Disneysteve's Common Cents Blog

I thought I'd take a break from the Ebay Challenge posts.

My daughter had a youth group event last night so my wife and I dropped her off and headed to the casino for a couple of hours. As usual, I took a seat at an electronic blackjack table and played for a little over an hour, winning $212.50 in the process, so I was happy with that. My wife didn't fare as well and lost $74, but that still made it a winning trip overall and a nice evening out.

On the decluttering front, my wife has actually been more inspired than me lately. Two main areas that she has attacked: We have a dresser in our hallway that constantly gets stuff piled on it. She has cleared that off to where we can see almost the entire top. Just a few things remain on there. Then today, while I was out, she cleaned out one set of kitchen cabinets where we keep storage containers, water bottles, cooling racks and a few other assorted things. She threw out a bunch of containers that we no longer have lids for, lids that we no longer have containers for, and water bottles that we don't like and never use and organized everything that remained.

I keep reminding all of us that if we can organize our storage areas - pantry, drawers, closets, garage - then we will have more room to store the things we do want and be able to find them when we need them.

I shipped the one item to Argentina today. Postage was actually $2.75 less than I had charged so I'm going to give back a partial refund. I don't like to rip people off on the postage.

I still have 7 active auctions. 2 have bids. 4 of the other 5 have watchers. 2 end on 1/26. 5 end on 1/27.

Still no more half.com sales.

I need to order a roll of bubble wrap as mine is just about done. I'm debating about ordering more shipping labels. I like the convenience and clean look of labels but I know it is cheaper to print on paper and cover it with tape. I've found the labels on ebay for $13/100 instead of $23 at Staples, plus I learned how to only use half a sheet at a time instead of a whole sheet, so $13 would get me labels for 200 shipments. That's less than 7 cents per package. I think I'll probably stick with labels.

First, the good news. The buyer from Argentina who hadn't paid me yet finally paid yesterday, so I'll ship that tomorrow morning. It was a $26.00 sale so I'm glad it didn't fall through.

As of this morning, I have 7 active auctions. 2 have bids. 3 others have watchers (which I know means nothing). Also, I got a question this morning on one item asking how much it would be to ship it to Singapore, so I need to figure that out tonight and reply.

No action lately on Half.com. I did get an e-mail a couple of days ago that my most recent deposit for $77.34 was on it's way to my account.

I listed 2 items Tuesday night and 5 more last night, so I've got 7 active auctions. Surprisingly, 2 of the 7 items I listed last night at about 7pm had bids on them by 9pm. That's pretty unusual but I'm certainly not complaining.

I also added one more book to Half.com (actually 2, since I listed 2 copies of the same book).

I still have not heard from the person who won my auction last week. I gave them until today to contact me. If I don't hear from them, I will report it to ebay and send a second chance offer to the runner up bidder.

I listed 2 items on ebay last night and plan to add a few more tonight. I listed 4 books on Half.com this morning. Three are books I've sold before. One is a medical text that may or may not sell, but it didn't cost me anything.

I might have to revise my January total. One buyer has not paid for her item yet. I've sent her an invoice, a reminder e-mail and yesterday I sent a final notice giving her until tomorrow to contact me. If she doesn't, I will offer the item to the 2nd place bidder. Hopefully, that person will still want the item.

I'm glad to read that a few of you have been inspired to take up the Ebay challenge. Keep the updates coming.

This is going to be an expensive year around here.

Our garage door spring broke recently. I haven't gotten it repaired yet because it has been too darn cold to clean out the area in the garage that the service guy will need to reach to make the repair.

We have a cold water supply pipe in the basement that has sprung a pinhole leak

The toilet in my daughter's bathroom needs a new flapper.

The side entry door to the garage needs to be replaced. It is an old wooden door that is warped and won't open and close easily.

The washing machine is on the fritz. My wife went to get a load of towels out earlier and they were still all soapy. She had to run an extra rinse cycle twice, so something's wrong.

One of our alarm keypads is worn out and it is getting hard to get the keys to register, which is a problem when you've only got 30 seconds to disable the alarm.

Fun, fun, fun. The joys of home ownership.

I sent $710 to Vanguard yesterday toward my 2009 Roth contribution. I send money every 2 weeks (from each paycheck), alternating between my account and my wife's account, until they are both maxed for the year, usually around the end of June. Only $9,290 to go.

Well that didn't take long. Last nite, I posted that my auctions this week were kind of disappointing. Today, I check my e-mail and find 2 books sold on half.com. The total for those is $15.43, bringing my total for January to $110.95. So that meets my $100/month goal for January.

My first batch of auctions for 2009 are over. I'm a bit disappointed as only 2 of 6 sold even though 5 of 6 had watchers. Such is life.

Add $35.99 to my total. That puts me at $95.52 for the month, a few dollars short of my $100 goal.

I usually list on Wednesday nights but I ended up having to go out tonight with my daughter (I'm not home now) so I'll try and list tomorrow night instead. I do still have one active auction. I also have a few books that I may list on half.com (older stuff, not new books like I've been listing).

I've got half a month to make $5.00. I think I can handle that.

As of tonight:

7 active auctions
6 items have a total of 12 watchers
1 item has a bid

6 items end within 24 hours so I will have an update with new sales totals tomorrow night.

I listed one more item on ebay last night, so that makes 7 active auctions. No bids yet, but I've got a total of 10 watchers on 5 items. The first 6 items end on Wednesay night.

I just sold an item on half.com for $18.59, so that brings my January total to $59.53.

No sales yet.

No bids yet, but I've gone from 5 watchers on 4 items to 8 watchers on the same 4 items. Two items have 3 watchers each so pretty good chance that those 2 will sell. They end on Wednesday.

I just listed one more ebay item.

Nothing too exciting to report. I added 2 items to my half.com inventory and adjusted the price of one other. I lowered it by 4 cents to make it the cheapest one listed.

I have 6 active auctions on ebay that I started on Wednesday night. Four have watchers. No bids yet. If all 4 sell, that would get me almost to the $100 goal for the month. I may list some more tomorrow.

A while back, I had blogged about my ebay sales and goal for 2009 and someone suggested I post it as a challenge to encourage others to do the same.

Here's the deal. Set a personal goal for how much you'd like to generate each month in ebay sales. I would also include half.com and craigslist in the challenge. Where ever and how ever you want to sell your stuff is fine. You can even throw in your yard sales if you'd like.

My goal for 2009 is sales of $100/month average for the year. I've already had one half.com sale this week ($18.99). I haven't listed anything on ebay yet. I plan to start tonight.

Let's hear everyone else's goals and keep updating us regularly on your progress.

ETA: I remember on another site, what we used to do was put "Proud member of ..." at the end of our listings. Then we could look up each other's auctions. If you'd like to do that, just add, "Proud member of SavingAdvice.com" to the end of your listings.

It's that time again. Time to look back and review the spending for the year. This entry covers our credit card usage for 2008.

Marriott Visa: $31,652.26
AOL Visa: $5,831.72
Discover: $3,265.06
--------------------
Total: $40,748.04

That's just about $300 more than 2007 which isn't bad at all considering we had the Bat Mitzvah this year and spent a lot of money on that. The only major expense that wasn't charged was the caterer.

As for rewards, we earned 35,287 Marriott points. That would get us 6 nights at about $90/night, so $540 in rewards.

From AOL and Discover, we earned cashback of $258.21.

We also got a free night certificate from Marriott Visa worth between $150 and $200.

That gives us total rewards earned for 2008 of $950-$1000.

As always, all bills were paid in full and on time, no interest charges or late fees. The Marriott card does have a $65 annual fee, but since we got rewards worth over $700, I think it is well worth the price.

For the newbies: I'm a doctor. I get to do various online surveys for doctors only, not available to the general public. They pay well. Some are easy. Some are quite tedious. Most pay me in cash. Some pay with Amazon gift cards. Some shorter ones give me some type of merchandise (books, USB drives, laser pointers, computer accessories, etc.). I also do Harris polls, Pinecone and AOL Opinion Place surveys that are open to everyone.

For the month of December, I earned $429.00 in cash and Amazon credit.

For 2008, I earned $5,068.50 in cash and Amazon credit.

It is a little hard to track the non-monetary rewards. Some of them, I've sold on ebay or half.com. Others, I've kept and used for myself or given to friends or family. There was probably at least another $200-300 worth of stuff like that.

All in all, a pretty good year. I slacked off on doing the surveys in late summer because we were busy getting ready for our daughter's Bat Mitzvah in September. In fact, my lowest income for the year was $160 in September. My best month was June with $760.50.

Here's to 2009 being at least as good if not better.

I've started the process of adding up all of our bills from 2008. I'm not nearly ready to post any final numbers yet. Maybe by tomorrow night. So far, I've done water, gas, electric, cable, cell phone and our main credit card (Marriott Visa). I'll try and do the rest tomorrow. I also need to add up what we earned in CC rewards. That's always an estimate because we have reward points that haven't been redeemed yet so I don't know for sure what they'll actually be worth - depends on how and where we use them - but I can come up with an approximate value.

More to follow.

My decluttering efforts wax and wane with my energy level, but lately, I've been at it again. Thanks to the record high temp on Sunday, I spent a few hours in the garage which is organized chaos with stacks of boxes of who knows what. My main goal was to clear a path to the side entry door which we never use. We've had some trouble with the garage door lately and we want to be able to use the side door just in case we need it. I did accomplish that. I also threw out a couple of items that were taking up a lot of space and had not sold at our last 2 yard sales or on Craigslist. I hate to throw stuff away but sometimes you just have to (it wasn't stuff worth donating anywhere).

Next, I realized that my dresser had gotten out of hand again. Not nearly as bad as it used to be, but not as nice as I had made it before either. That actually cleaned up pretty quickly. It is always easier to keep stuff clean than to get it clean in the first place.

Besides that, just the usual of trying to pay attention to the clutter and clearing things when I see them anywhere in the house (or car). Stuff just piles up and will sit there for ages until one of us gets tired of looking at it. I'm trying to stay aware of those kinds of things and just pick up or put away one thing here and there when I pass it.

Best wishes for an organized and decluttered 2009.

I'm waiting for the end of the year so I can sit down and start doing all the review stuff for the year, adding up spending, credit card charges and rewards earned, portfolio review (ok, maybe I'm not looking forward to that so much this year), totaling up survey income, ebay sales, half.com sales and more. I enjoy gathering all the data and running all the numbers and seeing how things turned out for the year.

I know I could get started now and just add in any late data (like the 3 survey payments I got today or the half.com sale I made yesterday) but it just seems like the year should actually be over when I do it.

I'm sure I'll make a few posts with my review once I have all the numbers compiled.

Have a safe and happy New Year's Eve everyone.

I see a number of entries and forum posts on the topic of financial goals for 2009. As I peruse them, it occurs to me that I really don't have any such goals. My goal for 2008 was to pay off the home equity loan. I did that on Saturday. We are now debt-free except for the mortgage. I'm going to add part of the former home equity payment to the mortgage, part to general savings and part to adding texting to our cell phone service.

I really haven't identified any other goals or change in plans for 2009. Everything is cruising along smoothly. I don't anticipate any changes in my employment or DW's employment.

We haven't made any definite travel plans but have pretty much decided to go to Disney World for two weeks at the end of August.

I'm hopeful that neither of our cars will need replacing in the coming year.

There are some things we need to do around the house, but nothing overly costly that would require special planning. Just stuff that can be covered out of our regular income.

We always max our Roths. DW contributes the maximum allowed to her 401k. Thanks to paying off the HEL, I just upped my savings rate from 19% to 20%. As always, in June, I'll see where things stand and up it to 21% July 1st if that seems doable.

There just isn't anything big on the 2009 horizon.

I set up a MySpace page ages ago because one friend invited me, but I've never done anything with it and don't even visit the site.

Today, I got 4 e-mails from old college friends inviting me to Facebook. I e-mailed one of them to make sure the invites were real and not the result of some virus invading someone's address book. Once he confirmed it, I went ahead and signed up. In no time at all, I had messages from 3 of my friends. I also found a bunch of other people who I either went to college or med school with. Clearly, Facebook is the preferred site over MySpace for social networking. I will try and avoid getting sucked in and spending too much time there, but it is really neat seeing these people who I've been out of touch with for so many years.

I just want to wish all of my Jewish friends a very happy Chanukah. We made latkes tonight before lighting candles and opening presents. I hope all of you have a wonderful holiday.

Wow. I was just looking at the sidebar and realized that I started my blog in October 2006. Time really flies. I had no idea it has been that long. I've posted over 200 entries. I always feel like I don't blog much, but I guess even just a few entries each month really adds up after more than 2 years.

Thanks to all who visit.

This is not a financial post. I don't do many personal posts, but just felt like writing today.

December is a rough month in the Disneysteve household. My brother, my father and my wife's father all died in December. Today is my brother's birthday and the anniversary (on the Jewish calendar) of both our father's deaths.

My brother was 28 when he died in 1987 of a drug overdose. We weren't all that close, especially in the 6 years before his death, due to his drug use. But I still am sad about his death and about it's effect on my mom and the family.

My dad died suddenly of a heart attack in 1992, 5 months after our wedding.

My father-in-law died of lung cancer in 1993. He had been sick for a while. In fact, we really expected to lose him before my father.

We are grateful that both of them were alive for our wedding but we're sad that neither lived to know our daughter. They both loved kids and would have been great with her.

So that's where my head is today.

My last 2 ebay auctions ended last night. I will not be listing any more items until after the first of the year, so I thought I'd see how I made out. I sold on ebay very little this year - a few weeks in the spring and the past 2 weeks. My sales totaled $507.81 of which $252.94 came since 11/23. Not a lot, but just fine for the limited effort I made.

On half.com, I've had sales of $116.03. I still have items listed and will continue to add items as I get them. Since it is a fixed-price setting, I see no reason to stop listing because of the holidays.

So that's a grand total of $623.84 with the possibility of some more coming in from books sales. Certainly not an earth shattering amount, but all money I didn't have before. Virtually all of the books sold were ones I got for free, so that is pure profit. Numerous ebay auctions were for items I got for free. Others were items I bought for resale but bought so long ago that the money was gone and forgotten, so essentially, that pretty much counts as all profit at this point. Plus, every item sold is one less item taking up space in the house.

My intent is to ebay more seriously in 2009. I'd like to see sales of $100/month or more which I think is a very doable goal.

This is not a financial post, just something I wanted to share.

Those who have (or have had) a teen will understand when I say that there are brief moments in time when you get a glimpse of hope, a sign that there is a light at the end of the parenting-a-teen tunnel. We had one of those fleeting moments today.

We were finishing up dinner and out of the blue, our daughter turned to me and said thank you for introducing her to good food and cooking and stuff. Dinner wasn't even anything particularly fancy, but good home-cooked comfort food - ravioli, homemade sauce, grilled veggies, fresh grated Locatelli, and Italian bread with freshly roasted garlic. She said she's glad that we make stuff like that and that we're teaching her to cook and to appreciate good food.

I nearly fell off my chair. It isn't often that sincerity like that comes out of her mouth. I'm glad to know that she actually does appreciate things that we do for her and with her, even if she doesn't always show it or acknowledge it.

As of tonight, my ebay sales since I started listing on 11/23 total $214.69. My half.com sales since 10/1 total $96.77. That's a grand total of $311.46! Since my goal was to pick up about $200 by year end, I'm happy with that. Of course, it isn't all profit. I'll sit down and tally up what I actually made once my remaining 6 active auctions end.

I don't think I'm going to start any more auctions until after the first of the year. It is too late to list stuff for Christmas (I don't want to do 1 or 3 day auctions) and I think buyers fade as the holidays get closer.

I'll start up again in January.

I realized that I haven't posted about any casino trips for a while. We've actually gone quite a few times. My wife and I have enjoyed going to one of the PA casinos that is about 25 minutes from home, less than half the travel time as to Atlantic City. It is easier for us that way since we have to leave our daughter home alone when we go. That way, we aren't out as long. We can be there and back within 3-4 hours.

Anyway, we took a ride there yesterday. I convinced DW to play blackjack with me and stop throwing money away on slots. She likes playing them but I know the odds are horrible. At least at blackjack, you've got a good chance of winning.

So we both sat down at a $10 blackjack table (these are electronic tables, not live dealer games). She started with $100. I started with $200. We played for about 20 minutes and she was up to $205. I was actually down a bit, maybe $170 I think. She decided to cash out and go play slots. She'll usually budget $100 for play so this way, she'd be playing just with her winnings. She also had $25 in free play that the casino had sent her.

I continued to play and ultimately walked away with $285. Not bad - a 42.5% gain on my investment. Sure beats my stock portfolio.

My wife, of course, went to a slot machine where she lost her $100 and the $25 they had given her, so she ended up ahead by just $5, though I suppose that still represents a 5% gain.

We had lunch at their diner and I had comp points for that so it was free.

This was actually my 6th winning trip out of our last 7 visits, so I've been having a pretty good run of luck. Hope it lasts.

I started listing on ebay on 11/23. Those items ended this past Sunday, 11/30. Only 1 of 3 sold, but I wasn't surprised. I grossed $23.06 for that one which I was happy with.

My next 3 auctions ended today. All 3 sold! I grossed $92.53 for those.

I also got my Half.com statement today and I earned $28.21 from book sales this sales period.

That's a total of $143.80. My goal for starting back selling was to earn $200 by the end of the year. I'm pretty close and still have 13 active items with $27.00 in bids already (on 2 items), so there's a good chance I'll hit $200 by the time this batch of items ends.

I know most people do ebay for the money, but honestly, I'm really doing it as part of my decluttering efforts. The money is just a bonus. The real accomplishment is getting the stuff out of the house.

ETA: For those who wonder if they should offer worldwide shipping on ebay, 2 of my 3 items today went to non-US buyers. One is going to Canada and the other to South Africa.