Alternative Income: Sell Stuff Online

An easy way to make some extra money is to sell your extra stuff online. The best know place to do this is eBay. I’ve also had good luck selling books at Half.com.  I buy all of my textbooks there that I can and then sell them at the end of the semester. I’ve occasionally had them sell for more than I originally paid. On the flip side sometimes I’m not able to sell them at all. You can also sell stuff through Craigslist but I’ve never tried that myself.

If you look around your house there is probably plenty of stuff that you are not using that you could sell. If you don’t have anything around the house you can still find stuff to sell. I’ve sold several items this year that I received free in the mail or retrieved from the trash. I didn’t make a lot of money off of them but given my meager income I considered it worth my time.

You can also buy stuff for the specific purpose of selling it online. You can find items at garage sales or even your local department stores. If you do this then you are basically running a business and you’ll need to report your income. That is more involved than I want to get but it might work for you. Next time you need some extra money just look around and see what you could sell.

Save Money On Clothes By Not Buying Any

So far this year I haven’t spent any money on clothing. The only clothing expenses I anticipate having are socks and underwear. Unless I’m required to buy a specific item of clothing for work I’m not going to buy any other clothing this year. (I’m going to buy some running shoes but I consider that more of a hobby expense than clothing expense.) Even though I rarely buy clothes and the ones I do buy are cheap I still have managed to amass more clothing than I need. Yesterday I donated some of the clothes I never wear and I should donate some more. Even without buying clothes they still seem to accumulate from birthdays,Christmas, race shirts and other free clothing coming my way.

It is somewhat easier for me to not buy clothing since I’m a guy and don’t need to worry about my appearance that much. For a woman’s story of not buying clothing check out  Alex Martin’s Brown Dress Project,  where she wore the same brown dress for an entire year.  I’m not quite at that level yet but I like the idea of having just one outfit. Although it would probably be more practical to have one outfit per season. I doubt many people will be as extreme as Alex Martin but it does show how less money can be spent on clothing.

Redbox: I’m Loving It

You probably already know this but Redbox is an automated DVD rental machine that allows you to rent DVDs for $1 a night. The Mcdonald’s near me got a Redbox a couple weeks ago. I’d read about Redbox before but until now there hadn’t been a Redbox close enough to me to make using it practical. Now it is providing me with very cheap entertainment. The rental is already cheap at $1 a night but after renting just two DVDs they sent me a promo code for a free rental. Doing a Google search for “Redbox promo codes” revealed even more free rental codes. Since the codes are good once per credit card by switching cards I should have free movies for the rest of the summer. The only drawback is I keep buying food at McDonald’s. Once I stop doing that this will really be a good deal.

Kicked Out of Law School

I’ve been depressed lately and this is the major reason why. I was officially kicked out of law school yesterday for academic deficiency. Since my grades were lower than I expected this semester I knew this was coming. I have a hearing on the 20th to apply for readmission. I’ve already been told this is a long shot. If the hearing doesn’t go my way than two years and almost $60,000 have been wasted. I’m not sure what I’ll do if I don’t get readmitted. I could go to a different law school and start all over again but I really do not want to start at the beginning again. For now I’m focusing on getting readmitted and I’ll make other plans if I have to.

May Income

Here is my income for May.

Online Income

$23.32

Ebay/Half.com

$35.29

Mystery Shopping

$11

Survey

$5

Jobs

$1570.58

Medical Study

$175

Interest

$21.03

CashDuck

$21.50

Total

$1862.72

Although my earnings increased quite a bit they didn’t keep up with my spending. I was rather surprised by how much more I spent than I earned. I didn’t go in debt I just spent down the money I had in my bank accounts. I have no cushion now but my next move is to build an emergency fund.