Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
It happens every year, we all receive presents from distant aunties and uncles, grandparents and eccentric friends that quite frankly we wouldn’t give to our worst enemy.
However, one person’s junk is another’s treasure so you could make some sensible money from it to spend on things you actually like!
Read on for loads of great ideas on what to do with your unwanted Christmas presents, and even how to make some money out of them!
Selling things on eBay is quick, easy and stress-free. You can put in very little effort and make a lot of money – providing you’re selling things that people want. What people want isn’t necessarily what you’d expect. An ordinary £1 coin once sold on eBay for £5,100!
The chances are someone, somewhere in the world, would kill for that scarf your granny knitted you. Sign up by clicking here and get selling. If you’re a total eBay novice, don’t despair. Just check out our guide here. If you don’t fancy paying the fees that eBay charge, give alternative site eBid a try instead.
Nothing beats a good old-fashioned car boot sale! If you’ve managed to acquire vast amounts of unwanted rubbish over the Christmas period, it might be worth paying a visit to your local site to try and offload some stuff at car boot fiends.
It’s definitely worth doing if you have a load of old stuff you want to get rid of anyway, so rummage through your attic and in the back of the wardrobe to see what you can find. Remember that car boot sales will usually charge you to sell your goods, so make sure you have enough items to cover your costs.
Visit Car Boot Junction or Freeads to search for your nearest car boot sale, and have a look at our article – Car boot sales: turn your trash into cash.
There’s no financial reward for giving it all away to a charity shop, but after dropping off a bundle of interesting things for a good cause you should have a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Use this helpful charity shop finder to search for your nearest one and decide which charity you’d like to donate to.
A word of advice – be sure not to choose a shop close to the home of the person who gave you the gift, particularly if it’s an unusual present! They could walk past the shop window and see their gift on display…
Providing the gift isn’t completely abominable, there’s no shame in wrapping it up and giving to someone else for their birthday or even next Christmas. Keep a box of any unwanted gifts you’ve received over the years and before you head off to the high street to buy a present for someone, have a rummage around the box to see if there’s anything that might take their fancy.
Don’t feel bad, everyone does it. Just make sure you don’t end up giving the gift back to the person who gave it to you in the first place!
The Freecycle Network is made up of over 5,000 groups with just under seven million members across the globe. With this site you can get any item listed for free. You sign up for an email group servicing your community, then you can announce items you’re giving away for free.
Members who want advertised items can simply arrange to pick them up from the owner. It’s totally not for profit and was created to keep quality stuff out of landfill sites. Advertise your items here and see who wants your trash!
SnaffleUp works in a similar way to Freecycle. You can sign up for free and then post pictures and listings for any items you want to get rid of. You can’t charge for your items, but at least people who want them will have to come and take them off your hands – so no effort from you. When you register, you give your postcode – so it’s easier to match your items with people who are looking in your area. Have a look on the website here.
I didn’t get anything unwanted, thankfully.
Very useful article!