Ingram - Toss, keep, sell!: the suddenly frugal guide to cleaning out the clutter and cashing in

Would you like to start making money by selling your old clothes and your clutter? There's no reason to pay anywhere from $50 to $100 an hour to hire a professional organizer to go through your closets you can do that yourself. A professional is also likely to recommend fancy storage and organizational systems to get your house in order, but I'll bet that you probably already own all you need to get neat and tidy. I believe you can do it all yourself.

Businesses that profit from people's clutter would say that you need their help. After all, with American households more cluttered than ever, their revenue is on the rise. The company 1-800-GOT-JUNK has hauled away more than five million truck-loads since its founding in 1989. There are more than 7,000 I Sold It franchises nationwide that help people make money from their clutter by selling it on eBay (for a fee). And self-storage facilities are popping up all across the country. The National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops reports that business at resale and consignment shops is booming. For example, Buffalo Exchange consignment chain expects revenues to rise from $56.3 million in 2009 to $70 million by 2015.

That's where this book comes in. It will help frugal folks like you get your home in order and help you find ways to make money from things you no longer need or want.

A recent survey on my blog Suddenly Frugal (www.suddenlyfrugal.com) showed that there is a tremendous interest in making money while getting more organized. For example, 92 percent of survey takers have sold their clutter for cash and would do so again in the future. Many of the people who took this survey have used more than one selling method to sell various household items.

Here are some highlights from that survey:

(Note: Because people may have used more than one way to get cash for their trash, they likely marked multiple answers for the survey question What method do you use to sell your stuff? This is why the numbers below add up to more than 100 percent.)

74% hold yard sales to get rid of excess stuff

51% use Craigslist to get cash for clutter

48% rely on eBay to sell off their stuff

40% take their castoffs to a consignment or resale shop

20% find other ways to make money from their stuff, ranging from classified ads to neighborhood listservs to Amazon's Marketplace to local flea markets

When trying to get cash for things they no longer need, here's what people who took this survey were selling the most often:

Books (77%)

Clothing (72%)

Furniture (71%)

Games and toys (61%)

Appliances (35%)

Jewelry and accessories (33% each)

Other stuff, including sporting equipment, collectibles, and electronics (38%)

People seem to do fairly well in making money from their things. In most instances, survey takers make a couple hundred dollars from items they might have just thrown out!

Of those items making money, here are the two things that sell the best: