Ask anyone who knows me, and they will tell you that I am always on the lookout for ways to make extra money.  ALWAYS.  My hubby is also known for this…likely one of the things that makes us highly compatible!

Once upon a time, I was an avid eBay seller.  One summer, I made $2000 just from items sitting around in my house!  Two kids, one faculty position, and one side hustle as a fashion/lifestyle blogger later, I have found myself unable to dedicate the time needed to photograph, list, and ship items sold on eBay.  As my bff put it, “Your time is worth a lot more these days.  You need to focus on efficiency.”  And, so I did.

Part of my path to efficiency involved de-cluttering my home.  Over thanksgiving break last year (2015), I began to de-clutter.  I finalized the de-cluttering process over Christmas/NYE break.  I emptied out all closets, made piles, and figured out what needed to be donated, sold, or thrown away.  I also enlisted the help of an amazing service that both sells and donates clothes for you!  ThredUp is the service I used and it has been an amazing way for me to get rid of stuff taking space in my home.

I first tested the service back in August of 2015.  I ordered a single bag.  I filled it with clothing I definitely hadn’t worn.  Honestly, I filled it with stuff I didn’t think would sell and that I was planning to take to the Salvation Army or similar donation location.  To my shock and surprise, the bag actually yielded $16.35 cents!  That’s a few days worth of my coffee splurges at Starbucks!!  Score!  So, I ordered four bags after that.  They sat around for a few months until I got through all the items in my house, but eventually filled them and shipped them out.

ThredUp accepts clothing, handbags, shoes, and accessories.  Women’s and children’s clothing only, but in our family, that’s half the clutter battle!  So, after the New Year, I filled up all four bags with clothing, etc. and dropped them off at my local FedEx/Kinko’s location.  Mind you, you can also schedule an at-home pick up.  Sadly, the cats in our neighborhood tear up every plastic bag they come across, so I didn’t want to run the risk of having the bag torn apart before it even shipped.  Darn neighborhood cats!

On January 26th, four of my bags were received.  It takes them about two weeks to process, which includes taking inventory of your bag, photographing items they will sell, determining how much to pay you up front, and donating the rest.  IF you don’t want to commit to donating items they won’t accept and want them to send them back, you can pay a small fee (~$13) to have them ship back the items they don’t take.  This, in my opinion, prevents you from fully purging and de-cluttering, but if you feel that you simply cannot release complete control to ThredUp, then they will gladly acquiesce and send you your stuff back. 🙂

Now, onto the money-making part.  In full disclosure, before I sent items to ThredUP, I sold to two local consignment stores: Style Encore and Plato’s Closet.  Both Style Encore and Plato’s give money on the spot, so I figured that was the best/quickest return on my investment.  Anything they did not take, I immediately put into the ThredUp bags and off it went.  Over the course of two weekends, I made $500 selling to Style Encore and Plato’s Closet.  The four bags I sent to ThredUp have since been processed and I have been promised $204.85!  In total, thus far, I have made $704.85 from stuff that has been sitting around in closets and other places in my house for years!!  That, my friends, is how everyone should roll. 😉

Four bags, 12-23 items accepted per bag, average $37.64 payout per bag.  Not too shabby!

I currently have an additional 9 bags processing (potential to make at least another $300), and ordered an additional four, which I will use to send clothing the boy’s no longer fit into.  All the while, the most effort I have put into this is sorting clothes, filling bags, and taking them to FedEx.  They take care of the rest!  I for one, fully endorse this efficiency. You should too.

One additional note:  Any money you make goes through an embargo period, wherein you are free to use the money to shop on their site.  This is approximately a 14 day period, after which, you can withdraw the money and deposit it in your bank account using Paypal.  I am patiently waiting for my $204.85 to clear so it can sit happily in my bank account. 😀

If you should choose to buy, know that there are some pretty amazing things you can find, including hard to find items that have either been discontinued or can no longer be found on other sites like eBay or Poshmark.  I found the red dress in the graphic below on ThredUp!  Also, if you sign up using a referral link, you get a $20 credit just for joining. You can use mine if you’d like.  I get $20 too, so we all win!  Referral link, here: ThredUp.

Photo in graphic by Mariana Pimiento.