Turning $20 Into $5000 - Jeffreys Challenge

[jeffrey]

Re: Turning $20 Into $5000 - Jeffreys Challenge

<b>Previous Total</b>: $1131.82

<b>Current Total</b>: $1167.97

<b>Inventory</b>:

Half Ownership - 7 sake bottles, 22 sake cups

Full Ownership - 5 mini trays - 6 hunting badges

<b>Time Spent Since Last Post</b>: 0 hours 7 minutes

<b>Time Spent Total</b>: 1 day 6 hour 09 minutes

A good omen. My first cup from the <A HREF="http://sakecups.blogspot.com/">sake cup blog</A> sold for $75. No ebay fees, but take out $2.90 for paypal for a profit of $72.10. Divide that in 2 and it adds another $36.05 to the total. It will be great if I can get a steady stream of people to purchase the cups from the blog before going to ebay.

I still need to decide what I'm going to do over the next 3 weeks while I'm away. If I don't come up with a plan, making the goal will be quite difficult...

[jeffrey]

Re: Turning $20 Into $5000 - Jeffreys Challenge

<b>Previous Total</b>: $1167.97

<b>Current Total</b>: $1167.97

<b>Inventory</b>:

Half Ownership - 7 sake bottles, 22 sake cups

Full Ownership - 5 mini trays - 6 hunting badges

<b>Time Spent Since Last Post</b>: 0 hours 0 minutes

<b>Time Spent Total</b>: 1 day 6 hour 09 minutes

I'm currently at the airport waiting for my flight to take off. I didn't get the number of photos I wanted to upload which means I will either have to find things while I'm back home to list or figure something else out. I'm not worried at the moment, but that will change if I can't figure out something and have no income for the challenge for the next 3 weeks.

I figured out something quite interesting quite by accident. I always bring a few snacks when I head to the airport since food at the airport is so expensive. As I was wandering, I found out that airports in Japan have a special area for the airport employees so they don't have to pay the outrageous prices. The store was completely out of the way - down a maze of hallways and basically not marked at all, but the prices were half what they were charging at other stores. Anyone was allowed to purchase items there (I asked) - the challenge was finding it. I'm sure 99% of people don't know it exists. I wonder if they have similar stores in the US airports...

[larosa7357]

Re: Turning $20 Into $5000 - Jeffreys Challenge

Well I think its a fine idea. . .I have the 20 dollars set aside and am conjuring up ideas on what to do with it as I type this. It is certainly not worthless.

I agree with you! Creative thinking plus the challenge, makes this an awesome idea in my opinion.

This weekend I will be having a garage sale, using the $20 as "starting change". Thought this might be a good way to start. Although I am getting a late start in this challenge, I am really looking forward to it!

Fran

[jeffrey]

Re: Turning $20 Into $5000 - Jeffreys Challenge

<b>Previous Total</b>: $1167.97

<b>Current Total</b>: $917.97

<b>Inventory</b>:

Half Ownership - 7 sake bottles, 142 sake cups

Full Ownership - 5 mini trays - 6 hunting badges

<b>Time Spent Since Last Post</b>: 0 hours 0 minutes

<b>Time Spent Total</b>: 1 day 6 hour 09 minutes

I'm back under $1000, but it was due to a big purchase. My partner and I invested in 120 sake cups for $500. That comes to just under $4.20 per cup (which is under our target price of $5 a cup that we set) and we figure that we can earn a minimum of $10 per cup so hopefully we'll more than double our investment on that. It could be quite a bit more if a few of the cups are popular and fetch a bit more than expected.

I haven't done anything on generating money since heading back to the US. This weekend is already filled, so it will have to be next week that I begin getting things in order. If not, when I return back to Japan I'm going to have a ton of things to do.

Due to this time where I haven't been able to work on the challenge, I'm getting a bit nervous about whether or not I'll be able to meet the goal in time. I'll wait and see what happens next week before getting into a panic...

[niki_the_tiger]

Re: Turning $20 Into $5000 - Jeffreys Challenge

You have quite a bit of stock right now, so I think that will help things out. It will take some work, but I think you can do it. You have done a great job up til now, just keep it up.

[jeffrey]

Re: Turning $20 Into $5000 - Jeffreys Challenge

<b>Previous Total</b>: $917.97

<b>Current Total</b>: $917.97

<b>Inventory</b>:

Half Ownership - 7 sake bottles, 142 sake cups

Full Ownership - 5 mini trays - 6 hunting badges

<b>Time Spent Since Last Post</b>: 0 hours 0 minutes

<b>Time Spent Total</b>: 1 day 6 hour 09 minutes

Well, I didn't do anything on my trip back to the US so I find Oct coming up and still a long way to go to reach my goal. I will be putting in some extra time to try and make up for my absence and lack of doing the challenge while I was away.

This is one of the reasons I don't like ebay as a permanent job. While the money isn't bad in certain areas, if you take some time off for vacation, your income stops including about a week on either side of the vacation. That is because you have to wrap up all your outstanding auctions before you leave and then it takes another week before the auctions begin selling again after you return.

It's time to hammer down and get to work on all those cups. I'm off to take pictures now!

[CJsoccerchic]

Re: Turning $20 Into $5000 - Jeffreys Challenge

Have fun with the picture taking!! I just bought myself a digi-cam - and I HATE it!!! I'm sure yours is much better then mine.. hee hee

[jeffrey]

Re: Turning $20 Into $5000 - Jeffreys Challenge

<b>Previous Total</b>: $917.97

<b>Current Total</b>: $919.76

<b>Inventory</b>:

Half Ownership - 7 sake bottles, 142 sake cups

Full Ownership - 5 mini trays - 6 hunting badges

<b>Time Spent Since Last Post</b>: 1 hours 15 minutes

<b>Time Spent Total</b>: 1 day 7 hour 24 minutes

Three months to go and still not at $1000, although that is a bit deceiving due to the large inventory I currently have. I need to sell that inventory, however, to have it count for my total. I spent over an hour taking photos of all the new cups, cropping them and loading them onto my computer. Now that is done, I can begin listing them on ebay this week.

It's going to be an extremely busy 3 months if I'm going to reach the $5000 goal. I still think it will be possible, but it will take a concerted effort to pull it off.

The trip back home didn't help as it disrupted the routine I had formed. It also didn't help with the blog - since I wasn't updating it as much as I had been, the advertising total came in at only $1.79 for all the sites. I think I had hoped to generate at least $10, but hopefully I can do a bit better in October.

[niki_the_tiger]

Re: Turning $20 Into $5000 - Jeffreys Challenge

You can do it!!!

[jeffrey]

Re: Turning $20 Into $5000 - Jeffreys Challenge

<b>Previous Total</b>: $919.76

<b>Current Total</b>: $913.76

<b>Inventory</b>:

Half Ownership - 7 sake bottles, 142 sake cups

Full Ownership - 5 mini trays - 6 hunting badges

<b>Time Spent Since Last Post</b>: 1 hours 20 minutes

<b>Time Spent Total</b>: 1 day 8 hour 44 minutes

I'm back in business! At least for this challenge. I listed 20 auctions from the stash of sake cups which cost $12 (split in half for a total of $6 off my saving total). This is kind of an experiment too. I haven't had much luck with these auctions ending on weekends (they sell, but not for as much as they do midweek), but I thought I'd give it one more try.

Although it is a bit ambitious, my goal this week will be to list all 142 cups and the 7 bottles I currently have in inventory. If I can accomplish that, I'll have a good idea where I really stand with this challenge in the middle of the month when everything has sold. That means a busy week in the limited spare time I have, but since I was gone for that long period, it has to be done.

It would be nice if the cups could bring in about $2000 in profit which would add an extra $1000 to my total - keeping my fingers crossed there. It's difficult to tell with this bunch of cups. Most seem to be fairly standard patters and a lot of them come with chips and cracks which will keep down their selling price. As with most things put on ebay, a little luck in timing (having two or more people want the same cup) makes a big difference. I just need to stay focused this week to be able to get everything done.

If I can pull of the goal of getting them all listed, I should be in good shape and can take the next steps I need to reach the challenge goal.

[CJsoccerchic]

Re: Turning $20 Into $5000 - Jeffreys Challenge

My best wishes to you - I'm rooting for you Jeffrey!!!

[jeffrey]

Re: Turning $20 Into $5000 - Jeffreys Challenge

<b>Previous Total</b>: $913.76

<b>Current Total</b>: $905.96

<b>Inventory</b>:

Half Ownership - 7 sake bottles, 142 sake cups

Full Ownership - 5 mini trays - 6 hunting badges

<b>Time Spent Since Last Post</b>: 1 hours 32 minutes

<b>Time Spent Total</b>: 1 day 10 hour 17 minutes

I managed to find the time to list another 26 cups (total cost $15.60 divided by 2 = $7.80 taken out of my total) today, but that still leaves me well short of my goal of getting all the cups and bottles on auction this week. I'm not sure if I'll be able to manage it, but I will do my best and get as many as I can on.

The first <A HREF="http://stores.ebay.com/Cards-and-Medals">batch of 20 cups</A> isn't doing so hot at the moment. All have bids, but most are still at $0.01. I'll have to hope for a lot of last minute bidding or find that I lost quite a bit on latest purchase.

I've been finding that trying to get myself motivated to place these on has been difficult as of late. Part of it is the decision to do the site full time and trying to figure out how to make that work (and the extra time needed to do all the things I want to do). I have to force myself to work on this project. That isn't a bad thing, it just takes more energy than if the challenge was more of a priority. Even though I have to motivate myself a bit, it's still better than doing nothing at all and since the sites are a long, long term project, an hour or two here and there for this challenge isn't going to kill me.

Okay, enough of the rambling. Time to get to work on my list of things to do and prepare to list some more auctions tomorrow.

[jeffrey]

Re: Turning $20 Into $5000 - Jeffreys Challenge

<b>Previous Total</b>: $905.36

<b>Current Total</b>: $902.36

<b>Inventory</b>:

Half Ownership - 7 sake bottles, 142 sake cups

Full Ownership - 5 mini trays - 6 hunting badges

<b>Time Spent Since Last Post</b>: 0 hours 56 minutes

<b>Time Spent Total</b>: 1 day 11 hour 13 minutes

I managed to get the 7 bottles from our stock on auction along with another 5 cups for a total of $7,20 in fees and $3.60 off of my total. That leave 91 more cups, the mini tray and hunting badges to put on which leads me to believe I won't have the time to get them all on this week. I'll shoot for another 20 or so cups tomorrow and hopefully I can have them all up by next week.

I'm getting worried about this last set of cups I put up. I was gone for a few weeks and that kind of let the regulars who were watching my auctions move away. While there are still 3 days before the first 20 cups end, they are all way below what I paid for them. Keeping my fingers crossed that they move up at the end.

Got word that some friends are going to be visiting from the US later this month. That will mean a few more days where I won't have time to work on this challenge as I will be showing them around.

It will be nice when the total is moving in a northerly direction instead of slowly creeping down as it has been this week.

[jeffrey]

Re: Turning $20 Into $5000 - Jeffreys Challenge

<b>Previous Total</b>: $902.36

<b>Current Total</b>: $896.36

<b>Inventory</b>:

Half Ownership - 7 sake bottles, 142 sake cups

Full Ownership - 5 mini trays - 6 hunting badges

<b>Time Spent Since Last Post</b>: 1 hours 13 minutes

<b>Time Spent Total</b>: 1 day 12 hour 26 minutes

Yikes! My total keep going in reverse. Actually, this isn't a problem because it's part of the price of doing business, but it's much more fun when the total is heading in the other direction.

I did get another 20 cups on auction meaning I still have 71 to get on. It won't happen this weekend, so I didn't reach my original goal of getting them all on, but I did manage to get half on and all the bottles. It should be feasible for me to get the rest of them on next week.

I will spend some free time I have this weekend to load photos into the sake cup blog I started to see if I can get some more traffic to that (and possible a little more income from advertising). Then when the cups sell I can let people know about the preview blog and maybe I can sell a few more that way.

Still not looking very good on the current auctions ending Sunday. Even the numbers on who is watching are way down. before I left, most had 8 - 10 people watching the auctions, now it's just one or two. I'm hoping that now I have more cups up it will attract a few more lookers.

[jeffrey]

Re: Turning $20 Into $5000 - Jeffreys Challenge

<b>Previous Total</b>: $896.36

<b>Current Total</b>: $896.36

<b>Inventory</b>:

Half Ownership - 7 sake bottles, 142 sake cups

Full Ownership - 5 mini trays - 6 hunting badges

<b>Time Spent Since Last Post</b>: 0 hours 0 minutes

<b>Time Spent Total</b>: 1 day 12 hour 26 minutes

Well, it looks like I may have made my first big mistake today. With 2 hours left for the auctions of 20 of the cups to end they are all selling for a grand total of $24. I need them to increase 300% in price (have them all sell for $100 combined) just to break even on them which is definitely not a good sign. While a loss at this point won't hurt me in the sense that I can't go on, it will make it much more difficult to reach my goal, especially if the cups from the other auctions later this week sell the same way. My partner also won't be happy having to wrap all those packages for nothing.

I may have to rethink my $0.01 starting price on the auctions. I know doing so gets more people to look at them and this usually results in them selling for a higher price than if I set them starting off at a higher price, but when a day like this comes along, it makes me wonder if I should set them at $0.99 to start. I'll have to think that over.

Time to do something else to take my mind off this...otherwise I'll drive myself crazy. Will report on the final damage in a few hours.