Selling items to pay off debt

enthusiasticsaver

DFB35 said:

Would you sell designer items for a lot less what they are worth to pay off some debt?

For example a bag worth 1,600 but only being offered 850, I feel like being ripped off

I have about 3k on credit cards with interest and 13k on 0% cards, plus two loans. Cannot get another 0% card so wondering if to sell some of my items to pay off interest bearing cards? 

Finding myself heavily in debt again, at the moment l am able to make repayments.  However not being able to get 0% card has come as a shock as now I’m worried when my other 0% deals expire I won’t be able to shift them as I normally would. 

Thank you 

If you are no longer able to get 0% deals then yes I would sell things at a loss to get the debt cleared.  Things like bags etc don't really hold their value.  I think you were probably ripped off when you bought it rather than now when trying to sell. If you are paying interest on £3k of credit card debts at presumably a fairly high interest rate the sooner it is gone the better.  The bag is no good sat in your cupboard when you have that much in debt. 

in_need_of_direction

Maybe a way to look at it is by considering how much interest not paying that amount off would cost you.  Suddenly the resale value seems better.

foxgloves

The thing with designer bags is that the real rip-off occurs when you buy them for vastly over-rated sums of money which is really about nothing other than having a certain 'label' on the bag (i.e its branding). The mark-up on the actual cost of these bags will be huge. I don't doubt that nice materials are used, but the small amount of them in a bag won't touch the sides of £1.6k. A bigger wodge of the cost will go on plush advertising & associated activity to keep the brand 'premium'. As you are finding out, the value falls pretty quickly because as with everything else, items are only actually worth what people are prepared to pay for them. If nobody was prepared to pay 1.6k for a bag, the market would have to adapt to reality pretty quickly. As an ex-spendy non-budgeter who reformed several years ago now, I can say that designer stuff was never a draw for me, but I did buy quite a bit of vintage stuff which I wrongly thought would accumulate in value as the years went by. Wrong! I recently looked up the value of a small collection of ceramics I bought back then, which I am aiming to sell. The price had gone up by £5 per item & there were PLENTY of unsold ones on ebay, which told me there is little demand. Buyers lead on what something is 'worth' by what they are prepared to pay. 
I agree with previous posters who have recommended selling the bag for as much as you can get & using it to reduce you debt. As somebody else said, you have already been through the real rip-off, which was falling for the spiel about a couple of nicely put together squares of leather being worth 1.6k.
Good luck with your debt-busting plans. As someone who has now been out the other side of this for several years, I can honestly tell you that no purchases I could come home with now could EVER make me feel as good as being debt-free. Making that final debt repayment & realising that all your earnings are now your own is an amazing feeling. Do stick with it.
F

Rob5342

What were the reasons you got into debt and how were the bag and other designer items paid for?

If you came into some money and fancied some designer items then fair enough, it's not what a lot of people here would spend it on but it's your money. If you felt you absolutely had to have them for some reason and used credit cards and loans to get them without a reasonable prospect of you repaying them then you have a problem. 

If you can get some money for them then selling them to help clear your debts would be sensible, but only if don't start using credit again for other things you feel you have to have. You mention being heavily in debt again, how did you get into debt originially and how did it happen again?

Please don't feel I'm judging you, I got into 42k of debt myself, but if you don't address the underlying problem then unfortunately it will just keep happening.

stu12345_2

Im in favour of gold rings instead of handbags, cos you get your money back on gold and even make a profit if you sell it, cos gold prices have been going up since 2008. and a gold ring is just as classy and posh as a designer hand bag.
and at least you know you have money sitting on your finger..

DFB35

I am pleased to report I have sold the bag If anyone in the same predicament I recommend Handbag Clinic as they gave the most …

I have also sold a watch, using Chrono Hunter. Also can recommend.

I feel like I’m more accepting of what I need to do now and on my way to start clearing the debts !

Herzlos

Ah, if you're selling to a reseller you'll need to account for their profit margin too. But it's going to be a lot easier than selling directly to a buyer. £850's a lot of cash to deal with for a marketplace trade.

I've sold a lot of stuff, usually at a fair-ish market value (when you consider the item is used and will never fetch new) in order to pay down debt. It'll have saved me a fortune in the long run and a lot of stuff wasn't being used anyway.

DFB35

I feel like this is a lesson to me not to buy Designer as the resale is like half the original price. Or buy second hand pieces (in the future when debt is paid off obviously)

EssexHebridean

DFB35 said:

I am pleased to report I have sold the bag If anyone in the same predicament I recommend Handbag Clinic as they gave the most …

I have also sold a watch, using Chrono Hunter. Also can recommend.

I feel like I’m more accepting of what I need to do now and on my way to start clearing the debts !

Good for you! 

Most folk on here have at some stage got themselves into debt by buying stuff that with their now MSE-equipped head on, they wouldn’t have bought. For some it might have been designer branded stuff, for others just a sheer quantity of far cheaper stuff - at least your big ticket items are giving you an asset of at least some value to now sell and use the proceeds to clear some of the debt, whereas those for whom the debt was accumulated through buying cheap stuff don’t have that. £1000 of debt accrued by buying the latest “must have” designer item is just as much “bad debt” as £1000 of debt accrued through repeated high street splurges - so there isn’t really a place for moral high ground to be taken from either side IMO. 

It sounds very much as though your lightbulb moment has now properly arrived though - well done on that, and good luck with the rest of your DFW journey.