BUY Christmas gifts without spending out of pocket - IDEA #1

I like to plan Christmas presents far in advance to make sure that I stay within our gift budget - one way to make sure you don't overspend (or worse, go into credit card debt) for Christmas is to find ways to buy presents without spending money out of pocket. I've got several ways of doing this, they really work and none of them require shoplifting or scams! I've purchased almost all of our childrens birthday and Christmas gifts for the past 2 years using these methods!

Idea #1- “Trade-In” your used books (& other items) with Amazon.com

Usually selling used books/movies/video games doesn’t give you much of a profit on ebay, so to me its not usually worth the trouble to sell it that way. So I have a stack of books that I’m done with, but can’t bear to donate to Goodwill because I paid too much for them. This year I’m going to use some of them to snag some FREE Christmas presents!

My brother recently told me about Amazon.com’s book trade-in program. You basically "sell" your used books (or electronics, video games, movies, etc) to Amazon and they pay you via a “gift card credit” to your account that can be used to purchase anything on Amazon. Not every book qualifies for the program, but you can type in the name of the book (or movie, etc) and it Amazon will tell you whether it qualifies and how much “credit” you would get for it.

For example, I have a paperback book called, 1,000 Ideas for Decorating Cupcakes, Cookies & Cakes (1000 Series) by Sandra Salamony. Amazon would give me $5.00 “trade-in value” if I send it to them. Some books are worth more or less, depending on how much they can sell it for. (Please note that when you’re looking at the trade-in program on the Amazon site, they usually use the term “textbook buyback,” but they are referring to all paper books, NOT JUST college-type textbooks. In this context, “textbook” means any non-digital book).

IMPORTANT: This trade-in program is different than selling things ON Amazon. If you sell a book on Amazon, you have to wait for the book to sell and then you eventually get part of the money for the sale. The trade-in program is different- it is not dependant on whether or not the book (or whatever other item) actually sells. Amazon takes it off your hands in exchange for a ‘credit’ and you never have to think about it again.

FINE PRINT: There are limits on how much you can trade in ($750.00 worth of credit per shipment – that’s A LOT of books!). Items must meet or exceed the product eligibility criteria. Your Amazon.com Gift Card account will automatically be credited for accepted items when they are received by Amazon.

DO I HAVE TO PAY TO SHIP THE TRADE-IN ITEMS TO AMAZON? No, Amazon will email you a postage-paid shipping label that you have to print out. You can ship all of your items together in one box. You will probably have to drop the package off at a UPS Store or a UPS DROP-BOX (I recently did this and it was easy – just dropped it off at a UPS box – You can arrange to have UPS pick up at your home, but there is a fee from UPS for the pick up)

More ideas on ways to buy Christmas presents without spending out of pocket are coming soon!