It’s been a few years since my last big gadget purge and – wow – have the devices piled up. That happens when you review tech for a living, but it’s still totally out of control.
It’s not just me, either. A survey by camera gear trade-in site MPB shows Americans have about $650 billion worth of unused devices, including old TVs, smartphones, cameras, gaming devices, and laptops.
At a time when the cost of groceries, housing, utilities, and just about everything else seems to be skyrocketing, now is a perfect time to see if we can get some cold, hard cash for our old gadgets.
I have three sitting on a shelf in my office, making me feel bad about wasting money every time I glance up and see them just sitting there collecting dust. They are:
◾ Nintendo Switch Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Bundle ($365): I purchased it last winter to use for a TV segment about holiday gadget gifting. I displayed it out of the box once, but other than that, I’ve never used it.
◾ iPad Mini, 6th generation (still the newest one on the market). I bought it to use on video sets to run my own teleprompter (an app paired with another larger iPad affixed below the camera lens). With a protective cover and AppleCare, it cost a whopping $710. But I still use my iPhone all the time instead.
◾ Canon XC 15 4K Camcorder ($986). This was purchased by my professional photographer husband to shoot my product review videos. Again, it’s too bad for both of us that I mainly shoot segments on –…
