Money 2 A Million

Well, it took a lot longer than I thought, but I finally sold my first watch.  It was a family member so I really wanted to make sure it was not a pity purchase.  She assured me that she really liked the watch and really wanted it so I agreed to the sale.  It took a bit of negotiation in the wrong direction - she wanted to pay me too much, but I wouldn’t allow it because I wanted to keep it ‘real’.  I paid $13.45 for the watch including shipping, etc. and sold it for $40.  The recommended retail price on the manufacturers website was $95, so she was really getting a deal and so was I.  In the end, I pocketed a cool $26.55 for the Money 2 a Million project.  I have to admit though, I never thought it was going to be so difficult to unload these watches.  I thought I was giving an awesome deal for them, but it just goes to show you, you never know what’s going to sell.  I guess that’s why retail stores often mark up thier prices 100%, because there is always the danger of ending up with stock that won’t sell.

I got an e-mail from someone interested in one of the watches.  I e-mailed the next day and apparently that was too late.  She had given up on me that quick and went out and bought a watch.  I was away for the weekend so I wasn’t really checking my e-mail too closely.  That is how finicky customers are (and rightly so).  So instead of selling a watch that I have apparently mistaken for a great deal, I am left in the dust.  I did get a post from some other guy wanting to buy one for $20.  I agreed - we’ll see what happens.  At this point I am willing to sell them for anything that is a profit.  I don’t get it though.  These seem like nice watches.  Anyone wanna buy a watch?

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I was selling some weights today - not for the Money 2 a Million project, but just to get rid of some of my crap.  I was really late for work, but needed to bring them today to make the sale.  For some reason, there was some sort of oily type stuff on them - I didn’t know what it was, but I knew that it was there for a while.  As I was dashing out the door on the way to work, I hurried to put them into the car and remembered that I had to wash them off.  I ran inside to get paper towel and wiped each one quickly as i put them in the car.  As I was wiping a 10lb weight, I dropped it.  Guess what was underneath?  Yup, you guessed it.  The VCR for the Money 2 a Million project.  Now it has a nice dent in the top.  What bad luck, right?  Wrong.  I knew I had to clean them off to sell them for weeks - why didn’ t I clean them then?  I knew I had to bring them to work that day.  Why didn’t I put them into the car the night before?  And why did I leave a valuable (ok, ok, it was only a $2 VCR, but to the Money 2 a Million project, every dollar counts at the moment) VCR on the ground?  If we all took a little more forethought and a little more care, then many - perhaps most accidents could be avoided.  It certainly would have reduced my stress level if they were in the car and ready to go in the morning.  Turns out that I was also 5 minutes late for my meeting.  There was no need for any of it.  I mean, all I had to do was wash some stupid weights ANY TIME before then - even 10 minutes before and I would have been fine.  No dented VCR and no late meeting.  Slow and Steady wins the race.

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I am in a triathalon in two weeks, so I will not be able to concentrate too much on Money2aMillion until then.  It’s actually a mini-triathalon, but it still ain’t easy.  I’ve been swimming, biking and running a lot, but I need to turn it up a notch in these two final weeks.  I’ve never done this before so who knows how I might do.  Wish me luck!

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I played a game of poker last night and lost $5 for Money2aMillion.  For a while there I couldn’t lose, but lately I havn’t been playing very well.  I’m just too darn curious to see what other people have.  I called a full house with a 2 pair which crippled me.  In hind sight, I should have known he had the goods because he didn’t bet the entire hand until the end when he raised me big time.  Classic slow playing.  Oh well, I am still up on the gambling front so I can’t complain too much.  Still, it hurts when you head in the wrong direction.

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My good friend Arkad wrote a few articles about Bum Marketing here and here.  Bum Marketing involves writing articles to article hosting sites with the intention of sending people to websites to purchase things - usually as an affiliate.  It’s named as such because supposedly any Bum off the street could use this method and makes money.  Arkad tried an experiment by writing 5 articles and submitting them to the different article sites.  A few months later he had sold a few products amounting to £23, but had put in 15 hours or so of work to produce this.  After a while, he did a bit more work (8 hours or so) and made an additional £180.  This might seem like a lot of work for not much gain (Arkad mentions that it’s probably not worth his time given the results), but I disagree.  In order to truly judge the worth of the 23 hours he spent, you need to add up all the income that it will produce over his entire life (forever really, but you can’t enjoy it if you’re dead).  The fact that this method produces passive income is awesome in itself.  Even if it’s just $5 per month - this is money you no longer have to work for.  Keep doing this 80 more times over the years and this gives you $4000 per month in passive income.  That is ‘quit your job’ levels and therefore worth pursuing in my books.  I actually tried writing an article for my spreadsheet one time and had really good traffic results.  No sales, but I think this is because it is a weak product (don’t like putting down my own products, but it is just a spreadsheet after all).  I am hoping to try my own experiment with this some day - who knows, it could be the path to a lifestyle change.  You never know.

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I have finally done a complete once over of my taxes.  I still have a bunch of questions, mostly to do with RRSPs (Canadian Retirement Plan), but I have done A LOT!  I now know more about US Taxes than I ever thought I would in my life.  They are similar to Canadian ones, but different enough that you have to read EVERYTHING.  Tomorrow I will be setting up an appointment to see someone from H&R Block so I can get my final questions answered and if all goes well, I plan on applying for my SSN by October.  I can’t wait for this to be DONE.  I’ve spent way too much time on it.  The good news is that I still have my total owing as $0.  I’m just not sure abou the RRSPs because it says you have to use the US/CAN treaty clause in a “timely manner”.  And since I’ve never filed taxes it will be difficult to argue that I was timely.  I’m hoping they will make an exception for someone who didn’t know they were American.  We’ll see what the H&R Block lady says.  I’ll keep you posted.

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Well, I sort of sold it… to myself.  There was a lightning storm a few weeks ago and our TV got zapped.  It’s too bad because I had that TV a long time.  It saw its fair share of Simpsons episodes during University.  Well, it’s dead now so I needed a TV.  What luck that i had a perfectly good TV sitting in the garage that I picked up for a measly $5.  I decided that I really don’t like it when people pay themselves from their real life money, so I bought it from the Money2aMillion project for $5, resulting in $0 profit.  Woo hoo!  I may sell it back to the project for $5 again some day if we get a better TV.  It’s pretty small (13 in or so) and has no remote.  I forgot what a pain it is to not have a remote control (yes, I am that old).   Maybe next time I can actually make some money from a sale.

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I finally have completed the first go of my 7 years of Taxes.  It has not been easy and has sucked a lot of my time away, but I am satisfied that I have almost sorted out this part of my life.  The best part?  I owe $0!  (Thank God)  The worst part?  I still have questions.  I think I’ll finish sorting this out and then go get some one on one help with the last few things.  It might cost some money, but at least won’t be as much as if I asked them to do the entire thing.  I won’t use my double-up money for this cost because I should have had this sorted out anyways and if we ever move to the States then I would have had to do it anyways.  Finally I can concentrate a bit more on other areas of my life, including Money2aMillion.  My new goal is to meet up with my tax advisor by the end of September and depending on that meeting I may apply for my SSN right after that.

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Looks like my experiment paid off.  I sold the Walkie Talkies.  They cost $1 and I sold them for $10, so that’s a $9 gain.  I can’t believe he bought them actually.  Each Walkie Talkie takes ten batteries.  It will cost them more to fill it with batteries than it cost either of us to buy.  It just goes to show there is a buyer for anything.  You just have to find them.  It’s all marketing baby.

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