Think About How Much It Costs to Get Rid of an Item Before Buying It.
In an ideal world, you would buy the things you want once and then keep them for life . Then life happens. You need to move, things are out of date, or you need to upgrade. Before buying anything, consider how much it will cost you to get rid of the item.
Some things are harder to get rid of than others. Your old smartphone has tons of uses , but getting rid of the couch probably means finding (or being) someone with a pickup truck. The cost of getting rid of items can start to rise, if not in money, then at least over time. If you’re trying to determine if a purchase is worth it, ask yourself how much it will cost to get rid of it later. And, perhaps more importantly, how soon you need it. As the personal finance blog Under the Money Tree explains:
What amazed me most was how much effort went into getting rid of it all. Time spent listing things on eBay, time spent at the post office, time spent digging around the house … Trying to get rid of all this stuff was much more than it took to get / collect it all.
Some things will pay off. If you bought a little used sofa, owned it for ten or twenty years, and only had to rearrange it when it was finally time to buy a new one, then the rare occasion that you need to get rid of it is a minor expense. However, if you paid $ 50 for a used sofa that already has holes in it, you will probably spend more than you paid for it simply by taking it out of the house a year later when you get tired of sitting on flattened cushions.
The Ultimate £ 1000 Clutter – Results | Under the money tree via Rockstar Finance