- Dora the Explorer is singing about cocaine. Is that why my kids have so much energy? #
- RT @prosperousfool: Be the Friendly Financial “Stop” Sign http://bit.ly/67NZFH #
- RT @tferriss: Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ in a one-page cartoon: http://su.pr/2PAuup #
- RT @BSimple: Shallow men believe in Luck, Strong men believe in cause and effect. Ralph Waldo Emerson #
- 5am finally pays off. 800 word post finished. Reading to the kids has been more consistent,too. Not req’ing bedtime, just reading daily. #
- Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse: morbid story from my childhood. Still enthralling. #
- RT @MoneyCrashers: Money Crashers 2010 New Year Giveaway Bash – $7,400 in Cash and Amazing Prizes http://bt.io/DDPy #
- [Read more…] about Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-16
Side Hustle: Garage Sale Wrap-Up
We are now to the end of Garage Sale Week here at Live Real, Now. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.
After you shut down on the last day, take the evening off. You’ve just been hard at work for 2-3 days and need a break. Deal with the stuff tomorrow. Tomorrow–and probably the next few days–you’ve got work to do. What do you do with everything that didn’t sell? If you’re planning on making garage sales a regular side-hustle, just box it all up and put it to the side until next time. After all, it’s all priced, sorted, and ready-to-go, right? If, like me, your goal was to declutter, then it’s time for some serious downsizing. Let’s dump the crap.
The first thing we did was box up all of the books and movies to bring to the used book store. We dropped the items at the sell table and spent half an hour browsing a bookstore. That’s never a good way for me to save money. The store we went to checks the demand for everything you bring in. If there’s no demand, they donate or recycle the items and you don’t get paid. DVDs bring about $1 each. VHS is demand-based. Paperbacks are something less than half of the retail price. Hardcovers are demand-based. We were offered $28 and pointed to the huge pile of discard/recycle items that we were free to reclaim. I picked out 4-5 books and movies that I thought had value and left the rest. Bringing the clutter back home would defeat the purpose of going there.
The clothes were handled two ways. First, all of the little girl clothes were bagged and set aside for some friends with a little girl. The rest were bagged and loaded in the truck for a run to Goodwill. The clothes filled the box of our pickup.
The random knick-knacks were also boxed up and delivered to Goodwill, along with most of the leftover toys. This was another completely full truck box. We had a lot of stuff in our sale.
The beat-up or low-value furniture that didn’t sell was put on the curb with “FREE” signs. I posted the free items on Craigslist and they were gone in just a few hours. The Craigslist ad said “Please do not contact, I will remove the listing when the items are gone.” Otherwise, there are usually 10-15 emails per hour asking if the items are still available. The ad didn’t even have pictures and it worked quickly.
Some of the furniture–the toddler bed, changing table, china cabinet, and the good computer desk–were hauled back to our garage to post on Craigslist with a price-tag. They are too good to give away. If the camera wouldn’t have died two nights ago, the pictures would already be up. Some of the other items were also reserved for individual sale. The extra router, the 6 inch LCD screen, and a few other toys will go on Ebay.
Finally there was some stuff that we decided we weren’t going to get rid of. We kept a few movies, but only because I didn’t notice them until I got back from the bookstore. My wife kept a box of Partylite stuff–though most of the leftovers were donated. Very little of the things we had ready for sale are being kept in our lives. Almost all of it is gone, or will be soon.
All in all, this was a cathartic end to last month’s 30 Day Project. There was some surprising emotional attachment to some things I didn’t think I cared about. It’s good to see it gone.
Note: The entire series is contained in the Garage Sale Manual on the sidebar.
How to Complain – The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease
- Image via Wikipedia
Have you ever been screwed by a company? Have they sent you the wrong item, or an empty box, or left your order backordered for so long that you can’t even dispute it with your credit card company any more?
What can you do?
I know you’ve heard the phrase, “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” That means, he whines loudest, gets the most. The thing is, you have to whine effectively, or you’ll just get round-filed.
Targeting Subsystems On
Who you complain to matters more than what you complain about. The clerk at your local big-box retailer isn’t going to refund your online purchase. You need to complain to someone who can make a decision to help you. First, find the customer service email address. Next, if you are complaining about a recurring service, find the retention department’s email address. Finally, find the email address for absolutely everybody Vice-President or above for that company, including the board of directors. Go to their website, find the email for some PR drone and figure out the format. First.Last@Company.com or FirstInitial.LastName@Company.com or whatever. Look up the company in Google Finance and translate everyone’s name into the email format. You might not have the perfect list, but it should be close.
Target Locked On
Now that you know who you are about to blast, what are you going to say? A few things to include are:
- Your contact information. If they can’t get back to you, they can’t make it up to you.
- Details of the problem. Include the date of purchase, date of delivery, and a detailed description of what actually went wrong.
- Scanned copies of receipts.
- Any names of anybody you’ve had to deal with, either in the original transaction or when the problem occurred, if you have the names.
Engage!
What to say, what to say?
- Don’t be abusive. It’s okay to be angry, and it’s okay to let them know your are angry, but swearing or threatening their lives will–at best–only get you ignored. Worst case, threats are illegal and they can pass your email along to the police.
- Stay brief. It doesn’t matter that your daddy took you to Starbucks to use their free wi-fi when you were just three years old. Don’t talk about that time the aliens abducted you or how sad you are that they never call like they promised they would. Keep to the point. “This is who I am. This is what happened. This is what I want you to do about it.”
Send that sucker out. If you feeling particularly perturbed, send a CC to your state’s Attorney General and any possibly related regulatory agencies. I tend to save this step for round 2.
Make Extra Money: A Niche Site Walkthrough
Make Extra Money Part 1: Introduction
Right now, I have 7 sites promoting specific products, or “niche” sites. When those products are bought through my sites, I get a commission, ranging from 40-75%. Of those sites, 5 make money, 1 is newly finished, and 1 is not quite complete. I’m not going to pretend I’m making retirement-level money on these sites, but I am making enough money to make it worthwhile.
Make Extra Money Part 2: Niche Selection
These three topics have been making people rich since the invention of rich. Knowing that isn’t enough. If you want to make some money in the health niche, are you going to help people lose weight, add muscle, relieve stress, or reduce the symptoms of some unpleasant medical condition? Those are called “sub-niches”.
Making Extra Money Part 3: Product Selection
My niches site are all product-promotion sites. I pick a product–generally an e-book or video course–and set up a site dedicated to it. Naturally, picking a good product is an important part of the equation.
Make Extra Money Part 4: Keyword Research
If you aren’t targeting search terms that people use, you are wasting your time. If you are targeting terms that everybody else is targeting, it will take forever to get to the top of the search results. Spend the extra time now to do proper keyword research. It will save you a ton of time and hassle later. This is time well-spent.
Make Extra Money, Part 5: Domains and Hosting
In this installment, I show you how to pick a domain name and a website host.
Make Extra Money, Part 6: Setting Up a Site
A niche site doesn’t amount to much without, well, a site. In this installment, I show you how I configure a site, from start to finish.
Make Extra Money, Part 6.5: Why I Do It The Way I Do It
Several people have asked me to explain why I use the plugins and settings I use. This explains the “Why” behind Part 6.
More to come….
Huh?
Am I the only one who just noticed that it’s Wednesday? The holiday week with the free day is completely screwing me up.
Just to make this a relevant post:
Spend less!
Save more!
Invest!
Wee!
Braces
Grr!
Monday, I brought Punk #1 to the orthodontist. He’s got an underbite and some crooked teeth, but I didn’t realize how off it was until I saw the pictures they took. Some of the closeups could be inspiration for a Halloween mask.
It look like he started with a small underbite that made his teeth line up wrong, which–as they grew–accentuate the wrong. Now, it’s very, very wrong.
Next week he goes in to get his top teeth done.
At a cost of $5800.
If we pay up-front, they’ll knock 5% off, bringing it down to $5500. That covers everything, all of the follow-ups, broken hardware, every stage the whole way through. If we pay monthly, it will be $1450 down and $200 per month (interest free) for almost 2 years.
Almost six grand.
Fortunately, we knew this was coming, so we’ve been saving for this for a few years.
Unfortunately, we’ve only been saving $50-100 a month. We can’t wait much longer. With an underbite, you have more options if you do the work before the kid is done growing. I’d really like to avoid jaw surgery for him, so we have to make things happen.
Our braces account has $3100 in it. My HSA account has $875. That’s from my last job, so that’s as big as it gets. That leaves us almost exactly $1500 short.
I hate the idea of touching our emergency fund, although it does have enough money in it.
We’ve also got some money tucked away in an account leftover from my mother-in-law dying last year. I think that’s where we’re going to come up with the difference.
How else could we save money?
We could shop around, but this isn’t something I want to give to the lowest bidder. I want to do it right, and I know several people who have had braces put on by this office, either by this orthodontist or her father.
I asked about a cash discount and got turned down.
That’s it. Next week, I burn $5500. Hope the kid eventually appreciates it.
