Sell Your Books (Mom’s Occasional Money Advice)

The Mom Weekly Volume 148: June 9, 2026 

Notes: 

I haven’t done a “Mom’s Occasional Money Advice” in awhile. I was talking with some friends recently (once at book group, once at church), and people were unaware of Sell Your Books and similar services. And people were really interested in how it works, and how easy it is.

I think it is such a good idea—not just for making a few dollars, but for keeping books out of the landfill and in circulation! Win/win. So I decided to turn it into a Weekly.

Remember how much I love you,

Mom

Sell Your Books (Mom’s Occasional Money Advice)

I’ve been surprised in recent months how few people know about this: selling your unused or extra books easily and with little friction.

Of course we still love books at our house, and the number of books to people in our house is off the charts. That won’t be changing any time soon. But you can’t keep every book forever, nor should you. 

Bringing them to Goodwill or a library book sale can seem pointless, because you wonder how many of the books will just be recycled. And yet trying to sell normal books that aren’t worth tons of money is time consuming. Enter: Sell Your Books. 

Here’s how it works: you scan the bar code on the back of any book, and the app tells you if they will buy it, and for how much. Sometimes it’s 18 cents, and sometimes it’s $18. Usually it is somewhere between. Occasionally the app says, “Sorry, we have enough of this one.”

Once you hit a certain threshold (I think it’s $8), you box up your books, use a prepaid label (you don’t have to pay for shipping) emailed by the app, and bring it to FedEx. In a few weeks, you’ll have a check or PayPal deposit.

It’s not life-changing money, but that’s not the point. In our throwaway culture, I’m happy to be getting books out of my inventory and to a place with millions of books. That way, when someone wants my old copy of a book, World of Books has it in stock for that person to buy affordably.

Next time you are decluttering books, consider using an app like Sell Your Books to make letting books go easier.

Interesting/Notable: 

How to walk into a car dealership with the upper hand—Ask, Save, Earn

I found this a really helpful read as we continue our process of car buying!

Obituary of the inventor of Candyland (NY Times gift article)

I don’t really like CandyLand, nor have I ever, but I enjoy that the Times does these obituaries of people (often women!) who had been forgotten or not lauded when they died.

Action Item: Celebrate Flag Day

Flag Day is this Sunday, and it’s worth considering how you might want to mark this holiday, since this July we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

This is a surprisingly thorough article about the origins of Flag Day, for some context.

As I have said before many times, Grandpa was a big fan of Flag Day. I’m not really sure why, but it is kind of a quiet favorite for me every year because of that. I will try to display a flag this year, as I have been bad about it in recent years. I might even try to make a flag-inspired treat! Here are some ideas if you would like to, as well.