The following is a guest post by Kyle Taylor of ThePennyHoarder.com.
I’m often astonished by how much trash our little family of two puts out on the curb each week. Over the years I have taken a conscious effort to reduce the size of our garbage molehill by reusing and recycling. In the process I’ve found that a lot of the things I used to throw away could be resold for extra cash.
Here are few hidden treasures that might be hiding in your trash can:
Golf Balls
Calling all you future Tiger Woods! If anybody in your family is a golf enthusiast, be sure that they don’t throw away their old golf balls. Driving ranges and miniature golf courses will often buy your used golf balls for anywhere between 10 and 25 cents a ball. You can also sell your old golf balls on Ebay, where top-quality used golf balls can fetch up to a $1 apiece.
Wine Bottles & Wine Corks
Dinner at our house usually comes with a glass or two of wine, and by the end of the week I could almost swear that my recycling bin is staring back at me with a judgmental glare. Luckily, I’ve found a way to avoid the humility by selling my old wine bottles and corks on Ebay.
Crafters will often buy wine bottles for 50 cents apiece and wine corks go for around 10 cents each. You can read more about my adventures selling wine bottles here: “Make Money Recycling Wine Corks.”
Cooking Oil
It may seem far-fetched to some of you, but you can actually sell your used oil. Cooking oil is a biodiesel and can be used to run some automobiles and home heaters. A great way to find buyers is by posting your oil on Craigslist and marketing to people who need fuel for their furnaces in the wintertime. It helps if you have a larger quantity to sell by saving it up over the year.
Old Magazines
For me, there is nothing more relaxing than sitting on the beach with an umbrella drink and a stack of magazines. Fortunately, living in Florida gives me my fair share of that. In the past I’d simply toss my magazines in the trash, but that was before I knew that I could sell my used copies for extra cash.
Many used books stores will buy your old magazines, but the most popular place to sell them is Ebay. You’ll have to be selective about which magazines to list, because some of them are truly worthless. However, your copy of French Vogue or National Geographic may just have a resale market.
Ink Cartridges
Most of us know that you can donate your ink cartridges to places like the Humane Society, but if you want to make some extra money instead, try selling directly to online toner companies. A few websites that buy your “empties” are InkjetCartridge.com, TonerBuyer.com, and WeBuySupplies.com. The best part is that all of them pay for the shipping and handling costs in addition to the $1-$2 payment for your cartridge.
Moving Boxes
If there is one lesson I’ve learned in life, it’s that moving is never fun and always expensive. One of the tragedies of moving is the stack of expensive cardboard boxes and packing material that usually gets thrown away at the end of a move. A great way to get rid of your moving supplies is to sell them online to other movers on sites like BoxQuest.com.
I also have made money recycling moving boxes by contacting businesses that throw their boxes, offering to pick them up, and then reselling them online.
Kyle Taylor blogs about wacky ways to make money at The Penny Hoarder like how to make money attending movie premieres and how to make money shopping.
Your turn: What tricks do you have for turning your trash into cash?
About Carrie Rocha
I recycle them at Staples. They send me a voucher to spend in store and each cartridge is worth $3. Not bad!
We save up our soda cans and any other aluminum and go about once every couple years to a place in our town that pays you for the aluminum. It’s not a lot of money but it’s more than we had and we’re getting the cash back instead of giving it to the garbage company!
I also just recently took some jewelry in to a local trusted jeweler from an inheritance that I did not want to see if it was worth anything. Turns out a lot of it was real even though I didn’t think it was and the pieces I didn’t want to keep earned me $1500! So if you’ve got old jewelry laying around that you don’t want, take it in and even if the stones aren’t real or worth much, gold is at a good price.
That’s awesome! Nothing like a $1,500 surprise! :)
April, we do this too. We go when there is a coupon for an extra few cents per pound at our local place. We earn maybe $30 a year doing this, but it’s minimal effort and you’d be surprised how many people will drop their cans off if they hear you collect them. My work colleagues leave a pile of their finished pop cans from the day on my desk and my grandparents bring over a small bag every time they visit. It all adds up!
I saw an old aluminum extension ladder for free on the side of the road. I took the ladder to the recycling place and received $22 for it as they called it scrap aluminum. Think out of the box on aluminum recycling, old copper wire and pieces of old siding are recyclable. Also they take certain car parts, I know this sounds weird, but sometimes I am at Thrift Stores or Garage Sales and see things that I know will draw more thru recycling than the price to buy it, plus I feel it saves the environment too.
That’s a great idea Rhonda! I’ve been wanting to do something like that for awhile. Sometimes I see old boats on the Free section of Craigslist and I’ve been thinking about starting to pick those up and then selling them to a scrap yard.
What a great idea!!! I’ll have to keep my eyes open for that!
To Kyle,
Re: pizza boxes
The reason they are not accepted for recycling is because of the grease/oil absorbed by the card board. If you cut out those parts the “good, clean” cardboard is re-saleable and/or recyclable
Thanks for the tip! I do usually throw the whole thing in the recycling bin so I’ll have to be more careful.
Wow–cooking oil and wine corks–great ideas! I had never heard of selling these before, but am intrigued. Thanks for sharing!
Office Depot ran a special when you recycle ink cartridges with them they gave back $5 per cartridge. This happened earlier this year when my son was recycling some old ink cartridges he had found in old printers he has accummulated. He had 5 ink cartridges so he made $25 to use back at Office Depot. He is 11 but is quite the recycler and very inventive minded. He also is taking apart computer equipment and recycled the copper he found and made $3 for a pound.
Genius! I had no idea about the wine bottles and corks. I normally take them straight down to my recycling centre. Might just rethink that one now!
Thanks so much for sharing. Looking forward to reading some of your other wacky money making ideas over at The Penny Hoarder.
Thanks Harriet! I’ve been enjoying Totally Money!
All great ways to make extra money from stuff lying around. Selling old cell phones is also a good way to pocket some extra cash.
I had no idea folks were selling those kinds of things on eBay! Out of the ordinary ideas here, thanks!