Reminder: Please Don't Collect Bunches of Stuff.

Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) said:

If you are having trouble selling or giving stuff away, think of this:

Would you rather see that item go to someone who can use and enjoy it, or end up in landfill?

If it's still on the shelf when you die, it's more likely ruled to be garbage.

I give stuff away or for shipping costs only all the time.  For most things, I honestly need the item out of my house more than I need significant money for the item. 

A few years ago, I tried selling an old Miata P/S rack and parts I had.  Listed for free. Nobody took them.  Eventually, I put it on FBMP for $20  and a guy in NJ agreed to meet me to get it.  When he arrived, I told him to keep the $.  I was just glad it was going to someone who could use it.

@itsarebuild and people asking about the new $600 reporting limit: I think ebay has been successful making money for me in part because I don't care how much it makes. It's just a nice bonus. Generally, I look at recent sales to figure out what my item is going for, and then price 5% or something lower so I'm the cheapest option out there. This keeps the inventory flowing, so even if I don't make so much on each item, the net result is that I've sold a lot more total than if I tried to be ultra-profitable.

Eventually you get into a rhythm for taking pictures, packaging stuff, writing ads, etc. The $/hr may not be great until you figure out how to do it efficiently in batches.

Ebay has been raising its limits on how many free listings you get per month, and I generally try to stay pretty close to that limit at any given time. The more you have listed, the more stuff sells.

The fees are lower if you meet certain criteria ("top rated seller" and "top rated plus"). It makes a very meaningful difference.

The $600 reporting law is a real bummer, and has gotten me looking at setting this up as a small business so that I can cover some of that via tax writeoffs. Even if that doesn't pan out, I expect the result is that prices will climb to cover the costs in the next few years as people figure out what it means. This is the same thing that has happened as shipping has gotten more expensive - over the long run, the market adjusts. It's a frustrating, anger-inducing law, but I'm determined to not let it take the wind out of my sails since getting rid of this stuff is a pretty big mental heath opportunity for me. From where I'm at, less stuff = less stress.

Boy, this thread screams "GRM Shuttle Express" to me when there's a member/relative estate sale...  Either that or a "Storage Ninja" effort where a squad/platoon/company of the Hive show up to sort/catalog a pile of stuff on the understanding they get X for their effort...  

In reply to gearheadE30 :

Well, that's kinda where I am too.  As far as the tax man is concerned, it is what it is. I'm just trying to make it so that I'm not paying more than I should - or even worse - more than I actually made on the sale.  If a good portion of that $600 reported is shipping costs and not sales income, I want to believe it will deductible from the declared amount. 

If anyone wants another reminder that stuff is too cheap in America, this thread is it. 

I hate to toss it if it still works or could be used for something. Yet we all have piles of stuff in those categories that are essentially valueless.

Good reminder though, my shop needs another purge.

The $600 reporting thing is just a 1099 that any electronic payment service will have to file stating how much you received through that service that year. It's not saying you need to pay taxes on that, only that you've had that much money paid to you. You could owe zero in taxes, and would if everything you sold was sold for less than you paid for it. If you're making money on it, you just pay taxes on the amount you profited above and beyond all expenses, which in theory you should be doing anyway, 1099 or no.

In reply to dculberson :

Again - I understand that - but the question is keeping track of the actual amount you DO owe taxes on.  How do you determine if something you sold is valued more than you paid for it after you've owned it for years and depreciation has done its thing?  And in the likely scenario whatever receipts for the sold items were tossed in the trash years ago? 

I am pretty good at only holding on to stuff that I actually use or enjoy for the most part. I can think of some exceptions but for the most part if I am not using and don't see myself using anytime soon, I move it on.

In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :

I suspect it won't be an issue unless you are doing large amounts of money. 

But I dunno. 

I've lost a ton of money on cars and parts over the years and never got credit for those "losses". Maybe this rule allows me to start claiming them. 

I am single, no kids I know of, and live what most would call a minimalist life style. 

In the winter of my life, I intend to fill my home and garage with large concrete boulders and statuary of various kinds. Gnomes mainly, nothing one man can move alone. 

I’ve been part of many property clean outs for past relatives. It sucks, I get it.  

But In my circumstance, berkeley the next guy. 

Just to chime in--

I work in the waste industry and see first hand the dumpsters full of all this stuff that we are talking about here. Sometimes it's one sometimes it's multiples coming out of the same address. 
it's sad to see for me because you can kinda build a picture of who the person was and what they were into based on the stuff being the own out. All their "treasure" and their hobby fodder that they collected and cherished goes straight to the landfill. 
it's also hard for me because I see all these tools going to the trash and it kills me because there are people who would kill to have a set of tools or a used saw or whatever and at this point it's just too late. I can't stand seeing tools getting thrown out. Just can't get the seller and buyer together in time. 
 

That part of the industry always is sad for me. Someone's whole life or passion or hobby tossed in a dumpster and gone in minutes. 
Always makes me get introspective 

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

Those purges can have costs though.  I started to purge my MGTD collection of things and sitting in my truck going to a scrap metal recyclers  was a junk transmission.  My Buddy called as I was on the road to ask if I still had it.  
  Turns out between his transmission and mine we put together a very good one  that decades later is still working.  

Marbles!

When parents moved to retirement home all the kids came back to the farm one last time. Mom went around the house and barn with a coffee cup and pointed to different pieces of furniture, clocks, toolsets, etc. If one of us wanted it, we put our marble in the cup and the winner got the item. After that, parents did an estate sale for the rest and Dad passed within 6 months.

Mom and Dad loved having the family together at "home" one last time and there were no fights over who got what, or who had to get rid of the leftovers. 

gearheadE30 said:

Definitely an interesting thing to think about. I'm not that old, but I actively and vigorously participate in risky 2 wheeled sports and am single with no family or anything nearby. Even if I get hurt and had to move somewhere for a while to recover, all the stuff would be a real pain. Much of it I have not touched in a long time anyway and is for "someday" projects, or I kept it just because it was rare, unique, or unusual.

The result: about $6k in sales on ebay this year already, of stuff I have had hanging around forever. It was hard at first, but I've come to enjoy seeing that stuff leave my house, and the income has helped me understand that if I ever need the stuff back, then I can just go buy it when I need it.

To just throw a wrench in your argument, I hope you've invested that $6000 well or used it to purchase something you needed or really wanted and will use.  If not, it's evaporating.  Meanwhile the "stuff" assuming it was tools and the like is appreciating.  Under normal circumstances your choice to get rid of the excess would have been spot on.  These are not normal times we are in though.

But I'm being devil's advocate.  I really do think one should purge themselves of excess.  It's what Elon Musk claims he's doing.

@dculberson - sounds like I need to do more research on the $600 rule. Tracking that stuff is part of why establishing some kind of business entity around it seemed like it made sense, that way it isn't financially entangled in my personal life. I don't know how easy it would be to prove that I spent $3000 on a pile of parts, sold $2500 of it, and came out the other side with just the engine that was in the pile that was all I really wanted anyway. It's not like selling cars or something where there is a title or a bill of sale.

I suspect I won't really understand it until the first time I have to enter a 1099, but that is a good reminder that I need to do some more reading.

@ A 401 CJ - yeah, inflation sucks and savings accounts aren't a great place for money. That's all true, and I'm (pretty hands-off) invested in various places with my regular savings. Like many micro/non-diversified investments, it would be hard to make a solid case that most of this stuff would be worth dramatically more or less in the next 5-10 years, so that's another thing I'm trying not to let slow me down. There are only a few things I'm hanging on to, knowing they will appreciate meaningfully.

It is hard to put a $$ amount on the mental health aspect of less stress from having a million unfinished projects lying around, but in my specific case, I'm pretty happy since that money is directly responsible for letting me pay for a bucket list race/trip later this year even if it isn't an investment. This feels like an important thing to say considering all of the recent money-management threads on GRM lately - life gets kind of dull if some of that hard-earned cash doesn't result in some fun, even if it shrinks the bank account a little.

While in Menards buying more stuff to replace the stuff I can't find because I hoard all of the stuff I think that I will ever need, I thought long and hard about my stuff collecting. I have to collect stuff because of my other character flaw: I never finish anything, I Git 'Er Done enough to move onto the next of 100 other unfinished projects while new projects keep showing up. 

While making space in the garage last year (or was it the year before?), I found FB Groups and FB Marketplace helpful. 

Once someone voiced their interest, a few times we just did contactless pickup. I'd leave the stuff by the front door, and they'd come and get it. This was just stuff going to a good home–no money. Happy to pay it forward. 

One dude was like the wind. Never heard him but got a text soon after: Thanks. 

In reply to VolvoHeretic :

Good news is Menards has cool toolboxes you can buy to store it all and maybe save 11%.

In reply to Datsun310Guy :

Thanks, the worst of it all is that I own a house AND a lake cabin, so I need two piles of stuff and I have to haul every tool I own, every weekend, in totes that are stored permanently in the back of my pickup. I could take a picture, but I don't want anyone doing an intervention. 

I had been purging through my shop space since previously it had been my brothers domain (he moved and no longer used the shop at the farm). There has been a lot of things tossed because he had zero cataloguing or marking done on anything. I pulled 4 starters and a few alternators from under the bench that went to scrap metal (no way of knowing what they fit OR if they were any good), bin of 1 carb and about 4 carbs worth of pieces, 32 empty jerry cans of various sizes all missing the caps, parts from cars and trucks long sold. And I still have about 16' of racking to go through plus the rest of th enow badly water damaged stuff in the attic. 

Also been going through my own stuff at the same time and organizing tool sets as I go. I keep extra 10mm's, but I really have no need for multiple duplicates of 1/4" sockets or anything rusted beyond usability. Some stuff becomes NYG fodder, other just goes into a bin to go for scrap. Having bench space to put a project on makes adventures in the shop so much more relaxing. 

Does anyone remember back in the 60s when the fire department would do mandatory in-home fire inspections? My parents always got demerits every year and I would have to clean out the basement junk room and the garage.

Edit: Or... Did they just know someone at the fire department and they would send up a firetruck just to get me to clean out the garage?

I peruse FB marketplace all the time in search of tools that I might want to add to my own horde. Most of the estate sales are asking retail or more for used stuff so I rarely follow up. 

I am pretty sure that this is due to some well meaning person trying to help the estate and having some idea of what stuff is worth new  or what it sold for on some auction site.

I had lunch with a friend in MD today and we skirted this subject a bit.  He has been collecting stuff for decades.  All neatly organized in various boxes.   He joked how he and his wife are stark contrasts.  His office is so full of computers and various projects that leave a narrow path.  And then guitar and 3D printing projects spilled over into their last bedroom.  The 30x40 shop he built a decade ago is now filled to the brim with cars and projects.   He just put in his retirement papers (lucky bastard...) and is planning to put two of his cars on BaT soon.  We exchanged stories about how the thousands of items we have packed away will probably end up in the junk when we're gone if we aren't careful.

JohnLClark said:

So how do you dispose of magazines that you don't want to scrap. I have numerous years and titles and want to cut down because I am moving.  

I went through stacks and cut out the articles that interested me.  Punched holes and they are in a 3-ring binder that I pull down and reread.

Saying that I'm the guy with a complete Road & Track collection, 1970-1972 along with 30 Indy 500 programs.   

In reply to Datsun310Guy :

Sounds like a good plan.