You have probably seen tons of advertisements from place offering to buy your gold the past few years since the price of gold has skyrocketed. These ads made me wonder how much I could get for a couple of small gold rings I had, but I never did anything about it because I doubted the rings were worth much. The other day I saw an ad with a coupon offering $10 for getting your gold evaluated whether they buy your gold or not. Since the store was close to my gym I figured it would be worth walking over and getting my rings evaluated.

The cash for gold place I went to was a jewelry store. When I went in I was directed to a desk to get my gold evaluated. The jeweler first tested my gold with a magnet too make sure it wasn’t just gold plate. The rings passed that test, which I wasn’t sure that they would. He then looked at the rings with a loupe and found that they were marked 10 karat. That is the lowest grade of gold there is, but at least the rings weren’t just gold plated. He then rubbed the rings on a stone and put a drop of solution on the stone which confirmed the rings were 10 karat gold.

The jeweler then weighed the rings on his scale. Unfortunately, they were very small and lightweight rings and only weighed 2 grams together. I was offered $20 for the rings plus the $10 bonus for the coupon and I accepted. It seemed like a pretty good deal since I wasn’t going to be using the rings anyway.

I later did the math and it was a fair offer. At first glance it didn’t seem like a good deal. After factoring in that there are 31.1 grams in a troy ounce and 10 karat gold is only 41% pure, the price I received for my gold was fair. I probably should have done the math before selling the gold since I couldn’t have done much after selling it if I didn’t get a good deal. Since it was such a small amount I wasn’t too concerned.

It seems that selling any gold you have laying around can be a pretty good deal. Especially if you have a coupon. Has anyone else tried selling gold?

A couple of months ago I found a free book on Amazon on the subject of how to make money selling things on Amazon.  Overall, I didn’t find the book very impressive, but it did have some interesting information.  One of the things I found interesting was the author’s suggestion that you could buy products on clearance deals at your local retail stores and resell them for a profit on Amazon or eBay.  That seemed unlikely to me, but I made a note to check the clearance deals next time I was in a retail store.

My first check of clearance deals was at a Walmart and they had lots of stuff on clearance.  Most of the stuff didn’t look like it would sell for much.  I did spot a Mint floor cleaner that had been marked down from $198 to $75.  It looked to be in new condition.  A quick check on my phone showed the floor cleaners were selling for over $150 on eBay.  That seemed like a good profit to me so I went ahead and bought it.  I figured if it didn’t work or didn’t sell I could just return it.

The floor cleaner ended up selling for just over $150 on eBay.  After fees I made about $50 in profit. I was a little worried that there would be a problem with the cleaner. The cleaner worked fine though, and I received positive feedback from the buyer. It was a pretty good profit for maybe an hour’s worth of work.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find another deal anywhere near as good as that one.  Maybe some stores have more stuff marked down low enough that you can resell them for a profit, but I haven’t found them.  If you are in a store with a clearance section it might be worth taking a look though. It is one more way of possibly making a little extra money.

While I was in law school I racked up about $100,000 in federal student loans.  Since I finished law school my debt has risen to about $120,000 due to accumulated interest.  Going into this much debt wasn’t smart, but I’m not concerned about the debt.

The reason I’m not concerned is because I am on the Income-Based Repayment Plan.  You can read more about the this plan at IBRinfo.org Income-based repayment caps monthly payments at 15% of your monthly discretionary income. Discretionary income is defined as the difference between adjusted gross income (AGI) and 150% of the federal poverty line based on where you live and your family size.  Based on my current income I’m not required to make any monthly payments.  That will probably change next year since I will be single.

Under IBR payments are made over a period of 25 years.  Any debt remaining at the end of 25 years will be forgiven.  That means I have about 22 more years until my loan will be paid off or forgiven.  There is also a 10 year public service loan forgiveness option that I could use if I were to obtain a public service job. This program rewards those who go into public service fields like nursing, law enforcement, and public interest law services by creating a sliding scale that determines how much I would pay each month. The amount that I would end up paying every month depends on my overall financial situation and the size of my family. Under this program, I would pay a reasonable amount every month and the rest of the payment amount is forgiven. To maintain eligibility for public service loan forgiveness, I would need to have a federally insured student loan, hold a public service job for 10 years, and make 120 payments during those years.

Some might think I should be doing everything possible to pay off this debt.  I’m not concerned about the debt though since the payments are capped at 15% of my discretionary income.  Therefore, the payments should always be easily affordable.  I’m not deliberately keeping my income low to avoid paying back the debt, but I’m not going to take just any job to pay off the debt either.

There is a risk that I will end up paying more on my debt under the IBR than using the Standard Repayment plan.  This is because the payments are spread out over 25 years resulting in a lot more interest.  I think this risk is acceptable considering the current benefits of this plan.

Do you think it is smart to use the IBR plan or do you think it is stealing?  What do you think?