Trading in Dusty DVDs for Store Credit – Round Two

About two and a half months ago I went to my local F.Y.E. and traded in a bunch of DVDs that were doing nothing but collecting dust on my DVD stands. Well, earlier today I was looking at the remaining DVDs and video games that are sitting on my shelf (collecting more dust) and I thought it would be a good time to engage in Round Two of trading in these unused movies and games.

Since F.Y.E. doesn’t take video games, I stopped at GameStop, too. Oh, and since I wound up with a few DVDs that F.Y.E. wouldn’t take, I dropped for movies off at the local SPCA as a donation for them to sell in their thrift shop. A final note – F.Y.E. had some deal where I was getting 20% more than I would have received if I opted to get cash back instead of store credit so I obviously went with that deal! Here’s what I wound up with at the end of the day:

From F.Y.E.:
Star Wars (4 – 6) – $7.50
Viva la Bam Season 1 – $1.50
8 Mile – $2.25
Batman Begins – $2.25
Garfield as Himself (cartoon) – $1.50
Garfield the Movie – $2.25
Kids – $3.00
Kingdom of Heaven – $1.50
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – $3.00
Road to Perdition – $1.50
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves – $8.25
Seabiscuit – $1.50
So I Married an Axe Murder – $2.25
Super Troopers – $2.25
The Adventures of Ford Fairlane – $1.50
The Amityville Horror – $2.25
The Aviator – $1.50
The Exorcism of Emily Rose – $1.50
The Gate – $1.50
The Gospel of John – $2.25
The March of the Penguins – $1.50
The Shining – $3.00
Van Wilder – $1.50
Waiting – $1.50
War of the Worlds (new version) – $2.58
Total: $61.08

From GameStop:
Children of Mana (Nintendo DS) – $5.09
Sonic Rush (Nintendo DS) – $7.33
Super Mario Advance 2 (Nintendo Gameboy Advance) – $6.50
WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008 (Nintendo Wii) – $6.33
Total: $25.25

Donated to SPCA:
Big Momma’s House – Special Edition
Little Shop of Horrors (Jack Nicholson Edition)
Barber Shop
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys (New, CGI-based Musical Version)
Total: Not applicable, but I feel good for having donated these otherwise unusable DVDs!

All told, at the end of the day I’ve got two gift cards worth $61.08 and $25.25 each. When I woke up this morning, I didn’t have that extra $86.33 worth of buying power so I feel good knowing that today I translated some unused, dusty “assets” into usable store credit. And while I had some very minor, almost nonexistent, conflicts about whether or not to trade in some of the titles listed above (which I definitely didn’t have when I traded in the titles two and a half months ago) I know that trading in these DVDs and video games was the right thing to do on so many levels.

As people, we all run the risk of getting too involved with our physical objects. For me, what it boils down to is that there’s no reason for a person to feel any type of connection or need for a DVD that they haven’t watched in years and that has contributed nothing to a person’s life or space other than acting as a dust catcher. Frankly, I don’t need any more dust catchers thank you very much.

All of that being said, I now look at my remaining DVD collection of about 150 titles – easily half of what I used to own – and I’m wondering what Round Three of this purge may look like one day. I have a bunch of Christmas movies that I know I’m not going to part with because I watch them all at least twice a year. Same thing with my Lord of the Rings Extended Edition DVDs – I enjoy watching them once or twice each year. However, I look at my Family Guy box sets and I know that I haven’t opened them up in over a year and a half, if not longer. Same thing goes for my Smallville box sets, though I think I’d like to watch the Smallville box sets again one more time before sending them off to F.Y.E. I also have a bunch of WWE DVDs that I certainly haven’t watched in a long time. Instead of bringing them to F.Y.E., though, I’ll probably wind up giving them to my younger brother and letting him do what he wants with them, I guess.

Then I have some movies that I really do like, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever watch them on a consistent enough basis to warrant allowing them to continue to collect dust. These titles include (among many others) Nothing But Trouble, Funny Farm, The Great Outdoors, Private Parts, Caddyshack II, Spaceballs, Office Space, Wedding Crashers, Shrek, and Shrek 2.

Stay tuned and see what I trade in or donate next! I’m thinking that it’ll be some of my used books to those good folks at EcoEncore.org. Oh, and on that topic – does anyone know where I can donate used cell phones for a good cause?