It turned us on to a host of local and national organizations that welcome used book donations - and use them better than we ever could. Nevertheless, our experience was educational. These days, we’re much better at controlling our literary carbon footprint thanks in no small part to digital solutions like Kindle and Audible. We also freed up several boxes to transport essentials like kitchenware and clothing and brought considerably less clutter into our new home. For $79 (or just $1.52 per week), join more than 1 million members and don't miss their upcoming stock picks.
Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendations have an average return of 397%. By offloading about half the books we’d accumulated during our adult lives - books we knew we’d never open again - we rendered a freestanding bookshelf redundant and pocketed $50 from its sale ahead of our move. Following the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s expansion of the standard deduction, the vast majority of American taxpayers are better off taking the standard deduction than itemizing their deductions, eliminating any direct financial benefit from used-goods donations.īut even if our book donations hadn’t qualified for a federal income tax deduction, they would have been worth the trouble. Because we itemized our income tax deductions that year, we actually made a decent amount of money on the deal thanks to the federal tax deduction for eligible donations.
We gladly took the opportunity to donate dozens of hardbound and paperback books to local tax-exempt charities. My book collection outgrew its allotted shelves a few years back despite my best efforts to control its growth by patronizing my local library and avoiding literary impulse buys.įortunately, the breaking point arrived just as my family geared up for a cross-town move.