I must admit I love Facebook Marketplace, is one of the reason I don’t delete FB.
Perhaps I am a bargain hunter (or seller) or I still have a scarcity mindset, but when I want to buy something I first look if I can find it used (and in great conditions).
I also use it regularly to try to sell stuff before throwing away, and I am usually able to do it getting good money (for example I recently sold a crappy 10 years old Ikea Billy for 20 CHF less than new…). I even collected something for free on the street and sold in FB marketplace 
perhaps it will be my job once FIREd 
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For Ikea furniture I used https://www.ikea.com/ch/de/customer-service/returns-claims/ikea-zweites-leben-pubc89c7541 relatively excessively and recently got like 80.- Fr. for my over 10 year old bed frame. And last November there was an offer for double the prices for old items where I was able to sell two bar chairs for 70.- Fr. each (while they only did cost 89.- Fr. each).
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I sell anything I don’t use, no matter the value. People will buy really random shit at ridiculous prices. I once sold a plastic kettle (no brand) for something like 20+12 shipping and I had bought this kettle for 5.- new.
I take a bunch of pictures with my
Phone, post it on tutti first and I don’t do in person pickup (too much time wasted waiting around for people). If it doesn’t sell on tutti after a while I move it to Ricardo (usually sells there). I print the stamps or parcel labels from home so I just drop it off at the post office or Migros when I’m out grocery shopping.
It works well and while it won’t pay the rent, it’s a nice way to make money back on stuff I don’t use anymore.
I don’t really get the “my time is worth too much to bother” because it assumes you’re working every waking hour and that if you didn’t spend 30 min cleaning up or selling your stuff, you’d be working instead (which is rarely if ever the case)
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Let me explain. Everything that is not leisure, is work. Work, leisure, sleep. You could argue that it’s not the same to focus on work 100% on one thing and to do a bit of different kinds of work. And that’s fair. That’s why you will do some ad-hoc gigs from time to time, because even if they’re not the most productive way to spend time (don’t bring max $$$), they are also a bit fun, they stimulate the brain in a different way than usual.
Maybe photographing stuff, putting it online, packing it in boxes, taking it to the post and seeing them gone brings you satisfaction. For sure I can understand the part when you reduced the clutter at home, your stuff found some new owners and you even made a bit money. But for sure the time invested into it is not worth as much as the time invested into the work that you’re most qualified to do.
I don’t dispute that, I’d never be able to earn anywhere near as much with reselling my stuff as I do with my day job (how I afford the stuff in the first place 
) but to me this is a false dichotomy in the sense that the time I spend selling these things, cleaning my place, or even grocery shopping (I don’t enjoy doing these very much) is not time I’d spend working and getting paid for it if I didn’t have to do it.
So yes if I had to shorten my work day from say 8h a day down to 4h a day because I spend the other 4h doing these tasks then yea absolutely if I can get someone to do these 4h of chores for less than I’m getting paid to work, then it makes total sense to pay and outsource. But that’s not what happens. I work my 8h and then I’m done. I’m not going to work an hour more. So the time I spend doing the chores is not time I’d otherwise be working. And so it’s not worth the same amount of money as a work hour. I’m looking at this from a purely monetary point of view, not considering how enjoyable or not the chore is because I don’t think I’d enjoy doing it more if I got paid 500.- an hour to grocery shop. It would certainly make it more tolerable, but not more enjoyable.
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Just because you’re getting paid for 8 hours doesn’t mean you couldn’t find more work. I personally have 0 willpower to do anything productive after working 10 hours that day. I will not clean, I will not cook, just sofa & tv.
I really don’t get why people put themselves in this box: my boss pays me for 40h per week so I can’t work more. You can, you just prefer to do something else, even if it’s also some type of work.
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Yes, I don’t want to work beyond 8h a day. But that’s my choice. I don’t live to work and I think 40h a week is already too much time lost in a day. That’s my opinion. Anyone is allowed to have their own opinion on that matter.
I’m not saying you’re wrong to pay someone to do stuff for you and I’m right not to. Whatever works. Let’s just agree to disagree on the per hour value of each other’s time outside of work hours.
This is littering. What if it rains or no one ever picks it up? Do you go back and dispose of it or do you do like my neighbors and just let it rot?
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You are exposing a dichotomy here though. You say that anybody working more than 100% can choose to work, and at the same time you imply they can work more on the stuff they are qualified.
This is really a niche case tough. I cannot really do my daily job after 17 (industry closes). I would have to settle for something that brings less than my main job, maybe even far less. What you say is true only for a certain kind of skillset. Some job you may be too exhausted to actually do any kind of work, even if you want.
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Sure, the logic won’t work for every edge case.
I post stuff on Ricardo (auto-repeate so it stays listed more or less forever; just once in a while you need to click a button to refresh).
I do it partially to generate cash but just as much (if not more, in case of large items) to avoid the hassle of having to bring it somewhere (much rather have somebody pick it up). Aside from this, it’s nice to really see somebody is happy with what they’re getting from you for a good price. E.g. I had a 3+2 couch, barely used, high quality and a young student was extremely happy with it.
I do have a targeted list of all the things I want to get rid of so this is really primarily garage/storage cleaning which will come to an end. Occasionally I sell something which I had recently bought myself but which had disappointed.
For larger items I always list them as “pick up only”
For smaller items I also enable mail as delivery method but charge a relatively high price to ensure it’s not just the stamps which are covered but also the packaging, the effort to pack it, the effort to bring it it to the post.
Occasionally for fun and to fund my collecting interests I also buy items on a local site in my home country to then sell them on ebay to a global audience at a dramatically higher price. I only do this in a niche area of collecting where I have an edge in terms of knowledge. It helps me to fund my own purchases in this collecting area.
Ricardo does come with its annoyances… e.g. when an auction ends I send a polite email offering various time slots to come and pick it up on different days and request the other party to pick one slot and confirm it so I can guarantee to be at home. You’ll then get nitwits who’s just confirm “yes” with specifying which slot, as if I’m going to stay home for days and days just to wait for somebody to pick something up (or not). Have also had somebody come by and try to renegotiate the price at my door.
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I am doing the same on Anibis with auto-publish to Ricardo. I also post them on Facebook Marketplace.
I sell 2/3 items on it and the rest on Anibis.
I always advertise the items above the price I want to let it go (55% of new) with the link of the new items.
I lower it to a discount of 40-50% of new.
I am doing it to make so space and avoid to dump it. It is a bit a hassle and my wife will never do it but it reduce a bit overconsumption.
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Forgot to mention, with the help of Chatgpt nowadays it’s VERY efficient to craft a compelling description of the item incl. perfect translation into German (or another language). AI has cut a lot of the effort out.
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Best way for me is to a) buy quality that lasts for decades/lifetime (got boots which I’ve resoled 2-3+ times and own them since the late 90s), b) buy what I WANT and NEED, and no more, c) buy cheap crap (like shoes from Deichmann) that cost CHF25 and will be put in the bin in 12-18 months tops.
Electronic waste is a problem indeed, though, as is planned obsolescence and IKEA furniture. There’s no salvation for these things, they are crap since birth. When they inevitably die I dispose of them according to the local regulations. Having said that, my IKEA furniture tends - like most of my things - to last a lot longer than it does for most people. There’s value in putting something together and using it properly.
There’s an infuriating documentary called Buy Now on Netflix, some rich assholes working for Amazon and Meta got a conscience after making millions by rotting people’s brains and destroying the environment and realised that drip-feeding liquid cocaine in people’s brains by enabling them to buy buy buy may not be good for humans or the environment. “We didn’t know/never thought about it”, yeah bub, that “defense” hasn’t worked since the Nurnberg trials, and I’m sure as hell the millions in stock options eased things along didn’t they?
It shows that recycled electronics end up in SE Asia, where children take them apart by hand, burn the plastics to extract metals with all the health damage that causes; it shows that Ghana, with a population of 35mn, gets 1mn items of clothing dumped on her beaches per week (the TEXAID outside Coop that makes us feel warm and cuddly?), it shows that the 35 pairs of shoes “unboxers” buy per day are never reshelved, they are also dumped. Really infuriating and made us firmly decide we won’t buy shit we don’t need. It’s not cheapness or mustachianism, it’s environmental/humanistic conscience.
Now get me more OIL for my motorbike!
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Those who live/work in or around Zurich: there is a new place called JOSY. A free Brokenhaus where you can bring useful stuff or take things for free
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I also try to sell stuff on tutti.ch, some items are collectibles.
I mostly get scammers that try to buy italian stuff while writing in german. 