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:
So I was sick yesterday and today I had to take our cat Basil to the vet because he’s sick. What I thought would be a 40 minute vet visit turned into a two and a half hour wait with a $200 bill and the jury is still out on what the hell’s wrong with my cat.
So, in a pinch to make some quick cash today, I searched the car. I haven’t cleaned my car out in about a year and knew there’d be some change lurking in underbelly of the cushions.
I was right.
Yep. Eighty-five cents the richer. Honestly, I expected more pennies.
I called in sick to work today because I felt awful. Perhaps my illness has contributed to my lack of finding anything useful to sell around the house. Today, all I found was a leather LARPing cloak and a 90s film noir shirt. Not anything that’s gonna bring me $250 in the next 8 days.
I’m hoping to get around $100 for the leather cloak and $15 for the top. But I realize I’m being optimistic.
Okay, so work got a little crazy and no one wanted to buy my stuff on Craigslist. Let me take a moment to share how frustrating it is to have 4 people in an hour email that they are interested in buying your stuff only to have none of them follow up with when they’d be able to pick it up.
Luckily, I worked two small shifts at my PRN job and was able to make an extra $76.79 this week (after taxes). That brings me up slightly past the halfway point. Which is invigorating! But I only have 9 days left to make almost $250. Frankly, I don’t think it will happen. But I’m going to try hard to recoup that money streak I had the first week I started this challenge.
My plan?
Scour the house for valuables I can part with. Pretty original, huh? I just need to find one or two things that can go on ebay for a fistful of dollars. My goal is to pick 4 things tomorrow evening that I believe will sell and list them in hopes of recovering the final $250. It’s the FINAL COUNTDOWN.
Yes, I expected you to watch the whole video. Why wouldn’t you? G.O.B. would be proud.
I didn’t realize how intense I was being about finding money everyday until I took a break. Now, I need to remind myself why an extra $500 is not only nice, but quite necessary. A little motivational wake up call on a Saturday evening never hurt anyone. So here goes:
I need an extra $500 because….
1. Taxes: It’s two weeks until taxes are due and we owe creepy Uncle Sam some money this year. I don’t know exactly how it happened but we somehow didn’t have enough federal funds withheld from The Beard’s job….like $1100 not enough. And while we have a separate savings fund that can handle paying about half that amount, I really don’t want to dig into our emergency savings fund to pay the other half. The only thing to do is make extra money so it’s not a financial hardship.
2. Home Warranty: The Beard and I bought our house last summer. Or rather, we took out a 30 year loan on our house last summer. Which we hope to pay off in about 17 years instead of the full 30. It’s a beautiful quarter acre property with a 75 year old house sitting on it that needs some tender loving care….A LOT of tender loving care. While we’re scrimping and penny pinching to pay for the major restorations and big money fixes, I’ve decided that we need the Home Warranty to help budget the bumps along the way. Case in point: last summer while replacing the main plumbing for the house, a surprise $3500 expense that wiped us out (ah, the joys of homeownership), our A/C went out, our blowing fan quit on us, our toilet leaked and our dining room light blew out….all within 5 weeks. Luckily, because of the home warranty, we only paid $60 per service call rather than $650+. I don’t know exactly how much it will cost to get a Home Warranty this year but if it’s around $500, I want to be prepared. Because when you live in an old house, it’s not “if” something breaks down, it’s “when.”
3. Investing: While we have a checking account, a selective savings/sinking fund, an emergency savings, retirement savings, and a “just in case we need it” savings, we’re really lacking in investments. I would love to have an aggressive money market on the side. But most of the accounts I’m interested in have an opening balance requirement of $500-$1000 and we don’t have that kind of cash lying around. And in case I just sounded like we’re well-off by all the accounts I just listed that we have, let me clarify: we have a very frugal checking account, a simple selective savings, a growing emergency savings, meager retirement savings, and a “just in case we need it and it’s less than $600” savings.
4. Peace of Mind checking: I say that we have a frugal checking account because we live as frugally as practical and have a super thin cushion between paychecks after our allocations to savings, retirement, and debt repayment. It’s not uncommon for us to have only $80 in the checking account on Monday night before payday Friday morning. Needless to say, I wouldn’t mind depositing a fat wad of cash into our checking just to help with peace of mind between paydays.
5. Debt Repayment: The Beard and I have approximately $5000 in credit card debt that we plan to have paid off in 11 months. Once it’s paid off, we’ll be able to allocate much more to our mortgage premium to reach our goal there. An extra $500 toward the credit card could mean that we’re able to begin our goals a couple of months sooner.
Right….any of those things sound great.
…Of course…the irresponsible part of me wants to save $500 to afford something so lovely only a picture can show you…
A beautifully crafted pair of buttery soft leather Made in USA Frye boots! These run about $350. Something to help motivate me…
A little over 6 months ago, I left my job for a better paying and less stressful gig. It was a great decision that I’m so glad I made. Fortunately, because I left cordially and gave adequate notice, my old job kept me on their payroll as a PRN employee. The term “PRN” is often used in medical/public health settings. It stands for “Pro Re Nata” which basically means “as the need arises”. The benefit to staying on my old job’s payroll as a PRN employee means that once or twice a month (or more if my schedule allows) I can sign up for a shift where the full time employees are understaffed. For me, this is a win-win situation. I get to sign up for extra work that I already know how to do, see old co-workers I adore, and get extra cash while my former employer has the peace of mind that operations will be running smoothly with employees who know what they’re doing.
I say all this because yesterday I worked a 5 hour shift from 5pm-10pm as a PRN worker. Yes, it’s a sad kind of feeling to leave your day job at 4:30pm and immediately rush to your next job, but it only happens a couple of times a month – I can tolerate that. And the “extra cash” benefits are outstanding. I didn’t have to sell anything, list anything, or coordinate with strangers to come buy stuff. I just went to my old job and made (after tax) an extra $48. Not too shabby…
Many people have former employers who would love to see them again and would certainly appreciate the extra help when needed by someone already trained.
I sold the picnic basket I listed on Craigslist! That’s $15 more toward my goal.
Plus last night I freaked out when I only made .53 cents and summoned energy from within to stay up late to list a dress and a skirt on ebay. I’m beginning to realize how much I’ll have to stay on top of listing stuff if I’m going to meet my goal. It’s probably time to look into additional money making possibilities…
I own a very gross grill. My mother in law bought it a few years ago, used it often, cleaned it not so often, and left it exposed to the elements. It somehow ended up in our backyard last summer.
It’s been an eyesore for a minute, now.
D
Come on now. That’s nasty….
Finally, with the new money challenge, I felt motivated enough to list it on Craigslist. For $25 to some brave fixer upper person who might want to get it back on its feet. Goodness knows I don’t have the energy for that kind of stuff.
Now if I could just find a buyer…
A nice unexpected side effect of launching a money challenge seems to be the surge of motivation to do unwanted tasks. Hooray!
While I’m excited by this challenge and incredibly motivated to win it and meet the $500 goal, let’s be honest. It’s a Saturday and I have a whole month ahead of me to come up with the cash. So I sat back and looked at obvious places to gather extra money.
For guys, their pockets and dressers probably have some hidden change lurking around. For a gal like me, it’s this beast:
No, not the actual beast photo bombing the background. Her name is Zelda and she’s a walking money pit in her own right, but I love her. I’m talking about the purse.
I haven’t cleaned it out in ages. Who knows what might be hidden inside…
Dear lord, it’s worse than I thought. I’m beginning to understand why my husband calls it a trash bag. No turning back now. Time to unpack it to find the gold.
Well this is just embarrassing. A million pens that seem to disappear whenever I need one, a roll of plastic doggy poop disposal bags, and four leftover peanut butter cookies wrapped in saran wrap that I forgot I brought home from the office….
Ah, there it is. Amongst cough drop wrappers and binder clips. And a random rabies vaccine cat tag from 2012. Life is funny like this.
Behold the GOLD!
So shiny, so pretty. $2.18 closer to my goal. And I didn’t even have to get up from my seat.
How To Be Poor 