Disneysteve's Common Cents Blog

As I posted earlier, one goal for 2008 is to start selling on ebay again, something I used to do a lot and have gotten away from.

On 12/27, I took advantage of the 10-cent listing sale and posted 6 items. Then on Sunday, 12/30, the day I traditionally do my ebay listings, I added 5 more items. So I now have 11 auctions going - 6 end on the 3rd and 5 end on the 6th.

As of right now, 3 items have bids. A couple more have watchers. So I'm up and running and on my way. I haven't really set any monetary goal for my sales. I'm really more interested in decluttering and freeing up some space in our basement. The money will be a nice bonus, though.

For the new folks... I'm a family practice physician. I have the opportunity to do various surveys, both online and in person, on medical topics. These are not available to the general public. I also do Pinecone, Harris Polls and AOL Opinion Place.

My survey income for December set a new personal record (not counting the $1,500 focus group in November). I earned $668.75 for the month.

That brings the total since 6/1 to $3,240 and for the year, just over $5,400! I didn't get serious about doing the surveys until June, so I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do in 2008.

Happy New Year to all.

As per my earlier post, one goal for 2008 is to start selling on ebay again, partly to make a few bucks and partly to declutter the house.

I was going to wait until after the first of the year to start, but then I saw on one of the boards that ebay had a 10-cent listing fee sale today, so I figured I should take advantage of that. I listed 6 items. Normally, the listing fee would be $.40. Today it was $.10. So I saved $1.80 by listing those items today.

Now I just have to sit back and watch and hope they sell. Anything that doesn't sell will either go in the yard sale pile or to Goodwill. No matter what, it will be gone soon.

As I start doing the year-end financial stuff, one thing I always do is tally up the credit card charges.

Marriott Visa: $36,068.81
AOL Visa: $3,206.25
Discover: $1,176.39
----------------------
Total: $40,451.45

As far as rewards earned, we got 41,384 Marriott points. That's enough for up to 7 free nights with some points left over. At $80/night, that's about $560. We got $40 cashback from Discover. We haven't redeemed our AOL reward points yet but they're worth a few more dollars, so total rewards are a little over $600 for the year. We also got one free hotel night from Marriott that we get every year on our account anniversary. That saved us over $200. We used that when we went to New York for our anniversary in July. So really, our rewards were over $800.

I was a little surprised to see the total is nearly $9,000 more than last year. Looking back, I can explain most of that. My wife had surgery in 2006 that I didn't pay for until 1/07. That was a couple thousand. She then had surgery again in 07 that cost another $800 and some. We also started planning my daughter's Bat Mitzvah which is in September and gave deposits to the caterer, the DJ and the photographer totalling a few thousand dollars. Add in a couple of costly car repairs on our two 100,000-plus mile cars and that accounts for almost the whole $9,000.

All in all, not so bad. No late payments. Every bill paid in full each month. Zero interest charges. And only the Marriott card has an annual fee ($65) but as you can see, it is well worth paying for what we get in return (over $760 in free stays earned this year).

I realized last night that I started this blog a year ago. I registered it in October but didn't actually post until December.

Thanks to all who have read it (nearly 42,000 site visits) and commented on my postings. I enjoy doing it and it is nice to know folks enjoy reading it.

Happy holidays to all. Have a wonderful, safe, healthy and prosperous New Year!!

I was one of the early folks to get involved with ebay. I registered and started selling in May 1997, just 20 months after ebay came into existence. It was a natural next step for me as I had been selling collectibles since 1986 through a mail-order catalog and at antique and collectible shows in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Virginia.

Ebay was great from day one. It lowered my overhead tremendously and gave me a worldwide audience for my items. At my peak, in early 2000 when I was between jobs, I was running 100 auctions at all times. That year, I grossed nearly $14,000 in sales. My best month I took in over $2,600.

After getting back to work, I gradually drifted away from ebay. I've gone through spurts where I've gotten back into it for a couple of weeks, made some money and then stopped again. Not for any particular reason. Mostly just because I'm busy with other things. My total ebay sales in 2007 were under $1,000 and some of that was things I sold for my mom when she sold her house.

The problem is that I still have a TON of stuff that was bought for resale. Thousands of dollars of merchandise that is dead money sitting in my basement or garage. At this point, I'd be quite happy to regain the space and get whatever I can get for the stuff, even if some things sell for less than I paid for them. I'd rather have some money that I can spend or invest than have a bunch of unwanted stuff sitting around.

So with that in mind, my goal is to start listing on ebay again after the first of the year. I don't want to go nuts because I know that ebay can be time consuming. I figure if I can list a minimum of 5 items/week, that would be good. Anything that doesn't sell, goes either in the yard sale pile or the give-away pile. I'd like to have a yard sale in the spring, maybe late April or May. Then if it doesn't sell, it goes to Goodwill and I take the tax deduction for the stuff. At least we'll be rid of it in the house.

Once I get started, I'll be sure and post about how things are going and what kind of progress I'm making.

I haven't posted this month (except the survey income) so thought I'd try and come up with something to report.

I bought a new microwave (see prior report). I spoke to my friend who fixes appliances and he said don't bother. It is 16 years old and not worth repairing. We'll probably save more in electricity conservation than it would cost to repair. So I went to Wal-Mart and got a GE unit for $55. The first one was damaged when I got it home, but I exchanged it yesterday and the new one works fine. I used it to cook grits this morning. We lost a chunk of counter space, but we'll manage.

I took my wife's van in for service last week. With a coupon, that came to less than $200 which wasn't too bad at all. It recently turned 100,000 miles and is doing fine.

Some guys at my synagogue play in a weekly poker game and have been inviting me to join them for years. I finally did 2 nights ago. Everybody buys in for $20 - it is more about having fun and socializing than making big bucks. We played for close to 4 hours (way past my bedtime) and I lost a total of $7.00 which was just fine by me as I had a fun time. I can't see myself playing weekly, but I will join them from time to time.

My wife's birthday is on Monday. I'll give her her gift on Sunday, probably, since I work late on Monday. I know she doesn't read my blog, so I can share what I got her. We tend to buy each other practical gifts, but good quality/luxury versions. She is always complaining about her bed pillow but doesn't want to spend the money to get a better one and isn't sure which to get. Anytime we travel and stay at a Marriott, she always loves the pillow, so I ordered one from Marriott's website. It was $65 which is extravagant for us, but if she likes it as much at home as she does at the hotels, it will be well worth it.

My wife has been stressed out this week because they have been doing a special project at work and she has had to work lots of extra hours. She normally works part-time, a few hours a week, but this week has worked every day and a few days were 9am to 6pm which she hated, but at least we know it was just for this week. After today, it is back to the usual. The only good thing, which I appreciate more than her, is the extra money those hours will bring in. 50% of her pay goes to her 401K, so this week will give that account a nice boost.

Nothing else comes to mind right now, so I'll stop here. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

My online survey income for November was off a bit because I was out of town from the 2nd to the 12th and didn't do any surveys during that time. There is some lag time between when I do the survey and when the payment comes in, so I still collected plenty from surveys done in October and some done in November came in before the end of the month.

Anyway, total for the month was $472. Certainly nothing to complain about. That brings the total since 6/1/07 to $2,571.25.

Also, my Chicago trip was in November and that was basically an extended in-person survey/focus group. I was paid $1,500 for that.

I was making breakfast this morning and nuking some veggie bacon strips when there was a quick zzzt sound and the microwave went dark. Never a good sign. I immediately stopped what I was doing and headed downstairs because the last time our microwave blew out, it was because there was a short circuit in our circuit box and when I went downstairs to check, smoke was pouring out of the box.

Fortunately, that wasn't the case this time. The box was fine. The circuit was still on. Just the microwave was dead. I came back up and checked the oven, which is an all-in-one unit with the microwave, and it was still working. So we have one dead built-in microwave. I'm quite sure it isn't worth repairing as it is about 15 years old.

So I think we will be cleaning and rearranging our kitchen counters today to make a space for a countertop microwave. At least those aren't terribly expensive, but we've been hit with several unexpected bills lately that are starting to add up to a few thousand dollars. So be sure you keep that emergency fund fully funded.

My trip to Chicago went well. Except for a flight delay leaving due to fog, everything else ran smoothly. The weather there was beautiful - sunny and clear. Not that I really got to be outside at all.

I landed there about 5:00pm Monday. There was a car service waiting to take me to the hotel about 10 minutes away. I checked in and put my bag in my room and went down to register for the conference. Dinner wasn't until 7, so I relaxed in the room a bit. At 7, I went down and they had a small reception and buffet dinner which was very nice. There were 11 doctors plus several reps from the pharma company and the company running the conference. We ate and talked for a couple of hours and I was back in my room before 10.

Yesterday morning, I went down to breakfast just before 8 and the conference started at 8:30. Other than a short morning break and lunch, we were in the room until we finished up around 3. We handed in our eval forms, got our checks and got right on the shuttle to take us back to the airport.

It was an interesting conference and I enjoyed meeting some other docs and discussing various things with them. It isn't something I'd want to do regularly and I'm glad I don't have a career that involves a lot of travel, but it was fine and the check made it worth my while.

I took my car to the body shop Monday morning (see my previous post for the story). The administrator from the company involved in the accident promised he would pay the body shop directly. So today, I called the shop at lunchtime to see if the car would be ready as promised. They said it would be and should they call the other company directly regarding payment. I gave them the number and they called back a short time later to say the payment was made and the car was ready.

I picked it up after work and it looks terrific. Far better than it looked BEFORE the accident. The detailed the whole car, inside and out. Plus, the left front fender was repainted and the front bumper and grill and light assembly is new. It matches quite well, but it isn't hard to tell which parts are brand new and which are 10 years old.

I had to front the money for the rental car but I will fax over the receipt next week and don't anticipate a problem getting reimbursed since they handled the body shop bill so smoothly and promptly.

So an unneeded ordeal, but one that was resolved very easily.

Earlier today, someone was in the office and one of the girls asked him what he does. He said he works for XYZ collection agency (not the actual name). Two of the 3 people in the office beside me said they have accounts in collections with that company and went on to discuss it like it was perfectly normal.

If I had any accounts in collections, I certainly wouldn't be bragging about it and discussing it openly like that. I'd be ashamed of myself for allowing that to happen and not being able to pay my bills. Back when I had student loans, due to accounting problems, I had accounts get turned over to collections by mistake a couple of times and I spent hours on the phone getting those accounts straightened out as soon as possible.

Maybe I'm the strange one.

During work yesterday, someone called the office and asked if any of us owned the red car parked on the side street because someone had hit it. I was the lucky one. I went out and sure enough the left front corner was smashed. Apparently, a plumber was turning into the driveway and misjudged the turn, taking the corner of my car with him. The turn signal got destroyed, the front bumper is shredded and the side fender panel is scratched up.

I called the main office for the company and the business administrator came over to see the car and said they'd pay for everything, including a rental car while it was being fixed, so at least the process shouldn't cost me anything.

After work, I went to the body shop and got an estimate: $1,400. They said they'd need the car for about 3 days. I'm going to bring it in first thing Monday morning so I can have it back Wednesday before the holiday. I'm just hoping everything goes smoothly and quickly and it gets fixed up good as new (or at least as good as 10 years old) by next week at this time.

I'm not sure if it will be more trouble than it is worth, but my partner got invited to a medical conference in Chicago and doesn't want to go. We contacted them and I am able to go in his place.

The deal is they pay for airfare, ground transportation, hotel and meals. PLUS, they pay me $1,500 for attending.

So I'll be leaving a week from Monday and coming home on Tuesday. Like I said, it is a bit of a hassle, but for $1,500 I'll suffer.

What I'm really hoping is that this company does programs like this regularly and this will get me on their list for future programs. I wouldn't mind doing that a couple of times each year.

Quick recap for anyone new - I'm a family practice doctor and I regularly have the opportunity to do online medical surveys. These can take anywhere from 10 or 15 minutes to an hour to complete. Some are fairly simple. Others are pretty involved and tedious. But they do pay well. I used to ignore most of the invitations I got and several months ago, decided to start doing every one I possibly could.

For the month of October, I earned $585.00 doing these surveys. That beat last month by $5 and brings the total since June first to $2,099.25.

I got my bank statement yesterday and sat down last night to balance the checkbook. I got 2 nice surprises when I did.

First, on 9/17, our NJ Homestead Rebate (or whatever they call it now) was direct deposited. That was $956.93.

Second, I neglected to record my wife's 9/27 paycheck. That was $427.19.

So a total of $1,384.12 turned up that wasn't previously accounted for. What a nice way to start the weekend.

I realized I didn't mention my last casino visit. I went to Harrah's Chester on Sunday morning. I played for a little over 2 hours and ended up slightly ahead. I made $42.50. I also earned 950 comp reward points. Comp points are essentially worth a penny each, so about $9.50. That makes the total won $52.00. Not spectacular but not a bad way to spend a couple of hours on a Sunday morning when I had nothing else going on.

DW and I agree that we haven't been eating all that healthy lately and need to get back on track with diet and exercise. I decided to take a trip to Whole Foods today and spend some time exploring some different options, particularly looking for some healthier snack options since that is often our downfall.

I picked up a number of new things to try, a couple of which we already sampled tonight and liked. I was mainly focused on items with little to no saturated fat, no trans fat and no high fructose corn syrup.

The one problem with those things is, of course, that they are more expensive than the crappy versions, but I'm willing to spend a little more for good health. Also, we are working to get back to cooking at home more and eating out less which will save a lot of money. I'd rather spend it on better quality groceries than on high calorie meals out.

My wife started working in July. We filled out the 401K forms to have 50% of her salary deducted and go into the plan. The first couple of paychecks only had 3% taken out, so we figured they hadn't processed her paperwork yet. They do 3% automatically for everyone. Then we went out of town for a couple of weeks and I didn't get a chance to question it. Finally, in September, it still wasn't right, so I went online and downloaded the form again and resent it.

She got her paycheck yesterday and it is finally correct. 50% going to the 401K plus a 3% match. She only works part-time but still, 50% is a whole lot more than 3%. That should add up nicely assuming she stays at the job for a good long time.

I always say, half-joking, that every dollar she puts away for retirement is one less dollar I have to put away and that much sooner we can both call it quits.

This isn't a financial post, just so you know.

I went for my semi-annual periodontist appointment today. I always feel like I'm on a construction site. First they go at me with the metal picks. Then they get out the powerwasher and blast me with a high-powered stream of water. Then they finish me off with the mint-flavored sandblaster. I always joke that next time, I want them to do my face and give me a dermabrasion treatment at the same time.

Quick recap - I am a physician and get to do various online medical surveys. These are not the kind available to the general public. They can be fairly detailed, really quite tedious at times, but pay very well. I used to skip a lot of them just because I didn't feel like doing them or wasn't in the mood or whatever. I decided a few months ago to see how much I could earn if I did every single one I could.

So far, I got $293 in June, $370 in July and $271.25 in August.

Anyway, September was a banner month. I just added everything up and for the month, I earned $580!! I can't believe I used to let these things go. That's a total of $1,514.25 in 4 months. I certainly won't ever ignore those e-mails again.

I posted awhile ago about how I do surveys for one company that pays me in Amazon.com gift certificates. I get $30 each time I do one, and I've done as many as 5 in a month, so the money adds up pretty quickly. At first, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it all, but the more I browse, the more I've discovered that Amazon sells pretty much everything. And they have pretty good prices, too. My most recent order, a few days ago, was a scientific calculator DD needs for school, vacuum cleaner bags and an ink cartridge for my printer. After that order, I checked to see if they sell the filters for my aquarium, and sure enough they sell those too. So rather than ordering from the pet supply company I've always used, I'll start getting them from Amazon with my free credits.

The great thing about this particular survey company is I can do their surveys pretty much whenever I want. I don't have to wait to be invited. I log in to my account and there is a list of available programs. I can even do a program more than once, as long as it is still on my list. The only negative is I can only do them until 6pm Monday-Friday and, I think, until 4pm on Saturday. Of course, most of my free time is in the evening. I'd do one every night if I could.

My wife started her new job back in July. We signed her up for the 401K and requested 50% of her salary go to the plan. The first couple of paychecks, only 3% was deducted, which they do automatically, so we just figured they hadn't processed the request yet. Then we went away for 2 weeks followed by her surgery, so she didn't work for about a month all together.

On Friday, she got her paycheck and they are still only deducting 3%. I went online tonight and downloaded the salary reduction form and we filled it out again and will mail it in the morning. Hopefully, this will solve the problem and she'll start getting the 50% deducted and the full company match.

I got an e-mail today from one of the online companies for which I do medical surveys. It said that I have accumulated $165 in my account for surveys done dating back to April but I need to log-in to my account and confirm my mailing address before they can send out a check.

I didn't start closely tracking the surveys I do until June or July, so I didn't realize I had never been paid for these surveys.

So that was a nice surprise. I should be getting that $165 soon now that I've confirmed my address for them. Apparently they've changed their system so checks will now be sent automatically and not have to be requested (which I didn't even realize was the existing system). Why would anyone not want the check sent out? Kind of a dumb system.

Our daughter went on a rafting trp today from our temple youth group so DW and I took a ride down to Atlantic City.

We went to the Showboat casino. Haven't been there for years. We also wanted to see the new shops/restaurants they opened at Taj Mahal which is next door, and I figured we'd visit my cousin who has a store at Resorts (Caprice).

We got down about 10:45am. We wandered through Showboat, just looking around and checking out the smoking/non-smoking sections (we HATE being anywhere near smoke). Then we walked over to Taj to see the new shops. By then we were getting hungry and headed back to Showboat to decide where to eat.

We decided to do the buffet, but they didn't open until noon, so we hit the casino for a half hour or so. I played blackjack (that's all I play) and won $20. DW played video blackjack and lost some (not sure how much - no a lot).

Lunch was very good. The buffet is $17.99/person and I had a $7 comp coupon, so with tax and tip it came to $34.

After lunch, we walked down to Resorts to visit my cousin. There was a special prize drawing every hour at Showboat. We had been there for 1:00 and 2:00 so we made sure to be back for 3:00 and 4:00 (but we didn't win). We played for another 40 minutes or so, and I won another $80, before we called it a day. We had to pick up DD at 6:00 so we couldn't stay too much later than that (although she ended up not getting home until 7:15 but we didn't know that at the time).

Overall, a very nice day. The weather was beautiful, though a bit humid. I won $100. DW lost some, but not nearly that much - I think about $25. We got a $7 comp for food and enjoyed a great buffet.

Happy September. Time to look back at the past month. I collected a total of $271.25 from online surveys for the month. That's actually lower than I expected because I did one survey for $125 at the end of July but haven't received the check yet. Certainly not complaining, though.

I also earned points at mysurvey and a medical site that has a rewards catalog rather than cash payments.

We got home Saturday afternoon. We had a really great trip - did lots of fun things in New Hampshire. If anyone is ever thinking of visiting the state, let me know. I'll be happy to share lots of tips we gathered during our 2-week stay.

Went back to work yesterday. Busy, as expected, and lots of messages waiting for my return. I got through some of them, but still had plenty left at the end of the day.

I was actually off again today as my wife was scheduled for surgery on her hand to remove two growths on her fingers. Everything went well and she is feeling fine. Just a bit awkward having her left hand all bandaged up.

Tomorrow, I really need to start attacking the stack of charts, messages and forms at the office. Fun, fun, fun.

I did find time this morning to do one medical survey, so that earned me a $30 Amazon certificate. I tried to do more later in the day but couldn't connect with the call center (the survey is done online while speaking with a rep by phone at the same time).

I haven't totaled up the vacation spending yet. I'm really curious to do that and see how we made out. The first half of the trip was quite cheap as the hotels were free on Marriott Reward points and we hardly spent anything on activities - just on food. The 2nd part of the trip, we did more activities that had fees associated with them, and the last 4 nights, we paid for our hotel. I'm guessing that we spent somewhere in the $2,500 range for the 2-weeks including everything, but that's really just a ballpark estimate. I'll post when I have the final numbers.

Today was our next to last day of our trip and turned out to be the most expensive, but that's fine.

Even though our hotel includes breakfast, we went out to eat, something we almost never do when traveling. We had breakfast at Polly's Pancake Parlor in Sugar Hill, NH, a local landmark ($29.59). It was very tasty, definitely worth a trip if you are ever in the area.

DD and I rode the Alpine Slide at Attitash Mountain ($30). Had lunch at a nice little sandwich shop in N. Conway ($10.85) before riding the Conway Scenic Railway on a 1-3/4 hour roundtrip ride to Bartlett ($66.50). Ended with dinner in a not-so-great little place in Twin Mountain, NH ($29.76).

So $166.70 spent today (not counting gas as we drove about 150 miles).

One more day enjoying New Hampshire before heading back to the real world.

My previous post talked about non-food spending on our trip. Ima asked about food costs. Our hotel includes breakfast so we are only responsible for lunch, dinner and snacks. So far, after 8 days, we've spent $391.38. The first day, we were visiting family. We had lunch at their house and they paid for dinner out, so we spent a total of $4.50 on food that day.

If I figure based on the 7 days we've been paying our way, it is $391.38/7 days=$55.91/day or $18.64/person/day. This includes our meals, beverages and snacks.

Our typical travel average is about $20/person/day, so we're right on track. Monday and Tuesday mornings, we'll be at a hotel that doesn't serve breakfast, so we'll spend more those 2 days. Then, we'll be back to breakfast included the final 4 days.

We are in the midst of a 2-week trip to New Hampshire. My rough budget included up to $100/day for activities - admission fees, boat rentals, tickets, parking, etc. I knew there would be days we spent that much or even more and days we wouldn't. So far, on day 7, we've spent hardly anything in this category. We've spent just a few dollars in parking fees. We haven't visited any museums, have not rented any watercraft and only went to one state park that charged a fee (and that was done on an honor system, but we did pay the suggested amount).

The more expensive part of the trip starts Sunday, though, so we'll make up for it in week 2. My wife already said, at least, that she won't feel so bad spending money on stuff next week since we spent so little this week.