52 Week Make Money Challenge Week Two Results

As was the case with week one, week two of the make money challenge ended up being a lot different than I anticipated at the beginning of the week. The goal this week was to sort items to sell and put some of that stuff up for sale, but that didn’t end up happening. I did do some more sorting, but I’ve found that there is a lot more than I anticipated, so I’m still in the process of doing that. Due to this project taking longer than I thought, I wasn’t able to put anything up for sale this past week.

I did start collecting bottles and cans while walking and ended up finding a surprising number of them. I’ve been finding as many as 20 on walks in the hills around my house (mainly water bottles), and filled up a couple of bags that I’ve been keeping in the trunk of my car.

I ended up cashing them in on a trip to the grocery store, since the recycling center is right there. I ended up turning in 84 total for $4.20. While this isn’t going to make me a ton of money each week, walking is something that I already do so picking up the tossed bottles and cans is easy to do. I’ve already started walking with a bag to collect the ones I find, so this is just extra money to add to anything else I do during the week.

The other earnings for week two came in the form of a $25 Chipotle gift card.

A friend asked me to come over and help move a bunch of things out of their backyard. Basically, they are in the process of cleaning up their yard because they want to build a greenhouse and chicken coop in the back. We spent a few hours cleaning out a bunch of stuff, but I wasn’t expecting to get paid. I was just doing a favor for a friend. When I was ready to leave, however, my friend’s wife handed me a $25 gift card to Chipotle. I tried to refuse, but she insisted saying that if I hadn’t come over to help, the backyard cleanup would have never been done.

I thought for a split second that I might have an opportunity to make a little more money when I received a bill in change that looked like it might be worth more than it’s face value (I always look at bills’ serial numbers that I receive). Unfortunately, it was off by a couple of numbers.

I probably could have sold it for more than face value if that last 7 had been a zero. At the very least, I would have tried to, but in this case it wasn’t quite there. I will continue to look this year to see if I can find a few bills that have collectible value.

Week 2 Total: $29.00

$1 $2 $3 $4 $5 $6 $7 $8 $9 $10
$11 $12 $13 $14 $15 $16 $17 $18 $19 $20
$21 $22 $23 $24 $25 $26 $27 $28 $29 $30
$31 $32 $33 $34 $35 $36 $37 $38 $39 $40
$41 $42 $43 $44 $45 $46 $47 $48 $49 $50
$51 $52

Goals for Week 3

The goal for week three will be much the same as for week two since I didn’t manage to complete the task last week. I’d like to get a lot more of the items that I have sorted and begin to sell it. My guess is that this will be an ongoing goal for the rest of the year as I try to declutter the house.

As I have been going through everything, I’m trying to divide the stuff into what would be best for eBay, Craigslist, a garage sale and possibly a local flea market. I’ve also been looking at Etsy, and I may have some stuff that could do well on that site. Dividing the products into the proper area where I think it will sell best is part of the sorting process, but I may have to do some experimenting during the year as I’m just not sure where some of the items will sell best.