After a night hanging out with friends, I slept in ’til noon today and laid awake thinking of how to make some money to keep my cash streak going. Since The Beard and I go to Target most Sundays to peruse the aisles for deals and get frozen meals for the week, I thought of something to make some fast cash: I’d return two clothing items I bought a Target months ago that I have since decided I no longer want. They have the tags on them still so I figured this won’t be a problem.

A dress and a top that I bought on sale and didn’t like how they fit once I got them home. So I packed them up and we went to Target. That’s when I ran into some trouble with my plan.  Since I bought the items a couple of months ago and didn’t have a receipt, the rep couldn’t give me any cash, so I got this instead: 

A gift card for $35.51. I was okay with it but because of my money challenge, I couldn’t figure out how to factor in this game changer. Do I put the gift card in the money bag? Does it count at all towards the challenge? Do I exchange the gift card for cash to put in the money bag? Do I try to sell the gift card? Finally after we were done shopping, I applied the gift card toward our purchase and decided that I wouldn’t count it towards the challenge at all. 

After using the gift card, taking advantage of a Buy one Get one sale, a $3 off coupon, a $2 off coupon, and 5% off by using our Target debit card, we paid only $53.25 for a $105.70 purchase. Not bad for a poor girl! 

Unfortunately, none of this counted toward my money challenge. I still have to come up with a way to make some cash.