Turn Clutter Into Cash

From THESTREET.COM:

Your spring cleaning may turn up a mint.

Amid a teetering economy, many people would like to pick up a few extra bucks. Desks and drawers in your house won't provide a steady supply of money, but it's becoming easier to convert household clutter into cash.

If something is worthless, it usually gets thrown out. But many items that have become useless after you buy a newer model end up in a junk drawer.

Even though you know you will never use the outdated item again, it still has value. Once it gets thrown into a desk drawer, however, it usually remains there until someone in the house goes on a cleaning jag.

To get the most money for items in your drawers, the best method is to auction them off on Web sites such as eBay (EBAY) or over classified-advertising sites such as Craigslist.

The drawback is that it takes time and effort to take a photo of the item, write out a description and upload the photo to the Web site. Then you will have to spend time with potential buyers answering questions, collecting the money and shipping the item.

While many people have the intention of doing this, items that end up in drawers never seem to get sold. Other times, even though the items has value, it's too much trouble to put it up for sale.

A new generation of Web sites, however, makes it simple to sell these long-forgotten items with little effort.