The Great 'Recycle it for cash' Hunt. Make money from old stuff you don't want.

HugoSP

That's the thing Sue, when I used to have work carried out by other poeple, the waste would just disappear.

My eyes were opened when I was asked my a plumber fitting a new combi boiler in place of a traditional gravity fed HW system if I wanted to make £15. Of course the answer was "Yes".

He told me to remove the copper cylinder and take it to the scrap yard. I did along with a few lengths of scrap copper pipe and sure enough I came out with around £17!

It was the yard owner that told me what he would give good money for - any non ferrous stuff including used electrical wire! Ferrous fetches very little but worth taking if you've a tonne or so, or if you've got other non ferrous to go with it.

Not only that I have a view that if you manage your waste properly by sorting it out on site then disposal cost can be kept down and you can get some stuff taken free or even get some cash back for it. I started by taking stuff to the scrap yard because he was closer. I didn't always want money for it. It's just that it saves me money by taking it to him. He then started insisting that I took it as it paid for my fuel. He's a really nice chap - shrewed but nice with it.

Today I took the following items.

A few lengths of copper pipe
Some lead from a gazebo we've taken down
A collapsed aluminium shelving unit
A spent alloy ladder
Some SWA and normal domestic cable
Various bits of brass incl a couple of old rad valves
3 non working power tools (old cordless drill and a couple of saws).
An old radiator
An old galvanised window frame
An old cast iron heat exchanger
A couple of strip light fittings
An alloy inlet manifold connected to an air filter housing
About 5 kilos of old nails
A set of old brake pads
Some alloy light shades stripped of bulb holders etc
No cuddly toy.

These were just chucked into a pile over the last couple of months, and sorted through today in around 15 mins.

I came out with £28.80 cash - now I need a 9 inch grinder for a job coming up.

Hugo

HugoSP

Money from old stuff you don't want.....

Clothes 50 50 shop.

OH took some stuff in years ago and eventualy made some £30. They ask you to check in regularly to see if its been sold. When I took the clothes in for her they went through the stuff there and then, immedtiately handing back a couple of items they were not interested in selling. They sold the rest bar one in a few weeks. We were given that back as well as it had gone out of season.

Time to take my old camel coat me thinks - its a shame as I love it but it fitted me when I was 18 - 20 years ago!

H

max2002ad

Filmvault Buy and Sell Vhs videos, Dvds and console/pc games.
All you need to do is send them a list of what you want to sell and their condition and they will reply with how much they are willing to pay for the items. Once you aggree to the price they will arrange collection by courier.
You then recieve a cheque back within 24 hours of the items being checked.

The website is

https://www.filmvault.co.uk

taxspider

lustydog wrote:

Hi again Eric,
sorry I've not replied before this.
I have no documentary proof of my statement as I heard it on the media.
However you may have difficulty convincing the taxman that you were selling hundreds of books at a penny each thus making a loss, If, as some people do you were selling at a penny and making money on the postage, the quantities of business could still come to light and you would have to justify this to the Revenue. If you can prove that all the books were your own, that may make a difference. However, books are notoriously difficult to sell and only certain types seem to make it. Great heavy Tomes on specialist subjects sometimes do well, but cost the earth in postage. I wish you well in your enterprize, i'm afraid I didn't have the staying power. Good luck
Lustydustydog

As you might guess from the handle I am a tax man. Well, tax woman actually, and can tell you there is no numerical limit on the number of items you can sell in a given time before HMRC gets in touch. There are various 'badges of trade' which are used to determine whether or not someone is trading. These include the number of sales, the nature of the sales, how and where, what advertising is used, all sorts of things. If you go onto the HMRC website - something like HMRC.gov.uk I think (oops, should know this one!) you can actually look in the manuals we use for guidance on interpreting the statute. This will give you the complete lowdown.

Essentially though all you have to do is use common sense. If you are turning over lots of books then you are clearly a regular seller, but if those books sat on your own shelves after you read them and you are getting rid of them to make space then that's fine. They are what is called chattels and you can sell up to £6000 worth of them in a tax year without incurring Capital Gains Tax. If you regularly buy books, or anything else, for the purpose of selling them at a profit then you are clearly trading and HMRC will take a keen interest.

The golden rule really is, if in doubt keep a record. But ordinary selling of your own goods without the intent of making a profit is not normally taxable. There are some exceptions to this but they will not apply to the sorts of things being discussed in this thread.

Hope that helps!

buxtonrabbitgreen

this wont actually make you any money but https://www.freecycle.co.uk is a site where people give each other stuff they dont want anymore to prevent so much going in to land fill. it has caused me to have several good clear outs, I was also given a good as new computer power supply. so one persons rubbish is anothers good fortune.

Snowpixie_2

I think that the ebay discussion may go on forever, but I am an accountant and in easy terms we generally advise people re ebay that the tax man will look for 1, a large amount of buy it now items 2, a large amount of brand new items or
3, several listings of the same items (ie items bought in bulk to be re-sold at a profit.
If you are genuinely selling second hand goods the same as you would at car boot sale and you are not making thousands a year you should be ok...
(I'm really sorry if this offends any tax people out there! )

monkeyspanner

Does anyone know of an Ink Cartridge recycler that will take EPSON cartridges?

Savvy_Sue

monkeyspanner wrote:

Does anyone know of an Ink Cartridge recycler that will take EPSON cartridges?

No. See my previous post on this thread (28) for a suggestion of what to do about this to be a bit greener.

HugoSP

HugoSP wrote:

That's the thing Sue, when I used to have work carried out by other poeple, the waste would just disappear.

My eyes were opened when I was asked my a plumber fitting a new combi boiler in place of a traditional gravity fed HW system if I wanted to make £15. Of course the answer was "Yes".

He told me to remove the copper cylinder and take it to the scrap yard. I did along with a few lengths of scrap copper pipe and sure enough I came out with around £17!

It was the yard owner that told me what he would give good money for - any non ferrous stuff including used electrical wire! Ferrous fetches very little but worth taking if you've a tonne or so, or if you've got other non ferrous to go with it.

Not only that I have a view that if you manage your waste properly by sorting it out on site then disposal cost can be kept down and you can get some stuff taken free or even get some cash back for it. I started by taking stuff to the scrap yard because he was closer. I didn't always want money for it. It's just that it saves me money by taking it to him. He then started insisting that I took it as it paid for my fuel. He's a really nice chap - shrewed but nice with it.

Today I took the following items.

A few lengths of copper pipe
Some lead from a gazebo we've taken down
A collapsed aluminium shelving unit
A spent alloy ladder
Some SWA and normal domestic cable
Various bits of brass incl a couple of old rad valves
3 non working power tools (old cordless drill and a couple of saws).
An old radiator
An old galvanised window frame
An old cast iron heat exchanger
A couple of strip light fittings
An alloy inlet manifold connected to an air filter housing
About 5 kilos of old nails
A set of old brake pads
Some alloy light shades stripped of bulb holders etc
No cuddly toy.

These were just chucked into a pile over the last couple of months, and sorted through today in around 15 mins.

I came out with £28.80 cash - now I need a 9 inch grinder for a job coming up.

Hugo

Update - Took in 47kgs of copper pipe, from my own house, as we're repumbing a small amout of the CH system.

I came out with £90!

H

jasavib1

OddjobKIA wrote:

Apart from that why do we only give to charity that we no longer deem worthy to be in our house. Ive seen some stuff GIVEN to charity and it is disgusting it needs to be chucked in the bin. Not saying that thousands of items that are given in love and near perfect condition dont outway those that aren't. But the attitude that says ' oh they would die for this over there' is wrong they are normally dying anyway.

please just ask yourself a question lets say an orphan who has lost his parents and family to aids has not eaten for a week and is wearing clothes that you wouldnt put in your dog basket, knocks on your door and asks for some clothes would you open your wardrobe and say help yourself I can replace them over time or would you say hang on theres a bag up the loft i will get it now you can rumage through that.

I have always lived by the saying 'GIVE UNTILL YOU NOTICE IT'

Being anonymous on these boards I can say that I only earn 12500 a year I have 3 young kids(7-4-and 7months) and a beautiful wife and we count every penny. But we give away alot of our stuff to people who need it more than us. For an example we only just finished paying for our 3 pice suit after a year it went to a family who's parent were very ill had 5 kids and sat on the floor (we still have a mis match of charity brought stuff). We brought a small car for £350 pounds to see us through for a couple of months spent a bit on it but gave it away to a single mum who had passed her test but could no way afford a car ( she lived miles from anywhere because of probs in her past and thats where she was put)

Im not saying IM better than you in any way I am still selfish in many ways(mainly food) but why dont we give our good stuff away and make do with the stuff in the garage that 'peolpe out there are dying for'


sorry to hijack this thread martin i got a bit carried away touched a nerve.

ANYTHING IS BETTER THAN NOTHING? YOU PLONKER.