โNeed tops everything.โ
I got that piece of sage advice from my sister-in-law, a CPA, when the company I used to work for offered all former employees the option to cash out their pensions early. (This is a defined pension, a dinosaur hardly ever heard of anymore.)
If I took the lump sum payout, would my choice of investment funds be better than the companyโs? Or if I started drawing on it early at a lower payout per month, would the additional years ultimately add up to more than I would get by waiting till age 65 and taking a higher per-month payout?
Since Iโm no math whiz, I gave the buyout proposal to my sister-in-law to decode. Her advice was that if we truly needed the extra money, draw it now, but if we could wait and take the larger per-month payout, as weโll be grateful for the higher income once weโre retired. Thankfully, weโre able to wait.
But if youโre staring at a box of jewelry and deciding whether to keep it or sell it, thatโs the first question to ask yourself: do you need the money it will bring?
If you need money to pay bills, pay down debts, get more education to advance your career or pay for medical care, then by all means do your best to get back to firmer financial footing, including selling any jewelry that can help. (See the โfinanceโ section of Worthyโs blog for lots of great advice.)
But even if you donโt need the money urgently, it doesnโt mean that you donโt need the money at all: it just means that โneedโ falls into a more nuanced category. Apart from financial security, selling some (or all) of your jewelry can help to free you from emotional baggage or provide funding for an important new start on the next chapter of your life. Read more about that here and here.
Letโs say you donโt need the money and thereโs no emotional baggage attached to the piece. Itโs just not in style, not your style, or you donโt wear it often or at all. Keep or sell?
First of all, evaluate whether the piece can be changed in some way to make it relevant to you. Can a less-than-popular diamond shape, such as a marquise, be re-set east-west in a matte yellow gold bezel instead of the typical north-south white gold prongs? Instant update and very current!
Can a heavy omega chain be mixed with an assortment of other gold chains in different weights and widths for the modern layered look? Check out this video to see how gold necklaces we thought were left in the โ80s look modern again!
Can Grannyโs brooch be broken apart so you can use the stones in a new pendant and remember her that way? Beware, not everything can.
If thereโs truly no good way to reinvent the piece, then maybe itโs time to let it go. But how to sort it out? Think about how you pare your wardrobe. Thereโs no shortage of methods, ranging from the Marie Kondo dump-it-all-on-the-bed system to turning a hanger around every time you wear something, so that at the end of a year you can just toss whatever you havenโt worn. Great ideaโif your routine and your weather never change. But if you donโt know from one winter to the next if you can go out in a leather moto jacket and fashion boots or youโll be swaddled to the eyeballs in a puffer coat and Timberlands, it isnโt the best method.
To clean my closet, I ask myself three questions of each item in my wardrobe:
If the answer to any of these questions is โno,โ for me, thatโs compelling enough reason to get rid of it. If itโs not a style I like anymore, if it doesnโt fit the way I want it to fit, or make me feel the way I want to feel, then Iโll consign it or donate it.
Itโs a little tougher with jewelry. Because itโs small and doesnโt take up a lot of space, itโs tempting to keep it. But three questions to ask are:
Or it can simply be that youโd much rather have a new countertop than Grannyโs old diamond brooch. If you loved Granny but not her taste in jewelry, you might be struggling over what to do about it.
In case youโre feeling guilty about parting with it, read this article that author Debbie Reslock posted earlier this year on the Worthy blog. To summarize: the memories, love, and sentiment lie within us, not within the actual pieces. If youโll wear the piece occasionallyโeven if only for special occasionsโthen itโs worth keeping. Likewise if you cherish it and want to pass it down yourself. But if itโs just sitting in a box and will never see the light of day, she offers a few other ideas for celebrating the memory of the loved one who left it to you:
Some great tips are in this article, which author Kait Schulhof posted earlier this year on Worthy.com. She adapts the KonMari method to cleaning out your jewelry collection.
Schulhof advises doing the same dump-it-all-in-a-pile approach Kondo advocates. Then sort it by type, keep what sparks joy, thank what doesnโt and get rid of it. You can thank Grannyโs diamond brooch for bringing joy to Granny, and for its role in allowing you to get a gorgeous new kitchenโand youโll likely think fondly of your granny every time you are cooking on your new countertop.
โIf we can repurpose or sell the jewelry and use the money to find another way to remember or bring enjoyment, surely that is an acceptable gift that we can give back to them,โ says Reslock of departed loved ones.
Like Reslock, Schulhof suggests asking family members first if they want any heirloom jewelry you donโt. If there are no takers, then you feel no guilt about getting rid of it.
But wait, you might say. If itโs mine and I would like to use the money for something else, canโt I do that guilt-free instead of offering it to family? Yes, you can, says Schulhof. (Offering it up is not a requirement, just a way to deal with any guilt you might already have about getting rid of it in the first place.)
Finally, I asked a friend how jewelers address this issue. Laura Stanley is an AGS jeweler in Little Rock, AR, who has been dealing with buying and selling jewelry since she was old enough to peer over the counter in her familyโs store. Now in her own business as a private jeweler, she still often deals with clients struggling to decide what to do with jewelry they donโt wear. Her advice? Selling is fine, just think twice before committing.
โI tell everyone that if they have even the remotest interest in a piece, they should keep it, because if itโs sentimental it canโt ever be replaced.โ
Beyond that, she says gold prices are up now, so if youโre thinking about selling old heavy pieces that look dated, now is a good time to do it. She recently had a client sell an old gold-nugget watchband and use the money toward a diamond piece she liked better.
Signed and period pieces also are good to sell if they donโt appeal to the owner because they can go for good money, says Stanley.
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