand

One of the tangible benefits of downsizing is the money from selling the things you no longer want/need.

We've just hit $1,000 - yippee!

I made a note of each item we sold. Only 4 of them were over $30. So it's not like we had big valuable items. It's just lots of medium and small things. Some for as little as $1. We weren't using them, so to us they were just taking up space. But to someone else they were valuable items.

We did a garage sale early on. It took up about a day, including preparation, and we made $24. It's a nice way to meet a few neighbours, but we didn't do much downsizing. That's when we went online.

We have a bunch of stuff listed on gumtree. It's like an ongoing garage sale but much less work. People can browse at any time of the day or night. All we do is chat online if they're interested - and collect the cash when they come by. (Which has also saved a few trips to the ATM).

It's a quadruple win. Less clutter. Cash in the hand. Free removal. Nothing goes to landfill.

Did I mention one thousand dollars?

PS. For the statistically-minded, we had 74 items. Take out the 4 'big' items, and the remaining 70 items sold for an average of $7. Not big items, but it's amazing how much stuff we have lying around that we'll never use.

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Less Clutter More Cash - now available

Do you feel like you have too much stuff? Is your home full of things you never use? Would you like to swap them for cash? We did My wife and I have sold more than 550 items online as we downsize and we've learnt a bit along the way. I've put some of our best tips into this handy ebook. I hope you can use these tips so you too can have less clutter and more cash. Enter your email address below to receive the book for free. Less Clutter More Cash Get my new ebook for free. PS. This will subscribe to the But Wait There's Less email list, so you'll know when the new updated version of the book is available. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Big motivator for small living

It's been a while between posts here - mainly because we've been moving house. It's been a real motivator for downsizing. Packing each and every item we owned, really makes me wish there were fewer of them. Moving everything from the old apartment to the new one made me envious of those people who live in a "tiny house on wheels". For them moving house simply means towing it to a new location. No packing required. The whole process has reaffirmed our commitment to owning less stuff. So we're going to be intentional about downsizing. It will be an ongoing activity. My environmental heart couldn't stomach a spontaneous dumping of things into the garbage, but it's also more fun this way. Selling things online brings in some handy pocket money. Giving items away is also a great community activity, whether it is to friends and family, to charity or to people in the neighbourhood. I'm looking forward to it as a lifestyle rather than a task to do....

The power of part-time

The Project had this short but revealing story on a study of work hours. Turns out that the perfect amount of working hours per week is 25. Working about this amount increases your brain function, your productivity, your free time and your happiness. What was interesting was the talk afterwards by the hosts. Comments like "but who's going to pay the mortgage?" and "you get the same pay" indicated that the biggest obstacle is in our heads. Australians have the largest houses in the world. The only reason we get such big and expensive houses is to ' keep up with the Joneses '. But that doesn't actually make us happy. It doesn't make up working an extra 2 days each week. If we could free ourselves from traps like this, we could set up our lives around things that actually make us happy. Such as having 4-day weekends.

But wait... there's less!

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