Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
Make Money – Sell CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays, Video Games and Books
Raechelle Dias
28th Aug 2019
Sell CDs, DVDs, video games and books to clear your cupboards – and your debts.
It’s one of the easiest ways to make money and get rid of the clutter.
A survey by Swapgame found that we could be debt-free as a nation if we sold our £1.8 billion of unused computer games. Wouldn’t it be the easiest way to boost your bank account balance? Read on for our tips on how to cash your unwanted stuff.
You also can find out how to make more money by clearing your clutter in our Clear Your Clutter pages here.
- Where to sell CDs, DVDs, books and video games
- Unwanted gadgets and gizmos?
- Second hand shops
- Swapping
Where to start selling old CDs, DVDs, video games and books?
Your first point of call to sell CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays, video games and books should be a website like MusicMagpie (no, we’re not connected – just a similar name!) or Ziffit.
MusicMagpie is recommended by Trust Pilot. You can use it to easily sell CDs, DVDs, games, technology or even your old Lego. It’s a free service accepting nearly all DVDs, CDs, games and books – and it’ll pay you for them.
Alternatively, if it is books you are selling, you can use the trusted WeBuyBooks. They offer very quick payment and free collection of your books and make the process very fast and efficient. They pay an average of £29 per customer haul, so a pleasant little payday.
Unwanted gadgets and gizmos?
Apart from selling CDs and books, you might want to trade in other unwanted stuff.
Even your broken gadgets are welcome at Cashinyourgadgets. The service uses a unique calculator to work out how much you’ll get for your items.
If you’re honest with the grading questions, you’ll receive the amount quoted. You can trade in things such as Macs, tablets, phones and consoles. It’s less hassle than online auction sites as there’re no transaction fees and the site offers a range of payment options.
At the same time, though, check out how much you could get for the same items on eBay. If you’re not in a rush to sell, particularly when it comes to Mac products and other popular makes, you could get a lot more money for your stuff. Pick a good ‘buy it now’ price, allow people to offer lower bids and wait for the best one. Read our 20 handy tips for selling on eBay.
And, of course, you can always try to sell your unwanted items locally. Gumtree and Shpock make it very easy.
Second-hand shops
While selling things online is quick and easy, you might want to look into more traditional ways too. You could sell CDs, DVDs and games to second-hand shops in your area. Not only can you get some cash for them, but you might be able to barter and trade them for some cool vintage wares.
Selling directly to a shop means you get instant cash too, which can be very helpful if you’re wondering where the next meal is coming from.
Although there aren’t as many of these shops as there used to be, they still exist on some high streets. Look up your local shops, gather your goods and start negotiating. Read our guide to haggling to help you secure the best price for your items.
If you choose to sell to second-hand shops, you might as well make a day of it. Sell CDs, but also clear out your closets of other items to earn extra cash.
Car boot sales
Going to a car boot sale? You can easily sell CDs, DVDs, games and books there.
Depending on how old the games are, you could sell some for £20 each, although many will make much less than that. Toss in an old DVD or sell CDs for 50p to a fiver.
The disadvantage of car boot sales is that you may not sell everything. Also, car boot foragers tend to look for bargains and usually won’t give you as much as you could perhaps get elsewhere.
However, if you’re going anyway, there’s no harm taking some of the things you’d like to sell.
To find out more about making the most out of car boot sales, read our article on turning trash into cash.
Swap CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays, books, games and more
Throwing a clothing swap with friends? Bring along your old games, CDs, records and DVDs too. Remember, one man’s junk is another man’s treasure!
But you don’t have to leave your house to swap things. If swap parties seem like too much effort, you can always visit swapping sites. Most will let you register for free and all you need to do is find your local group, look up items you want and swap them for your old stuff. Try Swapz or Gumtree Swap Shop.
While you won’t be able to make any cash by swapping, you can get rid of your old games and pick up some new ones without spending any money. You can also start swapping on:
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VHS films for sale in good condition over 26 years
VHS Films for sale over 25 year plus in good condition
Sorry I am not buying I am just trying to I sell my own VHS videos where do I put them on to sell please just wondering if you could help me. Thank you
Susan
Or you can swap your used console games with other gamers for just £1 at 123swap..
You don’t have to sell your used games – you can swap games directly.
I have lots of cd cases which I would like to get rid of… is there an easy recyclable way of doing this?
Theres plenty of alternatives too for selling video games – try
.cex.
speedsell
.tradeyourgames.
Worth shopping around to find the best price – musicmagpie are great for dvds and cds, not so great for video games..
You can make clocks with your cds. You can buy the clock movements from craft material suppliers. Just Google clock movements. There are loads of web sites. You can assemble a cd clock in less than 20 minutes and sell them at car boots.