Disneysteve's Common Cents Blog

I post monthly about how much I've made doing medical surveys. Well, I'm not the only one in the house doing surveys. DW is signed up with mysurvey.com and gets many invites, some for quite a few points at a time. A few weeks ago, one survey asked if she would be willing to participate in a telephone interview for a $100 check. Of course, she said yes, though she was a little skeptical if it was legit. They did call and do the interview and the check arrived today! She also redeemed her points about a month ago for a $20 check, so that's $120 she has made so far from them. Not bad at all. Thanks Ima for getting us the info to sign up.

I've always resisted opening new bank accounts just to snag bonuses, but I think I'm going to give it a try. I just got mail from a local bank offering me $50 for opening a no minimum, no fee checking account. I figure I've really got nothing to lose by sticking $100 in their bank for however long I'm required to have it there to claim the $50.

I may even do the ING thing for $25. I don't know how many of those offers I've passed up over the years.

Does anyone else do this?

It has been one month since I started selling on ebay again. I listed my first items on December 27 when they had a listing fee sale and my most recent auctions ended a short time ago. I figured that was a good time to tally up how I'm doing so far.

Just to review, I've been a collectibles dealer since 1986 and sold actively on ebay from 1997 until a few years ago. I even sold full-time back in 2000 when I was between jobs for a while. Then I got away from it but still have a basement full of stock to sell. So one goal for 2008 was to start selling again, mainly to get rid of stuff and free up space. Any money made will just be a bonus in the process.

So after one month, I have had 17 items sell and 6 items not sell. My sales have totaled $131.88. I haven't totaled up the net profit yet, but as I said, the main thing is that there are now 17 fewer items taking up space around here. I'd say that was a good month.

I normally do my listings on Sunday night, but I'm going to skip listing today because I don't want things ending next Sunday when everyone is tied up watching the Superbowl. I may list tomorrow night instead.

We were, unfortunately, awake about 5:30 this morning. I've had a cold and was all congested which got me up. That in turn woke DW. Just as we were lying there talking, we suddenly heard a loud CRACK. One pane of the window next to the bed had cracked. I got up and looked outside to see if anyone was out there and had thrown something, but it was deserted. Plus, it was the inside pane that had broken. The outside pane was still intact. So it couldn't have been a rock or bird or anything like that. It just broke on it's own. Now I have to track down somebody to replace the window. We actually have another pane downstairs that cracked a while back that we never repaired, so that's 2 windows that need replacing. $$$

In a previous post, I told of my great laser printer bargain last week. The printer sat untouched until last night when I finally hauled it up to the computer room to unpack it. I also went online and ordered toner cartridges on Amazon. I proceeded to rearrange the workspace to accomodate the new printer, carefully unpack it and set it up. Then I put the CD in to load the printer software only to discover that HP doesn't provide Macintosh support for this model. I checked their website and it said the same thing. So this weekend, the printer is getting repacked and returned to the store. So much for my bargain.

Even though I'm pretty good at giving financial advice and talking about what we all "should" be doing, I'm often as guilty as the next guy about not actually taking action and doing those things we talk about.

This has been on my mind a lot recently. DW isn't thrilled with her job and may decide to go back to SAHM status at some point. Even though most of her income goes to savings, some of it still comes home and gets spent. We already took a big cut when she went from her last job to this one without really changing much but losing the current income will eventually have some impact.

A year or so ago, I met with my insurance broker and he ran quotes for me and showed that we could lower our life insurance premiums by switching companies, but I never followed through so have maintained the more expensive policies.

Then a couple of months ago, I got an online quote from another auto insurance company that would have saved us about $36/month, but never did anything with that either.

Now, we've had the discussions in the forum about mortgage rates falling and we will probably benefit from refinancing again if rates fall a bit more in the coming months. Maybe by summertime, it will make sense and save us somewhere around $50/month.

Add to that the fact that the last payment on DD's braces is in May and we'll have an extra $150/month free from that.

So if I get off my butt and redo the life and auto insurance, refi the mortgage and add in the braces money, we could see over $200/month extra in our budget. So I guess that's my goal for this year.

We had a very nice weekend, got to relax some, had some good meals, discovered a great hotel (it's not new, but we've never stayed there before) and bought some needed and not-so-needed stuff.

I did get 3 pairs of pants and one dress shirt, which were the main items on my shopping list. DD and DW each got some clothes. At the new Disney outlet, we picked up a few items for our collection and DD got some clothes. We also picked up a nice Royal Doulton Winnie the Pooh piece. They had a lot of their Disney items on sale for 70% off which made normally pricey items much more reasonable.

We used our Isaac's restaurant gift card toward lunch on Saturday. And my mom treated us to a couple of meals and paid for some of our purchases. She's been enjoying her much lower cost of living since selling her house and moving into an apartment. She also has been not feeling well lately and is finally doing better so was really glad to be able to make the trip with us. We all got along very well this weekend with only a couple of minor issues. DD (our almost teenager) behaved herself very well which made the weekend much nicer for everyone.

We decided to do a weekend get-away tomorrow. We're heading to Lancaster, PA for 2 nights. We'll do some outlet shopping, eat at our favorite restaurant (one of my patients gave me a gift certificate for the holidays), go swimming (hotel has an indoor pool) and whatever else crops up. My mom and cousin are joining us, too. We'll leave tomorrow after we're all home from work and come back Sunday night.

Hopefully, I'll come back with a few new pairs of pants. That's the main thing on my shopping list.

Our daughter is having her Bat Mitzvah in September. My plan all along has been to print the invitations, the placecards, the thank you notes, etc. Rather than paying a professional to do that, I reasoned that I could spend about the same amount, or less, to buy a color laser printer, do the work myself, and be left with the printer when we're done.

So for about 2 years now, I've been scouting the color laser printer market. At first, they were running around $499 - out of my budget. Then they drifted down to $399 - better, but still too much. Finally, they started showing up for $299 and recently those have been going on sale for $249. Since we are nearing the time when I'll need the printer, I was getting ready to bite the bullet and buy one.

Last Sunday, one of the circulars in the paper had the model I've been looking at. They are selling a factory refurbished model for $69.99!! So off I went to the store last night, expecting to hear that they only got one and it was sold already. I was pleasantly surprised to see they had several on the shelf.

One is now sitting in our living room waiting to be installed. They were out of the cable I needed and I did not yet invest in the toner cartridges as I wanted to search the best price for those online - they are costly (over $330 for a set of genuine HP or about $260 for a set of compatibles). I also need to clear off the space where the printer will sit as they are fairly large.

The Best Way to Make Your Next Vacation Really Special

If I had to give one single tip for folks to consider when traveling, it would be to think “outside the box” and by box, in this case, I mean hotel. To the average traveler, hotels are the only accomodations they consider when planning a trip. Not that there is anything wrong with hotels - I spent at least 17 nights in hotels in 2007 personally - but there is a wide range of non-hotel options out there. You can rent condos, townhouses, single homes, timeshare units, ski chalets, cabins and even tree houses using the internet as your guide.

As many of you know, I go to Walt Disney World in Florida once a year. We haven’t stayed in a hotel during those trips for many years. We have stayed in a variety of spacious condos, townhouses, single homes and timeshares often spending a fraction of what a simple hotel room would have cost us and getting far more in the process.

In 2006, we traveled to Stowe, VT and spent a week in a wonderful ski chalet with all the amenities of home and more (we don’t have a deck and definitely don’t have a large hot tub on it).

So how does one find these non-hotel properties? As usual, the internet serves as the ultimate source of knowledge (that’s what my family calls it). Start your journey at http://www.vrbo.com. VRBO stands for Vacation Rentals By Owner. It is a site where owners list homes for rent all over the world.

Do you want a tree house in New Mexico? Here you go: http://www.vrbo.com/7184

How about a luxury ocean-view condo in Maui?
http://www.vrbo.com/7999

Perhaps you want to throw another shrimp on the barbie, mate.
http://www.vrbo.com/58496

And here’s that chalet we rented in Vermont.
http://www.vrbo.com/45484

You will often find that renting a home is no more expensive than staying in a decent hotel, or even cheaper, plus it gives you a whole different experience of the area. One Holiday Inn looks pretty much like the next, but no two homes are ever quite the same. Rental homes are often located right in the middle of town so you get to live like the locals live, shop in non-tourist locations and dine where the full-time residents dine. That can also help you save money on your travels.

So the next time you are planning a trip to a new locale, or even one you have visited before, check out vrbo.com and choose to stay in a memorable place with some character and history and ambiance rather than some generic hotel where you might need to check the brochure at the front desk to remember what city you are in.

I currently have 6 items listed on ebay. Between them, they have 14 watchers but only 2 bids. Folks, if you are interested in the item, place a darn bid. Don't wait to see what everyone else is going to do. Be bold. Take action. Make the first move.

We have 2 light fixtures at our front door, 1 on either side. 1 bulb burned out a month or so ago and the other died this week, so it was time to replace them. I've tried various bulbs in those fixtures and found the Phillips Halogen bulbs seemed to last the longest. I went over to Home Depot today to buy a pair of those. After I found them, I looked at the CFLs to see how they compared. For the same price, I was able to get 2 CFLs instead. The Phillips bulbs are rated for 2 years of life at 4 hours/day. The CFLs are rated for 9 years of life at 3 hours/day. So assuming those estimates are accurate, the CFLs should last more than 3 times as long and use far less electricity. All for the exact same cost as the traditional bulbs. Sounds good to me.

The last payment on my daughter's braces will be in May. That means that starting in June, we'll have an extra $150 month available. I'm trying to decide if I should put all of it towards savings or if I'll "splurge" a little and just put $100/month to savings and leave the other $50 out for whatever comes along. I'm kind of flip-flopping back and forth on that decision. Obviously, we aren't missing the money now, so putting in all in savings makes perfect sense. I'm working on getting our home equity loan paid off by the end of 2009, so I'll probably put it toward that, which will then free up another $218/month. At that point, I will probably start making some extra payments on the mortgage. I'd like to get that paid off by age 60, which means I need to shave about 3 years off the current repayment schedule.

My latest auctions just ended a short time ago. So far, in my efforts to get back into doing the ebay thing on a regular basis, I have listed 11 items and sold 7, so about a 64% success rate thus far.

As per my plan, I also just listed 5 more items. I also opted to relist one of the items that didn't sell today with a lower starting price. It is a very nice piece, but happens to weigh about 4 pounds so postage is costly. I'm hoping the lower price attracts a buyer.

My wife has been bugging me for a few months about rearranging our family room to put in a computer desk so that we could have a computer set up on the first floor. There were a few reasons for this. One, we use the internet constantly for all kinds of information, recipes, shopping, games, etc. and it is often a pain to have to run upstairs for every little thing. Two, our daughter is 12 now and spending more time online and we'd like her doing that in a common area so we can keep an eye on what she's doing. Also, when she is doing school work, we can be there to help her without running up and down the steps every time she has a question.

We finally found a desk we liked the other day and got it at staples.com. It was $30 cheaper online than in the store and shipping was free. It came yesterday and we assembled it this afternoon. I'm sitting at that desk typing this entry on our laptop which is now set up on the new desk.

This is only vaguely a financial topic, though I did post about how we saved that $30 by shopping online instead of in the store. Also, we often use the internet to save money in other ways and having even easier access to it can only help with that.

Now, we just need to buy a printer and a little desk lamp and we'll be all set.

My first batch of 6 auctions ended today. 4 of 6 items sold for a total of $13.31. It isn't much, but 3 of the 4 items that sold are things that cost me nothing, so that's not so bad. Also, I do add a small handling fee to my shipping charge to help cover materials and auction/Paypal fees.

I did screw up one of the auction listings, though, and didn't discover my error until today. I somehow listed the wrong postage amount, undercharging by a few dollars. I'm going to try and repackage the item more compactly so it won't cost as much to ship. It will still be more than what I charged, but hopefully not too much over.

I have 5 remaining active auctions that end on Sunday. As of right now, 1 has a bid, 1 has 2 watchers and 1 has 3 watchers, so they'll probably sell. I plan to list 5 more items every Sunday.

I also used ebay to purchase some shipping supplies today. A lot of my items get shipped in 6x9 bubble mailer envelopes. I bought 12 at Staples a while ago but I'm going to need more. I checked Staples.com and they charge 13.98 for 25. I searched ebay and was able to get 25 for $10.10. For all you ebayers out there, anytime you need supplies - envelopes, bubble wrap, tape, etc., check ebay first. The prices can't be beat.

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.