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Where do you sell your used CM books?
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I am looking to clean out our library and was wondering where you buy or sell your stuff?
TIA
If you have quite a few things to sell (even including math manipulatives and other non-printed items), you might consider having a table at a local used curriculum fair. Some of the homeschool support and co-op groups around here sponsor them. Then you would be available for immediate negotiations and you could even make a sign for your table that says something like, “Looking for Charlotte Mason materials? Look no further!” or “Ambleside, SCM, Sonlight users–browse here!”
If that’s not a viable option for you, you might look at http://www.homeschoolclassifieds.com. I haven’t sold anything there but have purchased several items with great success.
HTH,
Sue
I sell stuff on Amazon. It is SO easy to get started and it’s been such a blessing. (And BTW I am NOT computer savvy at all!) I can, many times, get 80% – 90% of my money back. All I had to do is get set up with Amazon and open a dedicated checking account just for homeschool. Amazon direct deposits my money into this account (I didn’t want my main household account to be online but this certainly isn’t necessary). You could go to Amazon.com and type your items in the search bar to see if they carry them and how much others are asking for prices. It works great for your used books too, not just curriculum.
Michelle, I was told Amazon take a large cut of the money – is that so? I have loads of stuff I would like to sell, but have not gotten around to it yet. How do you figure out packing and postage for Amazon? Linda
Does anyone know of a place that is not a business where one can list the things they want to sell and then deal directly with the purchaser with no middle man? Linda
As Sue mentioned above, http://www.homeschoolclassifieds.com is a great place to sell and buy used curriculum and books. You do deal directly with the buyer/seller. You can get a limited number of listings free, but the price is very reasonable to have many listings. You can “buy credits” for one year or more. I cannot count anymore the number of items I have both bought and sold there. I have about 75% of my curriculum needs for next year already, many of them bought through Homeschool Classifieds. I have also sold several items in just the past couple of months too. This is a great time of year to list items, as everyone is starting to think about next fall.
Kim
Thanks Kim, how does it work if you have something someone has listed in the wants column – I am curious about that. Linda
There is a yahoo group called CMCurricula (I think that’s it) devoted to the buying and selling of books for a CM education. No fees and you deal directly with the interested homeschoolers.
-Richele
Once you have your little shop all set up … let us know. I know I am always hunting for good CM books.
Linda,
If you have an item to sell, you can type it in to the “search” space. This will give you all the listings for that item for sale AND anyone who has placed that item on their wanted list. I emailed someone to offer a book they had on their wanted list that I had for sale. She emailed me back saying she was definately interested in buying the book. At the same time she had checked my wanted list and saw that she had for sale an item that I was looking for. We agreed to trade the items, so each of us only paid for shipping to the other person. There is a degree of trusting in the honor system, but so far, I have not had a problem.
Kim
Thanks Kim and thanks Richelle, I have already had a person interested in some items on CM Curricula, so that was a good tip and as I go through my things I will try the other site as well. Does anyone have any luck on ebay at all? Linda
I’ve sold quite a bit on eBay (and bought too). You usually get a fairly good price for stuff. Just make sure you start at the minimum price you are willing to accept or you might end up selling something for much less than it’s worth. Ebay does take a chunk of money from you though, but it’s based on the amount of your sale. Usually less than a dollar or so. But you should still factor that in when deciding on a price.
And just as a side note, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to part with most of my books. I have high hopes that my boys will want to homeschool their kids (or let me homeschool them!) and I’d love to pass the stuff on so they won’t have all the expense we did. And my husband has talked off and on about starting a CM type boys school (sort of like Jo’s Boys) when he retires from the military.
Heather
Heather, I feel the same way – and I have set aside the core books that I would value for the homeschool years K-12 if the girls ever wanted to do that with children they have, and I know they would. However some of the math curriculum and science will have been updated by then and so it is not worth keeping those. We have also decided that we would likely use MUS for math if they ever had children and use it through high school. So we are offloading Teaching Textbook discs, Teaching Company discs and the Jacob’s Geometry. All the books that we have used and had great success with are going nowhere, we are keeping those – but I just cannot keep everything we own – I would like to reclaim some space in our home lol. After all these years I pretty much know what I would use were I to do it again, and the girls know what worked for them – so I think we are keeping everything that we should. I also have to consider that both my husband and I had vast collections of books from when we were single, and so we started with a large libary and then over the years added to it in a big way so we are swimming in things. We lost a lot in the hurricane, but have replaced nearly all of them – we are avid readers and I also have a huge collection of crafting/sewing/gardening books which are my main hobbies – pretty soon I will need a new house to house it all! So I am having a calculated purge of things which are of less value to us as a family to read for pleasure, facts or school.
Your husband’s plans sound very interesting and I hope that works out, it would be very cool to do that. Linda
Sorry it took me a few days to get back to this. Amazon tacks on 3.99 to your asking price which is listed as the “shipping” cost and depending on the price of your item, they keep about that much for their fee unless it is a really cheap item or a really expensive item and then it will be a bit less or a bit more respectively.
For instance, I just listed an item for 39.99. Then Amazon added 3.99 for shipping, making the total cost 43.98. If it sells I will recieve 35.00, and I will spend about 2.50 to send it. Another item I sold the other day sold to the customer for 11.00, Amazon got about 3.50 and I will receive about 7.50. So yes, Amazon gets their share to be sure but things sell fast there usually, their search engine is excellent so people can find your weird, obscure homeschool curricula fairly easily, and the whole process is very user friendly. I will admit this in this fairly anonymous and wonderfully gracious place; last year I did a major homeschool stuff purge and I made about 400.00! It took all summer and many trips to the post office but I got rid of a ton of stuff that had been bogging me down, stuff I never probably should have had in the first place. I am TRYING not to make the same mistakes again where I end up with so much that I don’t need/can’t use/isn’t a good fit for our family.
HTH!
Michelle
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