One app paid for Christmas

‘And a Paw Patrol car, and a Spiderman toy, and a dinosaur thing…’ My three-year-old pointed indiscriminately as we passed the supermarket toys.

Usually, I’d be shallow breathing by this point. Whether you’re gift-buying for hordes of relatives or just shelling out for festive drinks, Christmas can get expensive.

Yet this year, I’ve achieved something of a Christmas miracle: I’ve paid for it, already, by selling on Vinted. 

I’ve so far raised £484 (thank you, Kind Lady, who paid £4 for my unused ironing board cover) and as a family, we’ll hit our target of £500 well before Christmas Eve.

For the uninitiated: Vinted is a second-hand buying and selling platform. It launched in the UK in 2014 but its popularity exploded after the app sponsored Hollyoaks in 2021. It now averaged 2.75 million monthly downloads globally in 2024/2025.

Users take photos of their unwanted item(s), upload to the app, add some details about size and condition then wait for someone to buy it. And someone usually does. 

Clothes, toys, small electronics… if you can wrap it in a Sainsbury’s bag and pop it in an automated post-box, you can sell it on Vinted. The app’s premise of ‘reduce, recycle and reuse’ has been a boon for the green economy, and Vinted’s ubiquity has removed any remaining stigma from buying second-hand. 

For sellers, the downside is that prices can be really low – it’s not unusual to list items for £1, £5, £7. It can be demoralising tripping along to an Evri outpost in the dark with an armful of parcels for a total of £11.

For buyers, however, the upside is that prices can be really low. 

I started using Vinted in earnest to buy my three-year-old clothes. 

My husband was initially sniffy. ‘Why can’t you buy him a proper pair of shoes? From a shop?’ he complained as I shoved a pair of too-small trainers (bought in a Vinted frenzy, wasn’t concentrating) to the back of our Cupboard of Stuff.

But as the months ticked through to Autumn, and our kids started to say the ‘c’ word (…Christmas, is what they said), his interest was piqued. 

We don’t go in for hugely extravagant festivities but we wanted to ring-fence our December finances to avoid last-minute panic. And with everyday costs like heating spiralling upwards, making extra income felt easier for us than saving.

But once I had nabbed a pair of pristine adidas Sambas for £20, it was all the proof my husband needed to download for himself.

He listed a couple of T-shirts and a pair of trainers and within 20 minutes he was £60 up – and a Vinted convert.

For our Christmas fund he has sold shoes, clothes, exercise gear, gaming equipment and tech. 

I’ve parted with the wardrobe of my twenties that I’m no longer young enough or single enough to wear. 

Our four-year-old outgrows shoes every three months, all of which have gone for an average of £5, but it all adds up.

I’ve noticed that my husband’s goods sell quicker than mine. Trainers, especially in good condition, and football shirts go almost instantaneously.

He thinks it’s professional traders buying and selling on for more elsewhere; I think there’s a deficit of men’s items (not that football shirts are particularly gendered). There’s certainly never a shortage of ‘women’s-wide-leg-black-trousers-size-10’.

My step-mother-in-law gave us some of her unwanted bits, all of which sold for reasonable prices as they were expensive brands, and far better quality than the one-womans-trash lurking in my cupboard.

We also got £150 for a pair of my husband’s hand-made, leather boots – a significant windfall.

But there have been some snags. 

My husband’s early selling success went to his head. He spent one weekend on a rummaging spree around the house, uploading photos of anything that wasn’t pinned down or, in his assessment ‘being used’. 

I came into the kitchen on Sunday to find him photographing my old, reliable headphones (‘We have loads’) as well as my set of resistance bands.

‘Come on, when was the last time you used these?’ he laughed. I grabbed the dusty box out of his hot hands. ‘I’m going to use them,’ I insisted, and stormed out to hide them in our Cupboard of Stuff.

On another occasion, after £15 pinged into our account, my husband casually mentioned he’d sold a rain jacket our youngest wore as a baby. He grew out of it years ago but I couldn’t help tears springing to my eyes. 

There is a huge market for baby clothes on Vinted and I’m sure we could make a small fortune.

I’ve realised, however, that baby clothes are my red line. We lost our daughter a year ago, and while we’re not trying for another child, if my family don’t want dibs, I’d rather keep the clothes, even if they do nothing but take up space. 

Beyond that, selling on Vinted has taken the pressure off one of the most expensive times of the year. 

We’ll be spending around £200 on presents for our kids and wider family, treating our nephews, nieces and godchildren. £50 will go on a tree, £30 on decorations and wrapping, another £150 on food for the Christmas period, and we’ll use the rest to take our kids on some festive outings.

It’s not about buying fancy gifts, either: last year we bought my stepson an inexpensive second-hand bike that eclipsed anything else under the tree. 

Our Vinted fund just reassures us that we can spend time together and make memories as a family, after what’s been another difficult year for many, without worrying how we’re going to pay the bill. 

It gives us certainty that we won’t have to make the usual sacrifices in January just to make Christmas happen. It means going into the Christmas period focusing on the joy.

And yes: we will be spending some of our easy-earned £500 on Vinted. I have my eye on a particularly cool dinosaur thing. 

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