3 Things To Sell To Pay Off Holiday Credit Card Debt
Written by
Andrew Lisa
Edited by
Jenna Klaverweiden
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If your generous nature outperformed your budget this holiday season, hopefully you’re anticipating a year-end bonus to cushion the blow. If not, look around — your ticket out of a post-holiday financial fiasco might be hiding among your household clutter.
The most common advice is to sell things like vinyl records, trading cards, comic books and classic toys. The problem is that those kinds of collectibles tend to carry significant sentimental value and — unless they’re truly rare, unique and pristine — are usually rendered next to worthless by the law of supply and demand.
However, the following items could have enough real-world resale value to break your financial fall without forcing you to part with long-held favorites that mean something to you.
Consider selling these things to help pay your holiday credit card bills.
Unwanted Furniture
If you have to sell your bed to pay the bills in January, even if it means sleeping on the floor through the spring, you probably spent too much on the holidays.
But if you have furniture collecting dust in an attic, basement, unused office or outdated room, think twice before you kick it to the curb with a handwritten “free” sign taped to it.
Here are three ways to convert furniture into cash.
A Hidden Gem Could Bring a Windfall
Furniture is no different than baseball cards, Fabergé eggs or any other collectors’ items. Its value is tied to its rarity, age, condition, maker and status among buyers, and it’s worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.
If you happen to stumble upon a gem, you could get anywhere from a few hundred bucks to, in the case of the Guinness record-holding 18th-century Italian Badminton cabinet, $36.66 million.
Don’t hold your breath for the latter, but do keep your eyes peeled for the former. Try to identify the wood type, style, period, condition, quality and maker’s mark, according to Decorative Collective. If you think you’ve got something, use sites like Ask Antique Experts and Value My Stuff to get a quick online appraisal.
A Little Restoration Can Steer Double-Digit Prices to Triple or Beyond
If you find a priceless antique Chippendale chair hiding in your attic, the last thing you want to do is alter it. However, you can add value to well-made but inconsequential furniture with a little basic DIY restoration and renewal.
Authorities like Home Depot offer simple tutorials that most people can use to improve a piece for sale, and Amazon sells highly rated DIY kits that include most of what you’ll need for around $20.
With a little effort, you can list your shiny like-new piece on a platform like Etsy, Facebook Marketplace or AptDeco for more than you could have without the elbow grease.
Esty users routinely sell refinished furniture ranging from the high hundreds to well into the thousands.
Take What You Can Get for the Cheap Stuff
Many homes and apartments are furnished with “furniture” that comes in a box with a plastic bag full of cheap hardware and impossibly bad assembly directions.
But in good condition, even your particleboard bookcase, held together with plastic fasteners and glorified toothpicks for wooden dowels, might help you reclaim some of your holiday budget.
You can sell just about anything on neighborhood marketplace apps like OfferUp.
Rarely Used Jewelry
Like furniture, historically significant jewelry made from premium materials by famed designers can fetch millions at auction, but if Granny had the Hope Diamond secreted away in a desk drawer somewhere, you’d probably know it by now.
But also as with furniture, most people can get more than what they might think for the jewelry they already have lying around.
Most people can convert jewelry into cash with relative ease as long as their expectations are reasonable.
Most jewelry depreciates, and according to Jackie Abraham Jewelers, the used market typically pays 20% to 50% of the original price, thanks mostly to an industry-standard markup of 250% to 350% for new jewelry. But 50% back from a $400 necklace can shave $200 off your looming Visa bill.
If an appraisal or your own best judgment determines that design, craftsmanship, prestige and other value-adding characteristics aren’t factors, the constituent materials alone might help with your holiday credit card bills. For example, the melt value of 18-karat gold — which varies according to the metal’s spot price — was $63.82 per gram in mid-December.
Dead Electronics
Electronic clutter is a hallmark of the modern American household, and those dead tablets, smartphones, laptops, smartwatches, game consoles and the rest might be the key to relieving your fast-approaching holiday credit card bills.
Often-cited data from a Self Financial study shows that electronics depreciate faster than most other commonly sold household goods, with smartphones losing nearly 80% of their value over five years, and smartwatches, headphones, smart speakers, tablets and TV streaming devices all shedding around 60% of their value over the same period.
However, laptops, game consoles and external hard drives don’t depreciate nearly as quickly, and more granular and more recent data from SellCell shows that iPhones hold their value much better than Android phones. But even a low 20% of a middling $600 phone leaves you with $120.
Since old electronics are essentially unsightly dead weight, it might be wise to take what you can get — including the bare-bones salvage value, if necessary — before they depreciate even further. Sites like Swappa let you list and sell your electronics directly to buyers. Platforms like Gazelle inspect and purchase used electronics as part of a resale business plan.
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