Post Your Wins

[sv2007]

This win is more important than money.

Recently, wife agreed that if I lose some weight, I can get back on a motorcycle (and I'm assuming it is implied that I can basically go motorcycle racing). I've been working out very hard the last few weeks.

[creditcardfree]

I bought something online. While it was in route to my home I changed my mind. When the package arrived, I told the postal person to 'return to sender'. I will get a credit back when it is returned. It costs nothing to return an item if you haven't opened the package yet! That decision saved me $40!

[97guns]

Poor lad this james guy. I get the sense he wants others to share their win stories, not critique his win story, oh well it is what it is (lol). At any rate my best win was my Hawaii condo as well, paid $60,000 in 1999. Today's assessed value is $180,000.

ill take some heat off him and reveal the real haters ... my biggest wins were with RE in 2009, snapping up homes for 80k that had topped out at 375k, currently valued at 260k

[MonkeyMama]

Well, I broke my foot and initially thought getting a knee walker/knee scooter was overkill. But changed my mind this weekend and decided to price out. Ended up buying one used for $150. Expect to sell for $150+ when done.

Makes you wonder how many people would do without because it's "expensive". We do stuff like this all the time. I am just annoyed it took me so long to figure it out I could work it out for probably $0 out of pocket.

(The $150 cash came from a focus group my hubby did this past week. An extra $150 is always good, so will add it to the win pile).

[GoodSteward]

I've recently sold a few electronics on ebay and made more than I paid for them being used. Really odd considering what they were (Tablet and computer video card).

I think the biggest win for me was more in the form of a being in the right place at the right time blessing. When I bought my house in 2009 everything seemed fine. It was a 1300sq ft 3bd/2bth house on aprox 1/2 acre lot for 79k$ financed. It was only 3 years old, but had been in foreclosure TWICE before I bought it from people who were not in foreclosure.

About six months later, I get a letter in the mail showing the property lines and layout not knowing what it really meant. I just knew it looked wrong from what we were told when we bought it. I found out the land in our subdivision went into foreclosure and the bank that owned it resurveyed everything. They discovered my house was on a lot the bank owned and the concrete slab I park on that attaches to the house was on the lot tied to my loan. lol The bank went to the title insurance company, got the full retail of the property, and then gave us the second lot giving us almost 1 full acre.

A few months later a neighbor had to move due to a foreclosure (this was that housing market crash time frame). He was in the process of building a storage building to match the house. Stick built on concrete blocks(moveable). I was eyeballing everything and remember the neighbor told me once it was built on the property line, however, it turned out of the 14ft wide building(14ft x 20ft x16ft tall roof peak) 12ft was on my property. The bank was going to move it, but decided to just give it to me. It was worth about 5k$ as it sat unfinished. I had to pay 1k$ to have it moved a few hundred feet, and finished it myself. Gave me about 10k extra value with around 5k$ in it. Property added around 10-15k$ also. (low cost of living area.)

I figured I would show our little house. Don't judge the multicolored shingles on the building. Lol It was like that when we got it, and I just left it.

[disneysteve]

Here's a little one.

We were in NYC yesterday and decided to go to the Museum of Natural History. We were at a self-serve kiosk buying tickets when an attendant came over. I figured he was going to try to upsell us somehow but it turned out that he made us an offer that actually saved us money. By signing up as members, we'd actually pay less than we were about to pay for 3 one-day tickets.

So we paid $75 instead of $81 and 2 of us can now go back as much as we want for the next year. I don't know if we'll ever go back but it doesn't matter since we actually saved $6 by getting the membership.

[creditcardfree]

My husband is military. We haven't lived close enough to use a commissary in about 9 years. We save easily 30% on our groceries by using the one that we now live by. It is a 25 minute trip, but very worth it. Prior to 2006, we did live within 30-40 minutes of one, but I never checked it out. It just seemed to far! Now I know it is worth the drive.

Today our grocery bill including some paper towels, cleaners and cat food was $160. With an average savings of 30% our bill would have been $228. That is a savings of $68. And this is about what we spend each week! I will admit I do opt for organic more now since the savings helps offset the increased cost.

[scfr]

Today's $19.25 win: It's time to order more monthly preventatives for my dog, so I visited the manufacturer's web site to check for rebates before ordering. I'll be getting a $20 rebate. The "win" is actually about $19.25 because I have to deduct the cost of one forever stamp, paper & ink for printing, and an envelope.

A couple tips:

- Some items offer rebates so regularly that it's worth your time to always check before ordering. Dog meds are one such category.

- An issue with rebates is that if you don't mail it in, you don't get the money! As soon as I placed my order, I printed and filled out the rebate form, addressed & stamped it, and left it next to my purse to be dropped in the mail next time I go out. I learned the hard way many,many years ago that you've got to mail those rebates off immediately (as soon as you get home if you pick one up from the store) because they are so easy to forget.

[scfr]

Most recent wins:

1. Located on-line coupon for annual car safety inspection (cost savings win).
2. Completed vehicle license renewal ahead of schedule (penalty avoidance win).
3. Accepted 2 unexpected offers for contract job assignments (future earned income and retirement savings wins).
4. Opened bank account for bonus (future passive income win).
5. Savings using Target's 10% off "store-wide" coupon (cost savings win).

[creditcardfree]

My most recent win is getting some cash we have invested in a CD paying 2% interest. It is with Navy Federal Credit Union for 20 months. I made sure to invest the maximum of $20K.

[james.hendrickson]

Here is another little one.

I went to Fred Meyer, which is a big box department store/discounter here in Oregon. I bought about $50 bucks worth of stuff, (groceries, toys for my son, etc.). After a $5 dollar off coupon, a 10% store discount and use of some reward points, I got the bill down to about $40 bucks.

Its not a whole lot of money, but looking for deals can have a long term effect over time.

[DaveInPgh]

My most recent personal finance win is that I finally obtained spousal approval to put up a fence in our backyard.

How is the approximately $4k home improvement a personal finance win?

Because otherwise the legal fees of the inevitable assault charge would easily surpass $4k. Only so long that I can put up with a neighbor's dog crapping in my yard before I snap.

[Fishindude77]

In the midwest we have a problem with the Emerald Ash Borer bug killing all of the ash trees. There are standing dead and dying trees everywhere that nobody is doing much of anything about. I have a wood lot on the property and sold a bunch of mine to a saw mill for a nice $6500 win. Many of the neighbors ash trees will just rot and fall down.

[disneysteve]

I mentioned this in my decluttering thread but yesterday, I was cleaning and came across two boxes of old Disney catalogs and collectible magazines. I checked ebay and found that both items are selling fairly well. I listed a dozen catalogs for $3.95 each. One sold in just over an hour. Another sold overnight.

I also sold one of DD's textbooks from last semester on half.com today. Between buying used and reselling when she was done with them, we've made out really well with textbook costs. We've even sold a couple of books for more than we paid for them.

[QuarterMillionMan]

I'm currently in Las Vegas.