7 Ways to Make Extra Holiday Cash

Today’s guest post comes from Erin Gifford at Coupon Cravings, a personal finance blog dedicated to sharing grocery, drugstore and retail shopping deals: 

So far this holiday shopping season, shoppers have been out in full force. Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend alone, spending averaged $372 per shopper, according to the National Retail Federation. While some finished up their holiday shopping, many more have plenty of gifts left to buy, so here are seven ways to get some quick holiday shopping cash.

• Cash in at cash-back shopping sites. Online-only sales are rampant across the web this holiday season so why not make a few bucks while picking out gifts. Ebates.com gives you back a percentage of your purchase and is doubling cash back through December 24 when you buy from select online retailers, including Walmart, Borders and Overstock.com. As an added bonus, new sign-ups get a $10 gift card. Two more cash-back sites are BigCrumbs.com and Live Search.

• Sell back your old books. At Cash4Books.net just enter the ISBN number for each book you want to sell (check the back cover) to see how much each is worth. Textbooks, non-fiction and business books are most in demand. Get a check or deposit to your PayPal account in about a week.

• Get rid of your dated gadgets. If you’ve got an old MP3 player, cell phone or digital camera taking up space in your junk drawer, check out Gazelle.com. Enter a few details about your gadgets and instantly learn trade-in values. Gazelle.com pays for shipping and you’ll get your money in a week. For cell phones-only, try CellforCash.com. To trade in your gadgets for Best Buy gift cards, visit the Best Buy Trade-In Center.

• Cash in your coins. If you’re like me, you’ve got a stash of coins somewhere in your house ready to be turned into bills, so take them to a Coinstar machine by December 7. Cash in $40 in coins and get $10 free by mail-in rebate. Get your money as a gift card (required for this offer) to avoid the 8.9 percent coin-counting fee.

• Sell back your gift cards. Gather up your used and unused gift cards (that you don’t plan to use) and sell them back at sites like Swapagift.com and PlasticJungle.com. You’ll get back 60 percent or more of the card’s value.

• Hold a garage sale. This time of year? You bet. Craig’s List recently reported that the number of yard sale listings doubled year-over-year in September, so the demand for your stuff is clearly there regardless of the season.

• Sell your stuff on eBay. If you don’t want to brave the cold with a yard sale you can sell your stuff on eBay. Or, take what you have to Snappy Auctions to have them sell your stuff on eBay for you. They charge a 38 percent commission but it may be worth the trouble of setting up the auction and shipping the items yourself. You can also visit eBayTradingAssistant.com to find an eBay seller near you.