
Just because you resell your stuff doesn’t mean you’re poor
I was mentioning how I was selling off my things on Kijiji and Poshmark (This is how to sell your items online and the easiest for me is Poshmark Canada – use code SHERRYISH for a free $15 credit), and a friend looks at me and says:
But.. do you need the money?
No…
I mean you’re reselling all of your items.
But I would like MORE money. And these are things I don’t use.
Example: Shoes I pulled out and wanted to try and declutter…
And she got the strangest look on her face, like it never occurred to her that you could have money, and still want to get rid or declutter things in your home to have MORE money.
From her perspective, I understand that growing up she didn’t have much, but she and her family worked a lot for rich families in her neighbourhood.
She grew up with a real aversion to wealth because the families she worked for, were not nice people for the most part.
They were mean, dismissive, rude, etc, and she thought to herself ever since she was a young girl – I NEVER want to become like that, and associated money with becoming rude etc.
Her block with money, comes from mis-associating wealth with rudeness.
We all know that wealth is separate from that, and she self-sabotages by living paycheque to paycheque, saving nothing and spending it all because she doesn’t want to feel like she is becoming like those people.
Money only enhances who you already are
If you are a good person, money only makes you a better one. You can afford to be more generous, kinder, and are still a really nice person to talk to, the way you were before you had money.
If you were a bit of a jackass, money just makes you a bigger jackass. You are louder, more overconfident in being rude because you have money and ‘power’, and it just enhances that.
It’s as simple as that.
Overriding misconception is that you only sell things if you need money
To some extent, everyone “needs” money. I mean, it’s not like I can exactly stop working today and spend the way I want until I die. I could stop working today and live on a bare bones budget until I die, but that’s not how I want to live.
For her, to sell her things, it means she needs the money. She (I suspect) is a bit of a packrat, just like my mother.
THINGS, make her feel secure.
THINGS make her happy that she is able to afford them, and she wants to see the physical proof of her items and her riches/treasures, to make her feel like she has a good life, having grown up poor AF with nothing.
My mother is exactly the same, so I feel for her. I know where she is coming from.
It is much harder to feel warm and snuggly with your bank account balances on a screen, and sometimes people have a block with that.
They see $50,000 or $100,000 and they think – But why can’t I spend it? It’s there. What’s the point of having this money if I can’t spend it? I want to spend it! ENJOY IT!
I feel like that sometimes, just going “EFF THIS!“, and going on a massive shopping spree, but then I calm myself down and remember that I have goals I want to reach – amassing dividends every year to slowly build up my passive income cash flow, net worth goals, etc.
Selling things, doesn’t mean you are poor.
It means you see that you aren’t using the items, you have clutter lying around, and you’d rather turn it into cash.
That cash? You’d rather put it in your savings account and use it for a vacation, or to buy things, or .. like me, throw it all into investments.
Have you ever thought of selling your stuff as meaning you’re poor?
6 Comments
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Meg
I feel like this is the similar vein to people thinking you’re struggling with money if you buy things secondhand. I grew up in a upper middle class area in a financially secure household and we went to garage sales. People think my mother is crazy for buying things from garage sales when she could buy new, but part of having money is generally wanting to continue having money. And if you can get what you want (or sometimes, better than what you can get in stores) for a much discounted price, that why wouldn’t we?
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Gail
I am not poor, but I have been at times needing to do without quite a bit. I am very comfortably retired and have no money worries. I love to donate clothes and object I do not use! It is freeing to remove clutter. I like having fewer things than most people. The reason I don’t sell stuff is that I am lazy and the donation feels good, too. My own mom grew up dirt poor and never got rid of much. She didn’t hoard–our home was fine–but her closet and cabinets had things in them that we never touched. It bothered me, but as I grew up, I too understood.
Draig @ A Black Penny
I always thought selling things meant you were rich because you’d had the money to buy it in the first place and now to decide it was no longer necessary meant you weren’t financially or emotionally beholden to it.
Like CDs. Every ‘make money!’ article I used to read as a young’un was like “Sell your old CDs and DVDs!”
I didn’t own any…so I just assumed being able to resell things you’d bought in the first place was a sign of wealth. Is that weird?