In all honesty, we all buy things we don't need — especially with Amazon's growing market and their ever-expanding hand in consumerism. It's literally so easy to buy things nowadays and with Amazon Prime, the gratification is damn near instant.

However, once you realize you don't need all this stuff — or once you don't need it anymore — it can be pretty hard to return.

Amazon has a trade-in program that a very small number of people know about. They take the items you don't want and in exchange, give you Amazon credit. You can either search for the product in the regular search bar or browse by category. Amazon takes products in categories such as gaming, electronics, books, TV shows, movies and more.

Although the trade-in price is usually a lot less than the buying price, it's still nice to get something for old items you don't use anymore.

For example, my younger brother used to read the "Captain Underpants" books and still has a box set that's collecting dust in our basement. We went to its product page on Amazon and found that it's eligible for trade in — for $4.71.

Amazon's Trade-In Program https://www.amazon.com/New-Captain-Underpants-Coll...=sr_1_36?s=tradein-aps&srs=9187220011&ie=UTF8&qid=1500487789&sr=1-36

Other than giving us an already depressingly low price, Amazon can also lower the price even more if the books aren't up to condition. It's in the mail right now so fingers crossed! However, if the Amazon employee decides it's not up to par, they will give you the option for the item to be sent back or kept for less credit in return.

For the book, they asked me four questions about the condition and to verify the ISBN number. If you answer any of the questions "wrong," Amazon will automatically tell you so not to waste your time. How thoughtful.

Shipping is free if you use their label with UPS — otherwise, you'll have to pay. So after we brought our package to a UPS Access Point in a little convenience shop, we were pretty much done.

Don't worry — we didn't go through all that trouble just for four bucks. After much consideration, I also decided to trade in the Nikon Coolpix I'd gotten for Christmas a few years back from a distant relative who wasn't aware of all the DSLR's I already had in my possession.

Given that I didn't have the original packaging and my brother had made a few scratches on it, Amazon brought us down from $80.58 to $52.95.

Our experience was still pretty good! The prices are fair and the process is a lot easier than going on Craigslist or haggling with a friend. So the next time you do some spring cleaning, be sure to give Amazon's Trade-In Program a try.