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Are your loved one’s possessions taking over your storage space? Are they taking over the house? Here’s how to break the news that the whole lot’s going on eBay - and how to get the best results, or Ebid.net, Amazon.com, Tazbar, Etsy.com, Bonanzle.com, Atomic Mall or any other of the myriad sites that have sprung up in recent years. Here is my list of a few important things to keep in mind.

1 GET HIS PERMISSION!

Okay, maybe it was his idea. In that case you don’t have a problem: only a sudden lack of any free time whatsoever, what with all the photographing, editing photographs, uploading, listing, answering queries… I do hope he’s taking you out for a super great dinner after all this.

Otherwise - maybe you just can’t bear to see his ten-years-unused college hockey gear/collection of magazines for the car he sold five years back/beautifully boxed complete set of Star Wars figurines for one moment longer! (Or you’ve had a little snoop around the net and experienced a sharp intake of breath when you found out what they were worth…) If so, gird up your loins, make sure he’s with the program, and get ready for a marathon listing session.

2 DON’T LET IT SUCK UP YOUR ENTIRE FREE TIME

It is for his benefit, after all. Or perhaps it’s for the both of you, if the plan is to address it to the mortgage or shared debts/pension plan etc. Either way he should be contributing in some way, if not with the aforementioned lavish dinner (and perhaps a flashy new pair of shoes too), then with hard labour. Plump up his ego as you tell him how much you admire his photographic skills - then set him to work.

3 KNOW WHERE TO DRAW THE LINE

And that means both of you. What do I mean? Sometimes in the midst of the giddy excitement of online sales, it’s possible to get over-excited. Especially when you’re having a boom period and the sales are coming thick and fast. Or maybe when they’ve temporarily dried up and you’re feeling a little desperate, short of your regular sales fix.

That’s when you’re at risk of making unwise choices in your next clear-out and sort through in search of fresh inventory meat. When you become ruthless enough to coldly eye, with an appraising turn of mind, your old childhood toys, the signed concert ticket for your all-time favourite band, the silver locket your auntie gave you at graduation - just stop. Back away from the computer keyboard. Put that digital camera down.

Some things have more value than the price they’ll fetch. And some are too unique to replace when you regret the sale later.

4 MANAGE HIS EXPECTATIONS

Before you get down to the nitty-gritty of actually selling off his cherished possessions, maybe you and your loved one need to have a frank talk. Perhaps the talk where you break the news that his cherished Spiderman comics - loved to death during his hyperactive teens and complete with stains you’d rather not enquire about - are just not going to command the same price as immaculate copies. Or that he really should have kept his model cars pristine in their original boxes, not scuffed and with the wheels off, if he wanted them to bring in the coin twenty years later.

Hold his hand. It’s going to be tough.

5 IF HE’S DUMPED YOU FOR A YOUNGER MODEL, ALL BETS ARE OFF

Check out pp. 68-71 from Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity (1) to find out what I’m talking about. Guys, read it too. Then you’ll behave yourselves.

Now you have five top tips to enhance the experience of dumping your guy’s junk onto eBay or wherever. Put them to good use and remember, his junk is, er, still junk in someone else’s house. But it won’t be you tripping over it anymore.

1. Hornby, Nick. High Fidelity. (London: Cassell Group, 1996), pp. 68-71.