Title Trader

I finally settled on Title Trader as my CD/DVD swap site of choice. Although I had some initial difficulty figuring out how to list my items, once I did, I was good to go, and was able to successfully trade the bulk of my items there. Also, Title Trader does not limit you to trading only CDs or DVDs. You can list all kinds of other stuff such as books, magazines, audio-cassettes, even household items ala Freecycle.

Here's how Title Trader stacked up against my criteria:

1. Shipping

   Alas, while you can print a shipping label, inexplicably, it is not paid postage!?! nor at this time, are you able to pay for it online via credit card. . .
   

2. Avoiding the Post-office

   . . .therefore you still have to go to the post-office, stand on line and deal with the quirks of the postal staff. Bummer!

   For example, I do not trust the postal service not to manhandle my CDs/DVD packages as they wend their way through the system. So, to decrease the chances of any damage during shipping, I err on the side of caution and try to pad the envelope really well. One postal clerk eyed my package suspiciously and asked what was inside. When I told him, he asked why was it so thick, was anything else in there . . .? But, after processing it he just carelessly tossed (more like hurled) it into the mail bin behind him, which is EXACTLY why I padded it to the hilt. I'm thinking to myself, "My package has hardly even gotten into the post office good, before it getting roughed up! Thankfully, so far the CDs/DVDs I've shipped seem to have arrived intact.

3. Liner notes, artwork & case

   At Title Trader you have the option to send as much or as little of the accompanying material as you want. Some traders will note this type of information in their listing, which I found helpful in choosing with whom to trade.

4. Simplicity

   It's very easy to set up an account. The site also loads quickly on my dial-up connection.

   Each book, CD, and DVD is worth one Request Point and can be used to request a book, CD, or DVD from Title Trader's collection once you have received positive feedback. An email notification is sent when one of your items has been requested and you can print a shipping label at that time. I listed several items, and got requests right away, but again, how quickly or how many of your items are requested will be dependent on what you have to offer.

   Although, at first I found Title Trader a little tricky to navigate (I couldn't figure out how to list my items) once I did, things went more smoothly. Searching by UPC or ISBN can also be a little tricky. Sometimes those number don't work, but then, plugging in the title or artist will yield the item. Just be forewarned that you may have to fiddle around with your search queries a bit.

   Also, in one case, I had a problem printing a shipping label because the recipient's address could not be verified in the USPS database. Although, I emailed the site for assistance on several occasions, as far as I can tell, I never received a response unlike the speedy one obtained from SwapSimple's customer service department. (see my post on that here) However, since shipping labels are not postage paid, you can manually create your own shipping label without losing anything, which is what I ultimately ended up doing.

All in all, even though the need to go to the post office is somewhat of a hassle, the site's overall ease of use and laid back feel is what won me over in the end.

One More Thing: Premium Features

Title Trader premium access costs $19.95/year. However, when you first sign up, they will give you a 30 day trial that includes a few of the site's premium features, most notably a daily, customizable, email listing newly added items

Other premium features include:

• Wishlist Notification - email alerts when items appearing on your wish list have been added to the Title Trader inventory
  
• Saved Searches - allows you to maintain a list of your most frequent searches. When an item is added to the site
• Buddy List - allows you to bookmark your favorite users so you can keep an eye on what they have listed.
  
• Safe Swap Premium Member - enhances you status as a reliable trading partner.

Again, please note that this reflects my particular experience ONLY! You're mileage may vary.

Swapsimple

Another swap site that I looked into as an Exit Strategy for my CDs and DVDs was SwapSimple. At SwapSimple you can trade books, DVDs and video games, but not music CDs (go figure!). Setting up an account was easy enough. I provided an email address, made up a password and I was in like Flynn. I then received an email confirming my registration which included a clickable link leading to a few other questions to answer, such as how I'd heard of the site, my age (you must be 18 years or older), and stuff like that.

However, for me, that's about where the "simple" part of SwapSimple hit the road, and what I will mostly be discussing in this post.

1. Shipping

   SwapSimple members can print a free shipping label, which to me was very appealing. 'Nuf said!

2. Avoiding the Post-office

   Of course the pre-paid shipping label also removes the need to go to the post office, so long as your item weighs less than one pound. Another plus!

3. Liner notes, artwork & case

   SwapSimple, members are expected to send all accompanying material, rather than just the disk alone, so that suited me as well.

4. Simplicity

   Now, here's where things started to fall apart.

   Although, I initially listed three items, I only actually ended up trading one of them. And while I was able to send out that one item without incident, I found the actual process of doing that to be so exacting, that shortly thereafter, I delisted the other two items.

   • Pop-up Panic!

     For one thing, to even list an item for trade, in addition to my name I had to provide my gender and telephone number, something I wasn't too wild about, and wondered why that was necessary. Then, some pretty specific and rather stern pop-up instructions appeared about using the site and what needed to happen when, in order to effect a successful trade.
     
     There were other, similarly dire, warning pop-ups at just about every subsequent step of the transaction, through finally printing the shipping label once someone requested one of my items.

     Don't Get Me Wrong! In and of themselves, none of the stipulations were at all unreasonable. I definitely understand that some people need to have such things spelled out as explicitly as possible, because left to their own devices they simply won't follow through. Still, as a fairly reliable sort, myself, I was left feeling vaguely anxious. Even with the best of intentions, we all can slip up at one time or another. I tend to pursue several Exit Strategies at a time in order to maximize the chances of actually getting rid of something! As far as I'm concerned, all bets are on until that item is out of my house and into the hot little hands of someone else. So, I was terrified that I might fail to remove a no longer available item from my SwapSimple inventory quick enough! Consequences for such a failure included possible penalty charges or the suspension of my account.

   • Point System

     SwapSimple says that their point system is straightforward, but it seemed a little complicated to me. The site figures out and assigns a "market" value to the items you post. You receive a fraction of that value immediately upon listing the item (aka Instant Trade Credits) and the rest of it upon successfully completing your trade. From this standpoint you begin accumulating points and can request items right away. Also, as long as you have points, you can trade for any category of item. For example if you trade a book, you are not limited to requesting another book. You can request a DVD or a video game of whatever value, so long as you have accumulated the necessary points.

     However, when I went back to check on my account after the one trade I completed, I was surprised to find out that I hadn't earned any credits! I contacted Customer Service about it and to their credit , they got back to me pretty promptly. They explained that my trade item had a "market value" worth less than $0.50 and that they only award credits in whole numbers. Unfortunately for me, they round down instead of up. So my traded item ended up being worth zero points instead of one. They further advised that there were many 0-credit items that could be requested. I checked this out this category, but there weren't all that many things available, at least on the date I looked. But, in honor of completing my first swap, SwapSimple credited my account five points. Still, if I had not contacted them, I probably would never have received these points.

     Also, swapping is not actually free, unless you are:

     • swapping within a personal swap network of friends, their friends, etc. or . . .
     • . . .swapping items worth 10 credits or less
     otherwise, trading items worth more than 10 credits with people outside of your network will cost you $1.00 (items worth 11-20 credits) or $2.00 (items worth 21 credits or more) per swap.

     While not completely inscrutable, I would not exactly call this system straightforward either.
     

   • Site Feel and Navigability

     Finally, swapping via the Internet is probably an inherently social activity, however I would say that this social networking aspect is very much accentuated at SwapSimple. Just to say, that this may not be everyone's cup of tea.

     Also, I am probably one of the few people left in the universe with a dial-up connection, so it took a bit of time for some of the site's graphics and doo-hickey's to load as I navigated through the site. This became a particular issue while I tried to figure out how to display my inventory. Me and my dial up connection spent more than a few frustrating minutes clicking various links and then waiting for the screens to load while I tried to figure it out what I was doing wrong.

Obligatory Disclaimer: Anyway, as I stated in last week in the SwapaCD post, this review reflects the criteria that are important to me and how this impacted my particular experience ONLY! You're mileage may vary and SwapSimple may suit your needs perfectly.

Next up: Title Trader: The CD/DVD swap site, I finally settled on.

SwapaCD

SwapaCD is a popular music CD swap site. I actually discovered this site while checking out Paperback Swap, with whom they're affiliated (I also see they've added a DVD swap site to their offerings. I'll have to check that out!).

I have not, as of yet, used SwapaCD for reasons initially outlined in My CD/DVD Cup Runneth Over and which I will discuss in further detail below.

1. Shipping

   While not necessarily a complete deal breaker, ideally, a swap site would allow me to generate a postage paid shipping label (either free of charge or for which the costs can at least be prepaid by credit card). SwapaCD members must pay the shipping costs when responding to requests, as well as a charge of 0.49 per trade, plus 1 CD credit. SwapaCD provides a downloadable template for a paper envelope mailer, which pulls the recipient's address information, however at this time, it does not also include the postage.

2. Avoiding the Post-office

   In terms of ease and convenience, I would prefer to avoid a trip to the post office or waiting on a long line there. If you just send the CD in their special mailer as recommended, SwapaCD estimates that postage costs will probably be little more than a first-class stamp, give or take, and you can just drop it in the mailbox. However, if you add the goodies (jewel case, liner notes, artwork) it will probably be more. Depending on what you decide to ship, unless you have a scale at home or are comfortable guestimating the charges, a post office visit could be in your future. Which brings me to my next point.
   

3. Liner notes, artwork & case

   Not so much with DVDs, but for music CDs I like having the artwork and liner notes, which can often include song lyrics or information about the artist and other musicians. A jewel case makes it easier to store, but those are otherwise easy enough to get elsewhere, if you want them.

   While SwapaCD members are certainly free to ship as much of a CDs accompanying materials as they like, in order to keep mailing costs to a minimum, SwapaCD recommends that they only ship the CD itself, using the aforementioned envelope mailer. However, they also provide tips and information about the approximate costs for various other shipping options and configurations.

   Incidentally, I have to say that at the particular time that I was considering SwapaCD, I was skeptical that a mere paper envelope would allow a CD to be delivered through the mail unscathed, while shipping them in their protective, plastic jewel cases might actually increase the likelihood of their being damaged (this in spite of proper padding which adds to the shipping costs). But, that was before I discovered and joined a popular DVD rental club and have since come to experience the efficacy of the paper envelope mailer, as paradoxical as it may seem! So far, in about a year's time, I have only had one DVD to arrive damaged.

4. Simplicity

   Finally, a swap site should be as simple as possible to use, not only in terms of listing and tracking items for trade, but in comprehending the point scheme. Of primary concern would be

   • How is value assigned to the items being traded?
   • How do you accrue the necessary value to make requests?

   In all fairness, since I did not end up joining SwapaCD, I can't really speak to how easy or not, it is to use the site, but based on the information I was able to read there, it seemed easy enough. Of course, you'll need to take my comments here with the necessary grain of salt.

   The point system in use seems quite straightforward. As previously mentioned, each CD trades for one SwapaCD credit along with the 0.49/trade charge. You can earn one free credit after posting your first ten CDs. If you want to request CDs before you have accumulated enough points you will need to purchase SwapaCD credits available in increments of $5.00.

   Now, depending on your reasons for trading, the point scheme may be less important to you. Perhaps you have a glut of CDs you just want to get rid of and don't care so much about acquiring others. On the other hand, you may get into swapping as a way to acquire and enjoy new content, while avoiding the accumulation of stuff that you don't like so much. As I explained in Something for the Bibliophile, swap sites allow you to hold onto an item for as long as you want (forever, if that's the case), or trade it back once your finished with it.

   So again, logistical matters such as these are something to be aware of and keep in mind when considering a swap site.

Obligatory disclaimer: These are the criteria that are important to me and how they played out in evaluating this particualr site, however your needs may be quite different.

Next up: My experience using SwapSimple, another media swap site.

My CD/DVD Cup Runneth Over

One of my decluttering projects from August (Wow! That was awhile ago already!) involved weeding. I think of weeding as a complimentary strategy to decluttering. The way I see it, decluttering has more to do with identifying objects for eventual removal OR allowing you to reorganize what you have so that it is neater. Weeding, on the other hand, involves reviewing a category of things you have, such as books or clothing, selecting particular items to get rid of, while keeping certain other items. This is what I did with various music CDs, DVDs and audio cassettes.

There are a number of options for dealing with CDs or DVDs. You could give them away to friends or relatives, or via The Freecycle Network™ or craigslist, or donate them to a non-profit organization, which they in turn sell to raise money. Again, be aware that the criteria of accepted items can be very specific, which may or may not coincide with what you want/need to get rid of at any given time. So, you'll need so keep that in mind should you go that route. Here are a couple of organizations I came across that accept such donations, however I have not tried myself:

• Eco Encore
• Housing Works Used Book Cafe (also accepts records and CDs)
• Neighborhood Coalition for Shelter's Amazon.com Shop, Emporium Online

As with my books, I decided to go the swap route again and checked out the following three sites:

• SwapaCD
• Swap Simple
• Title Trader

Creating an account at each of these sites is free and fairly simple to do. However, on SwapaCD you will be charged 0.49/trade plus one SwapaCD credit.

I'm sure at this point, with the growth of the Internet, there are hundreds of swap sites to choose from, so you may be aware of others that you prefer. In fact let me offer this disclaimer right now:

My upcoming reviews of these sites strictly reflect my particular experience ONLY! (as does everything else discussed on twigghugger!) You're mileage may vary, so the sites described here (and elsewhere on twigghugger) may or may not end up being your cup of tea.

Having by now accumulated a bit of swapping experience under my belt, my ideal swapping situation

• allows me to generate a shipping label (free, or the allowing the postage to be prepaid by credit card)
  
• allows me to drop the item in the mailbox, thus avoiding the lines at the post-office or dealing with cranky postal clerks
  
• allows the option of sending/receiving all materials (jewel or DVD case, liner notes, artwork, etc)
  
• is as simple as possible to use in terms of listing and tracking items for trade

None of the three CD swap sites that I considered had all three qualities together. So far the only swap site that I have used that meets all these criteria is Bookins (see Something for the Bibliophile), but alas at this time you can only swap books through them.

Be that as it may, for my purposes, one CD/DVD swap site did emerge as my preferred site. Here is a quick and dirty chart summing up my overall opinions.

but I will discuss them all in more detail in separate, upcoming posts. Stay tuned!

Scaling Your Magazine Mountains

Last week in Magazine Madness I discussed my attempts to find solutions for dealing with old magazines. Other than recycling, I really didn't find too many, but I did figure out a better way to organize what I had. In the absence of actually getting rid of stuff, organizing it can be the next best thing to help make clutter more manageable.

My magazines used to be stacked about in various and precarious piles, which I would shift from one place to the other or have to restack. Finally, I decided to go out and get some magazine holders, which come in all sorts of flavors: plastic, metal, cardboard, wicker, translucent, opaque, snazzy colors and so on. I settled on a simple cardboard version, readily obtainable at my local office supply store and easy to assemble by folding together. Also, although I didn't think about this at the time, if my magazine collection ever appreciably dwindles, I can just as easily break them back down for easy storage until they're needed again.

As I said, I had a lot of magazines so to make it less daunting, I would buy a package or two (2 to a package) each week, until I had enough. By doing it this way, I was able to break the task down into smaller segments, and actually see visible progress in moving from a state of disorganization to one that was more orderly. I say unto you, the ability to trick one's Inner Packrat by any means necessary is a skill that should not be underrated.

Now that the magazines are no longer toppling over, I am better able to select which ones I want to review and then determine those I want to keep and those I will get rid of. For example, I had about eight year’s worth of PC World! However, I finally faced up to the fact that there was just no point to that. With the way technology changes so quickly, a lot of the information in them was just plain out of date.

Also, you may or may not have noticed this, but many magazine article topics recur every few years. They are either perennial favorites, or are updated to give them a new spin to address contemporary issues. This is another very good reason to stop hoarding old magazines! At some point what has come around once will go around again.

Yes, I know, for a Packrat things are never quite that easy. In spite of everything I've just said, one thinks they're might still be some useful tidbit of information which might never be written about again. In the case of my PC Worlds there were indeed some tips that I haven't seen again in later issues, so to satisfy myself, I went through them a little at a time, clipping the articles I wanted to save and tossing the rest.

I've just about finished! Whoo Hoo! My ultimate goal is to just keep the most current 3 years of this magazine and drop the oldest each year (sort of like what you're supposed to do with your old bills and banking statements every so often...you are doing that right...!?)

Anyway, happy climbing!

Magazine Madness

Researching ways to reduce my magazine clutter was one of the things that originally propelled me onto my DeKlutter Quest. In this blog's inaugural post What Yet Another Blog!? I wrote about the difficulty of finding new homes for still usable stuff, and I have definitely found this to be the case when it comes to magazines.

After scouring the Internet for magazine donation, reuse or exchange options, what I have mostly found are articles with generic laundry lists of theoretical suggestions such as senior citizens' homes, medical office waiting rooms, or your local library, but very few references to individuals or organizations who are actually accepting such donations in practice. Organizations tend to have specific needs and wants that don't necessarily include or overlap with the Packrat's need or desire to get rid of things.

Libraries, for example, to the extent that they accept magazine donations at all, tend to be very specific about either the titles they are willing to take or how old they can be. They prefer magazines of a substantive or serious nature such as National Geographic or Architectural Digest as opposed to more popular fare like Cosmo or People. They will probably also require that magazines be no more than 6 months to a year old, (Hahahahahaha! Yeah right!). Depending on the title and a given library's particular needs, they may incorporate such donations into their existing collections, but it is more likely that they will be used in a "Friends of the Library" type group book sale to raise money.

I was able to get rid of several years' worth of back issues of Threads, a high-end sewing magazine in this manner (also a component of my fascination with fabric, written about in these here pages; see also A Fair & Square Send Off). I listed them at Throwplace.com® (see Throwing Away at Throwplace.com® . Oddly enough, an animal rescue non-profit took them to sell on eBay! I'm hoping to strike similar gold with a stash of Brill's Content.

Other places may be looking for vintage magazines or those published before a certain date. One site that I found was only looking for magazines published before 1945. Thankfully, I don't have anything that old! There's also the swapping alternative, either locally based where you can bring the magazines you don't want and trade them for something else, or via an Internet forum where people post their magazine wants and offers. Haven't tried that yet. Of course, if you have the fortitude you too can try the eBay route. As for myself, I haven't quite felt up to that either.

Anyway, together, the two criteria of time and topic may tend to rule out a substantial number of options for many of us, so the traditional paper-recycling route may be the only alternative. However, your mileage may vary depending on the needs of organizations in your particular community, so it doesn't hurt to investigate first. Helpful search terms might include:

• magazine donation programs
• magazine donations
• reading material(s) donation(s) programs
• reading material(s) donations

Good luck!

Next up, Scaling Your Magazine Mountains. Why? Because they are there and in the way!

Card Shark

Up until now, I have mostly described projects that involve the removal of an item. However, as discussed in Weeding, even though you are paring down your belongings, there will still be some things that you want to keep or are not quite ready to get rid of just yet.

This summer one such project that I undertook was to pull out and examine the collections of cards and letters I had squirreled away. I am sure you know how that kind of stuff can accumulate! The insidiousness of this kind of accumulation is the strong sentimental attachments that may be associated with it.

Never-the-less, into the fray of sentiment I plunged, pulling the cards and letters from the various spots where I had stashed them. There were

• letters to and from friends sent and received while in college and shortly after that period (this was before email y'all)
• Christmas cards
• birthday cards
• Valentine's Day cards
• graduation and other congratulatory cards
• wedding invitations, souvenir bride & groom photos, and other related ephemera
• thank you notes
• unused greeting cards, some purchased while in college! (oh yeah. . .BUT, I have since found new homes for those)
• etc. (of course a Packrat's always got an etc. category!)

After all this time, I thought I would be able to part with the letters at least, but it turned out to be harder than I thought (Ahhh, sentimentality! The archenemy of the Packrat). But that's okay! Not to worry. If you find it particularly difficult to part with something, don't force it. Getting it sorted and/or organized can be the next best, workable compromise, and might help make stabs at future removal a little easier.

So, while I only managed to get rid of a small portion of the letters and cards, I organized what remained a little better.

• all correspondence to and from a particular individual is now all together
• the cards are now organized by type (birthday, Christmas, etc)
• everything has been put into shoeboxes which are much easier to neatly store in the closet, than the plastic bags they were in before.

If/when I am ready to finally get rid of them they will now all be together in one place, making it much easier to review and at once, rather than unexpectedly stumbling across stashes here or there every so often.

End of Summer Update!

Greetings to my fellow Packrats out there! Hope you all had a pleasant summer. I took a bit of an unplanned break in August! This is the first summer in four years that I have not been in school and towards the end I got a little lazy, basking in my new-found freedom.

Be that as it may, my I have not been idle. During this brief hiatus from the blogosphere, I began several projects:

went through, sorted and organized an accumulation of old letters and greeting cards.

continued my ongoing magazine weeding project

decluttered my bathroom rolly cart

I'm steeling myself to tackle the kitchen! But one thing at a time.

Anyway, as you can see the past month has still been a busy and productive time and I'll be describing these efforts in greater detail in upcoming weeks.

But before I get to all that good stuff, I will talk about the charity check. Quite often an Exit Strategy for your clutter will involve donating the no-longer-needed items to a non-profit or charitable organization. So, I thought it would be helpful to discuss a couple of ways you can learn more about an organization to whom you have selected to donate your things.

More on all these topics soon!

Weeding

In the upcoming months I will be undertaking a variety of weeding projects.

What is this? Well, many deklutter projects involve getting rid of those things you no longer need or use, however you will still end up having to keep some stuff, just not as much of it! For example clothing, magazines, CDs, audio-cassettes (anyone remember mix tapes....!?) Things like that.

Weeding involves the same underlying drill (see Getting Started (Part 2)):

• Identify
• Gather
• and Remove

but is generally undertaken once you begin to tame or gain more control over your klutter. At this stage, it is no longer the overwhelming and undifferentiated mass of stuff it once was. It has hopefully become a little more organized or neater, making it easier to zero in and drill down on really specific deklutter projects.

For example, all those magazines you may have had are now in neat piles (or even better, magazine holders!) and in one area of the living room rather than scatted all over the house. You may have even already gotten rid of a lot of them, but there are still some left that you'd like to go through more closely. Perhaps there are individual articles you would still like to keep. Now you can!

Since I've had quite a bit of success in clearing a few larg-ish swathes of klutter (those extra computers for one thing! See A Tale of Two Computers), I can now begin to do "touch-up" work like this.

So, at my leisure, I will slowly be going through some of my stuff for a second round of cuts.

Stay tuned!