Money 2 A Million

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Well, I think I should quit my day job.  My wife and I went over to our friends house and ended up playing some poker - dealer’s choice this time.  They happen to be avid readers of this blog so I will spare you the details on how I completely annihilated them all, especially my wife.  No one likes a gloater (and something about floater).  Just kidding around guys… heh heh…   Actually, I was pretty lucky all night - I was dealt a royal flush (yes - we had wildcards) at the same time I was facing 4 of a kind and a straight flush.  Even on the last hand, which was 5 card, 0 drops, 7’s wild - I was dealt a 4 of a kind, while my friend was dealt 3 of a kind.   We played with 5 bucks each, and I ended up with $14.30, which is a $9.30 gain for the Money 2 a Million project.  This brings me within $16 of this step.  I think I’ll start looking for coins again!

It was my friend’s birthday last night.  We played some Texas  Hold’em -  $5 buy in and I was doing quite well.   I did get lucky hitting my card on the river one time, but other wise I was happy with my play.  In the end I ended up chopping the winning since the game was taking too long, so I made $10.  We also played a ring game where I was up 95 cents, so it was $10.95 for the night.  Not too bad, except for the $35 parking ticket that was waiting for me at the car.  So much for being up $10.95.  The parking ticket doesn’t count in the project though because I would have got it no matter what, so that pushes me over the $800 mark!  I’m only about $25 from finishing this double level.  I can’t wait!

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I got an e-mail from someone saying they were interested in one of the two women’s watches I had for sale.  I had advertised them for $40 for quite a while with no bites, so I reduced the price to $30.  Even that had almost no bites and no sales.  This woman offered $20, which was getting a bit close to the break even price - it would be a lot of work for not much gain.  I told her that $20 was not do-able, but I’d sell one for $25.  After days and days of e-mails back and forth about logistics (she couldn’t come to my house, I had to come between 12 and 4 because it was for her room mate, blah, blah, blah), we FINALLY agreed on me coming to her house on Friday.  Just to be sure I reminded her that it was $25.  She replies that she only has $20!  How frustrating!  I already told her it had to be $25.  So I decide to stick to my guns and e-mailed her that it had to be $25.  Well, I didn’t get a reply, and I had to leave (I happened to be going to IKEA which was right near her, and the reason why I didn’t have to charge myself gas money).  I figured that perhaps she didn’t get the message and I would allow her one more chance to buy it at $25.  Well, when I went there she was not there.  She had forgotten that I was coming and was at the bank (her room mate told me, which I thought was why I had to come at that time - to miss her).  So I went to IKEA and dropped by one more time on my way out.  She was there, but when I told her it was $25, she got this look on her face like I was an idiot and said that she had e-mailed me that she only had $20.  She showed me her wallet at this point, which only had a $20.  Ok, wasn’t she just at the bank?  Anyway, I debated in my head whether to sell it at this price or not.  On one hand, this woman was driving me crazy and didn’t deserve my precious watch at that price, but on the other hand, she was the only person who wasn’t family that actually seemed interested in it.  And it WAS at a profit.  I tried meeting her half way and she found a two dollar coin, so I sold it for $22.  It was the most agrivating $22 I have made though.  Thank goodness I don’t have to see her ever again.

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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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