How to Sell Your Food Packaging for Cash

Have you seen one of the infamous Boxtops for Education tabs sitting on your pantry shelf? Did you know that they are redeemable for cash?

There are currently hundreds of ads on Ebay with people selling their boxtops and every single one of them has ended with a buyer.

A quick analysis of the completed auctions shows that Boxtops resell for .10 a piece. Not big money, but how hard could it be to cut a box-top off of a piece of packaging? I decided to take a look around the house today to see how much cash I was sitting on.

I’ve been eyeing a trip to Italy this summer so the thought of adding to my savings account is always appealing.

I started with the pantry. I was actually surprised how many General Mills products I had and I quickly learned that General Mills had a lot of different brands. Everything from my Fruit Roll-ups to my mashed potatoes seemed to be shining with the golden glow of a BoxTop for Education. I had dollar signs in my eyes already and a sigh of relief that the multiple boxes of cake mixes I’ll never actually make were not purchased for nothing. Total score from the pantry: 19 Boxtops for Education.

I quickly moved on to the refrigerator and freezer and discovered 7 more. My bathroom held one on the Cottonelle toilet paper (that’s right Penny Hoarders – I splurge on the good stuff) and even the office had a couple of glistening boxtops on my recent purchases. Total from the rest of the house: 9 Boxtops for Education.

It took me about 5 minutes to collect all the boxtops from around the house and with 26 Boxtops for Education in my house I had effectively just scored myself an easy $2.60 ( minus resell fees from Ebay/Paypal). Not exactly the kind of Italy money I was hoping for, but who knew I had been throwing away cash every single week?

I’m going to hold on to my boxtops for a few weeks until I have a more sizeable collection to put on Ebay but a few more trips to the grocery store and I’ll be swimming in it. 🙂

I’ll also use one of my 5 Free Listings that Ebay offers all users each month to help keep down the cost of reselling my boxtops.

Here are some tips to maximize BoxTop earnings:

1. Keep an eye out while shopping – Don’t buy a more expensive product just because it contains a BoxTop for Education, but do consider it when price comparing. Each GM product is effectively cheaper by 10 cents.

2. Lean on friends & family – Ask everyone you know to save their BoxTops for you. If 10 of your friends and family members can save 10 boxtops for you each week, you’ll have an extra $40 a month of spending cash.

3. Look for bonuses – Some products hold multiple BoxTops for Education or even bonuses that will double the value of your BoxTops.

Good luck Penny Hoarders!