Sounds like a good game.

[ChillPhatCat]

Well, I decided to give a $20 challenge a shot, sounds like a good way to make some extra money.

I've got a pad of paper here and I marked $20 as my spending limit to get the ball rolling, I decided to auction off 3 Magic Cards (trading card game) and a bunch of random almost worthless ones (in one lot) which I've decided to list on ebay... I didn't want to bother before because it was such an insignificant amount of money. So I've got 4 auctions running at $.25 a piece, I have listed a fixed price for shipping that will be pretty close to actual so any loss or gain from shipping will be added in.

My Ultimate goal to start with is $3000 by Memorial Day weekend, now my reasons are not for the best investment however. I take my car to a Gathering in Atlanta on that weekend every year and well it needs some work before I'll not be embarrassed to show it. I'm planning to buy a new hood ($500), Repaint it ($1500), fix an oil leak at the bell housing and redo my suspension ($500 each probably). These are things I will go to the ends of the earth to pay for this year and my plan is to raise $3000 on the side by the time of the show in order to pay for what I have done to the car. It's an unsurmountable task, which is about the only challenge I like.

Starting Total: $20.00
Ending Total: $19.00

[Ima saver]

Good luck Chill!!

[ChillPhatCat]

I've decided that when I hit $250 I'm going to open a savings account with my bank and put my total in there, my bank is pretty lame though, so it's going to be about 1.5%... but it's totally secure and penalty free.

I found $3.30 in this room today, I'm setting those aside to throw into the fund. One person has bid on my card auctions, so 1/4 of them are selling to recoup my auction fees at the very least (they're all listed at $.01).

Starting: $19.00
Ending: $22.30

[kashi]

Just a suggestion - you'd be better off opening an online savings account and getting 3.8%+ interest. I've had an account with ING for several years and never had a problem. Plus you get a free $25 if you open through this website!

[ChillPhatCat]

Originally Posted by kashi

Just a suggestion - you'd be better off opening an online savings account and getting 3.8%+ interest. I've had an account with ING for several years and never had a problem. Plus you get a free $25 if you open through this website!

I'm still quite a newbie at some of this stuff, thanks for the tip My paypal account is currently earning 4.3%, but I don't want this money to get mixed up in there due to the volume of money moving though it.

[mjrube94]

And until you get the $250 for the ING bonus, get the Emigrant and HSBC bonuses. Jeffrey has links to both, and you only need $1 each to open.

[ChillPhatCat]

Working on an ING account, haven't had a chance to activate it yet, I did put 250 in for the bonus, as soon as It's been active for 10 days I plan to pull out all but my total... it's spending that might not be within my means typically, but I don't consider it cheating.

Listed more things on ebay today (more trading cards). I've finally decided to go through my mass of cards from when I played the game and throw the least usefull ones on ebay 3000+ cards in total. Three lots of cards with Gallery pictures listed, each needed a picture my scanner couldn't supply so I splurged on Cell Phone camera pics which cost .10 each to send to my email address. Each auction totals $.70, I'm hoping to at least double my $20 when these auctions finish. I'm not adding the ING bonus until I see it posted.

Starting total: $22.30
Ending Total: $20.20

[PrincessPerky]

If only I could convince DH to get rid of his cards! He checked, none are worth much, but he still wont get rid of them....

[ChillPhatCat]

Originally Posted by PrincessPerky

If only I could convince DH to get rid of his cards! He checked, none are worth much, but he still wont get rid of them....

That's part of the problem with these ones, they aren't really worth anything, but in extreemly large quantities people will pay to take them off your hands, I am reducing the value of my collection from about $500 to $490, but the quantity of cards I am keeping is going from about 3000 to 200, sometimes you have to decide to let go even when the dollar amount to be gained is small. I've got an entire 10x10 storage unit full of stuff from my childhood, most of that I hope to sell.

[PrincessPerky]

Wow! thats a lot of stuff! Can you give me a link to one of your auctions (I have no idea how to search them!) So I can show DH you really are selling stuff?

[ChillPhatCat]

This is one of the more promising auctions:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...RK%3AMESE%3AIT

When I say 10x10 storage unit full, you have to realize that there are a couple dressers and a bed and a couch my mom gave me so it's not all that much stuff, but there's probably 20 boxes full of nick nacks.

[PrincessPerky]

Thanks, and good luck!

[ChillPhatCat]

Well I've collected all my money from ebay sales... total for the cards was 52.66 after deducting shipping and handling fees, assuming 2.5% off of that for ebay fees leaves me with $51.34 My ING account gained $.24 while the $250 was in there, I'm just gonna throw that in because it's got nowhere else to go... so $51.58 is my total gain. One card is not shipped yet, I am looking for some way to increase my $71 now.

Starting Total: $20.20
Ending total: $71.78

[jeffrey]

ChillPhatCat,

I need you to start a journal...once you do, I will transfer all your old entries into your new blog...we are now featuring the $20 challenges on the front page so there should be a lot more people viewing them from the blogs. Thanks

Jeffrey