If you’re interested in personal finances, chances are you’ve come across Paula Pant’s blog & podcast, Afford Anything, or seen the Netflix documentary where she was recently featured. Paula puts it very simply: in order to afford anything (you want), you need to grow the gap between what you earn and what you spend. In order to do so you can save more, and/or ideally earn more.
This is the first article I write in the category “Earning”. I have several tricks up my sleeve but I want to start with something simple. Any form of investment takes time, whether it requires you to put in the time and effort…or just wait. The good news is that there might be money all around you already. By that I mean that you may have some stuff that you don’t use anymore, and that somebody would be happy to take off your hands.
The useless clutter around your house used to be money
The storage space from hell – an inventory
For many years I prided myself on being minimalistic. I don’t need much, I only just recently got a (second-hand) microwave, and pretty much all the furniture in my home is second hand as well. When I moved from Oslo to Trondheim, Norway, I only had 5 moving boxes with me. It’s five years later and sadly, I would have many more today.
It seems like when you have space, you tend to fill it. I have a bigger apartment now and, the reason for my new sin, storage space in the basement. Among the “relics” down there, a bike I haven’t personally used since I bought an electric one in 2019, “in case my family visits me”. It was practical when they indeed visited me, but that doesn’t even add up to a week of bike use the last four years.
It’s not the only object down there that I don’t use because I have another one that I use. Some things I have no use for, and I must say it felt really good sending these two bags of winter clothes off to Ukraine, some stuff is just trash.
The 100 NOK challenge
A couple of months ago, I started listening to Norwegian blogger Lise’s podcast, Pengesnakk. In one episode, she suggested selling everything you’re using anymore, for a symbolic sum of 100 NOK (Norwegian crowns), which is about 10 €. If it’s worth less then of course you should sell it for 50 NOK or give it away. If it’s worth a lot more then it also goes without saying that you should price it accordingly.
But the beauty of that simple concept is that 100 NOK is still something, and at the same time not too much to a potential. And I must say it feels really good to see your clutter disappear. It feels so good that after selling only 1-2 objects I started creating more ads ( aka the part that had been a drag for me) on the second-hand platform finn.no. I also came up with a system for what I haven’t put on Finn yet.
System in & out
It’s a fairly simple system. Everything small that I want to get rid of has found its way to a plastic box in the living room. I see that box every day… To be honest it hasn’t really worked as an incentive lately because, well, I’ve been blogging, but I am definitely not forgetting about it. Everything I finally create an ad for gets promoted to another box, out of sight, on the top shelf in my bedroom.
When I make a sale, and so far everybody has paid me using a money app (super common here in Norway), that money goes directly to an account labeled as “Invest”. I don’t spend the money on that account. Instead, I keep saving where I can, like I usually do, and the money from those sales is a small step towards increasing my earnings and growing the gap. In a future article, I’ll tell you what I invested this money in.
Earnings & and pre-Christmas sales
But for now, here is a quick overview of what I’ve sold the past 1,5 month, for a total of 1300 NOK.
- a ukulele
- a pet camera
- an alarm clock
- a waffle maker
- a dress
- 2 heaters
I haven’t sold the bike yet. It’s possibly too expensive, also it’s winter.
Like I mentioned in my article about money-smart Christmas presents, buying second-hand is in. That might be a golden opportunity for you to make extra money before the holiday. What are you not using at the moment and could sell? What would you do with an extra 1300 NOK ? Feel free to write it in the comments!
I hope any of this helped!
