Saving by Selling

When my son was going into 5th grade and starting percussion in band, we bought him a bell kit. It was a rental return, just a year or two old. We purchased it for $130. Six years later, we still had the bell kit laying around, but our percussionist had no use for this practice instrument anymore.

My husband and I thought we would try to sell it back to the music store. It had no mallets or sticks with it anymore, one of the stand screws had been replaced by something from the hardware store, and one of the keys was missing the little rubber things that keep it from wiggling around. Had it been a newer model, these things would not have been an issue, but they didn't want it. They gave us new rubber things, a new screw and a new set of mallets for about $3.50 and told us to try our luck on Craig's List. There was a set of sticks lying around the house, so I added them, took some pictures of it all and loaded it up on Craig's List. That was a week ago. Yesterday, someone purchased that bell kit for $115. That's like renting a bell kit for $2.50 per year. Wow!

If you don't remember why I am so bad at posting regularly, it is because I have gone back to college. Along with college comes textbooks. Once upon a time, if you wanted to buy or sell a used textbook, you were bound to the college bookstore. Not anymore! I always check the prices at both the college and on Amazon.com before I buy. Unless the school is using a special edition, I can almost always do better on Amazon. This summer, I took an Intro to Management course. The textbook had just been published this year, but since it was summer session, I was able to find a used copy in good condition from an Amazon Marketplace vendor. At the end of the course, I turned around and sold it to Amazon.com in exchange for a gift card. They took it back for $25 more than I had paid for it! That isn't always the case, but I often sell back books for not much of a loss. One key is to sell them back right away after your term to minimize loss from new editions coming out and from too many students flooding the market with returns. If Amazon doesn't want to pay much for it, I will put it up myself as a Marketplace vendor (but always check the current selling prices from other vendors first).