Hosting an Online Yard Sale: 3 easy steps to declutter your home and get rid of your stuff

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Hosting an Online Yard Sale: 3 easy steps to declutter your home and get rid of your stuff
Hosting an Online Yard Sale: 3 easy steps to declutter your home and get rid of your stuff

Host your own online yard sale to quickly and easily organize your home

Host your own online yard sale to quickly and easily organize your home

Elizabeth Hales

My family just moved from San Francisco to Charlotte, and in the process we discovered that we had somehow accumulated more stuff than we wanted. Like that second

@Hair dryer⁠

that we never used. Or the

@Old toiletries⁠

and bars of soap we had picked up at hotels (why did we even bother saving those anyway 🤔?).

Hosting an online yard sale

You’ve heard the old adage that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. So we decided to purge our things with an online yard sale. We had a few requirements in mind:

We were moving in 2 weeks so we needed a quick and easy way to get rid of stuff

Because of COVID-19 and limited space in San Francisco, we couldn’t spread all our things in front of our house and put up a poster - it had to be all virtual.

Out stuff was split into two groups:

For Sale⁠

and

Freebies⁠

, so we needed an easy way to merchandize both groups.

We settled on hosting our own online yard sale by building a marketplace “app” with this Coda doc. After a few tips from Maria Kondo (and honing our “joy sparking” instincts), we began listing the stuff around the house that we wanted to get rid of.

⁠

Mission accomplished

After categorizing our stuff, we published and sent the

Online Yard Sale⁠

section of this doc out to our friends and neighbors. The process ended up being fast, easy, and totally impressed our friends. Almost everyone who picked up an item made a comment like, “Wow, that was so organized and simple to use!”.

It went so well, in fact, that I’ve decided to share with you the steps and doc we used to manage it. I call it the Online Yard Sale Toolkit. I sincerely hope it helps you tidy up your own home!

You can host your own virtual yard sale in 3 easy steps:

List your items in

All my stuff⁠

⁠

Share your

Online Yard Sale⁠

doc with friends and neighbors

Track your progress in

My home base⁠

and enjoy a less cluttered home!

Ready to get started? Copy this doc (it’s free and easy to use)👇

⁠

Host my own online yard sale

⁠

Now that you have your own copy of the doc you’re ready to list

All my stuff⁠

⁠

What happens after the online yard sale?

The process of decluttering your things is just that - a process. I found it helpful to approach it in waves. The first wave was hosting a virtual yard sale for our friends and neighbors with this doc. But many items made it past the first wave, so we turned to additional channels to sell, donate, move, or store our things.

Click on the triangles below to explore my favorite tips and FAQ’s for tidying up the rest of your things.

Selling

How to sell stuff on eBay

For your more expensive items, it might make sense to list them on eBay. This is especially useful for more speciality items that your friends might not have been interested in.

When you sell something on eBay you then ship the items to the buyer, which opens up the pool of buyers beyond your friends and neighbors. This is great news because you’re much more likely to find someone out there interested in what you’re selling.

Here’s a

great article⁠

for additional help with selling stuff on eBay.

How to sell on Facebook Marketplace

FB Marketplace is a game changer for selling things to people who live close to you. It works especially well in larger cities, but you can use it anywhere! For example, we sold our

@Snoo⁠

@White chairs (x4)⁠

@Couch⁠

@Dresser⁠

@TV⁠

, and

@TV stand⁠

on FB - all in one day!

To get started, head to

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace⁠

and click “Create new listing”

Add a description, photo, and price, then set your post live. This process is even easier after you host an online yard sale because you’ll already have a list of items you want to sell with photos for each item 🙌

It’s worth noting that if you are doing an actual garage sale IRL with all of your things on your front lawn, you can advertise on Facebook Marketplace in the subsection for “garage sales”. Just click Classifieds → Garage Sales.

⁠

How to sell on Craigslist

This one is similar to FB Marketplace, albeit a little bit clunkier. Craigslist feels like it hasn’t been re-designed since the 1990’s, but it’s the de-facto place to sell things locally.

Head to

craigslist.com⁠

and add a listing. If it’s your first time selling on Craigslist, I recommend this video:

⁠

For even more tips on selling your things, check out this helpful post:

⁠

Loading moneyandmountains.com⁠

⁠

Donating

When donating, I usually do a quick search for a Goodwill near me. You can find locations at

goodwill.org⁠

Remember to snag a receipt from the donation center and self report the value of the items you donated. You can deduct that amount from your taxes 🤑

Moving or storing

If you’re on the fence about hiring moving help, just do it! Trust me on this one - it’s the best money you’ll ever spend.

When researching moving companies near me I usually look at Google Reviews first, and then price. The sweet spot is finding local moving companies that have a lot of 4 and 5 star reviews, and is decently priced. This is one of those situations where you get what you pay for.

If you live in a bigger city, check out

Lugg⁠

. It’s the Uber for movers and I’ve had nothing but positive experiences.

If you do decide to do the move on your own, you’ll most likely end up renting a

Uhaul⁠

or similar moving truck. You can often negotiate rates and save a lot by calling around to different locations.

Before committing to a storage unit near me, I always check

Neighbor.com⁠

. It’s the Airbnb for your stuff and often has better rates than traditional storage units.

Whether you’re moving or putting stuff in storage units, there are a few things I never go without. Here’s my must-have list for moving day:

Wheeled handcart

Plastic bins (more sturdy and transparent than moving boxes)

Vacuum bags (these blew my mind the first time I used them - so cool! 🤯)

Moving blankets

Bungee cords (get twice as many as you think you’ll need)

⁠

Ready to declutter your home and get rid of your stuff?

⁠

Declutter my home

⁠

Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.

Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.