Tag Archives: gift cards

Day 31 of Money Challenge #1: $500 in 31 days – Final hours

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Last night, I came across a birthday gift from last year that I still hadn’t used:

I remembered that there’s a website where you can buy/sell gift cards: http://www.cardpool.com/

So I sold my $25 gift card for $18.75. Not a bad deal considering I forgot I had it.

So my ending total is $ 306.89

Exactly $193.11 less than my goal.

I’m a little disappointed. Yes, I could have sold my plasma twice a week, participated in a medical study, or made it a point to list something every day on Craigslist. But I didn’t. I’m a little regretful about it. I think I could’ve done better. Granted, I don’t have expensive stuff lying around my house to sell and I work both a full time job and a part time gig. So I made only an average of about $10 extra per day. I can live with that.

Now here’s a picture of my cat Bazzy with all the money:

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He wouldn’t sit still.

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Day 31

Total amount accrued: $306.89

 

 

Day 9 of Money Challenge #1: $500 in 31 days – Trouble at Target

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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.

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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: 

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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.