Could you make an extra $4,200?

Gumtree did a survey to find out how much unwanted stuff Australians have. The answer was $4,200 of per household. That's a lot of money to be tied up in items that we don't even want.

Across Australia this adds up to 34 billion dollars worth of unwanted stuff. $34,000,000,000! That's a lot of stuff just sitting around.

It's probably even more

The survey said the average household has 25 unwanted items. So far my wife and I have sold more than 300* items, with another 60 already listed and more items still to be added. Surely 25 items per household is just the tip of the iceberg.

What do you think?

How many unwanted items do you have at your place? Do you reckon it would be more that 25?

People are cashing in

It's estimated that 100 million items were sold second-hand last year. Millenials are leading the way making almost $2000 per person.

In the last year 56% of Aussies have sold something second hand, including 1.3 million people making their first online sale.

Tips for making thousands

If you'd like to turn some of your unwanted possessions into money, you might like my free ebook Less Clutter More Cash. It's a collection of tips that we've learnt in the process of selling more than 300 of our unwanted items. Hopefully it can help you too.

PS. See my related post 4 Reasons to sell unwanted items

*Update: We've now sold 557 items. So the 25 per household seems to be quite a conservative estimate.

Comments

How to retire on a boat at 40

Irish Leonard explains how his family of four lives on a sailboat. No inheritance. No lottery. Just not wasting money - or his time. How does he afford it? He explains by showing the average Irish household expenses, converted into hours worked. Here's the result shown as a working week: We work a lot to pay for our cars. As he puts it: Almost 20% of our working lives is spent so that we can afford to get to our working lives. So Leonard eliminates or massively reduces most expenses. On the family boat, he sails "in a climate that requires no heating or air conditioning, doesn't own a car and generates what energy he needs using solar panels". Remove the unnecessary costs and you remove most of the need to work. He calculates that we can feed and clothe our family on 5 days work per month, or the equivalent. By contrast the average Irish couple devotes 19 hours a day to work, including commuting. Why all this focus on time? In Leonard's words "I...

You know what to do. Ignore this ad!

Yes, jewellery stores pump out the ads around valentine's day - that's no surprise. After all it's a made-up day designed to sell more stuff at higher prices. But this year they seem extra desperate to sell stuff we don't want, with the "You know what to do" campaign. I reckon the sales team are scared by the number of couples that have realised that love is not in physical merchandise but in quality time. So they've made an ad exactly about these people. The message seems to be aimed straight at guys to say "even if you and your partner agree not to waste money on jewellery, you should buy her some anyway". Apparently in a relationship it's important to ignore what your wife or partner says and do what profit-motivated corporations tell you to do. I tend to disagree. If you're interested have a look - it's interesting to see how transparent it is.

Why millionaires don't "feel" rich

We're wealthier than ever - so why don't we feel like it? Australia has gone almost three decades without recession. The stock market recently hit a record high. Our wages are record highs. Home loan rates are at record lows. We live in one of the richest countries in the world at the richest point in history. So what's wrong? Comparison Wealth is relative. So what do we compare to? Where we expect to be? "When your wages growth is only 2 or 3 per cent, you don't feel as well-off as when it's going up 10 per cent. That's that nominal distortion that people often suffer from" , says economist Shane Oliver, and that "expectations have grown a lot faster than reality." We're earning more than last year, but we want even more. So compared to our imaginary situation, we see ourselves as worse off. What we see around us? Shane Oliver again. "If you think about it - Australians today are a lot wealthier. They're living far ric...

But wait... there's less!

Search This Blog