8.1.17 - The Walking Debt

Note: Content reposted from other blog to minimize my internet footprint

August is here!

I have been sick for like ten days, and am pretty sure I am about to qualify as an extra for The Walking Dead.  I’m convinced I caught this plague while traipsing through the AMNH with all the other snotnosed punks!  Either that or I caught some dinosaur plague.  Either that or my body is rejecting 30.
  
At any rate, the world doesn’t stop turning, and neither can I!  I have a few updates since last time.

First and foremost, I sent my first box to Swap.com!  Swap.com is an online consignment store, where anyone can send a box of gently used clothes or other approved items (baby gear, games, etc) and make money by selling them!  I did a lot of research to decide how best to dispose of my extra clothes, and Swap won out.  I really did not want any store or service where I’d have to run the risk of rejection or having to come back to collect leftovers.  Most of all I did NOT want a Portlandia-esque consignment experience, where some Generation Z-er would openly judge my clothing and give me two dollars for 10% of the items. 

Swap takes all your items at once, and pays you cash or credit for everything that is accepted, whether it sells or not!  They do have acceptance criteria, which is mainly that nothing is messed up or dirty, which seems reasonable.  At the very least, you don’t have to take anything rejected back if you don’t want it; they will donate the rest for you!  This met my own acceptance criteria for having to put in very minimal effort and zero follow-up effort.  Swap of course deducts a shipment fee for your box and takes a portion of the sales, but since they are running a business and not a charity, I also find this reasonable.

Since many people are taking advantage of this service, they are experiencing a backlog and said my entire box might not be processed for up to sixty days.  I have to wait until the first box is processed before I can send more, but I will send my next (and probably final) box ASAP.  This is merely an initial review and I am not being additionally compensated by Swap for a review.  I will let you know my honest opinion if this service is actually worth its salt once I start getting some results!

In money-saving news, I discovered that once again I was being bit by the EFT bug!  I have been ordering my groceries from Peapod for over two years (again, please reference above laziness), and I just this week discovered that paying by bank account saves you $1 on each delivery!  In addition to choosing off-peak times and taking advantage of free delivery specials, I am actually saving money on storebought groceries with the added bonus of having it delivered directly to my doorstep!
I have only bought lunch once since last Monday, and it was on my birthday, so I think I earned it.  I also got to bring the leftovers the next day for lunch!  Bam.

At the recommendation of a friend, I have joined Mint.com.  This is a service designed to help you track your spending and make better financial decisions.  So far it seems like it merely automates everything I have been already doing - and enjoy doing - manually, but with pretty colors and graphs.  Perhaps as I get more in-depth, new uses for the site will be revealed.

I paid off that silly “Miscellaneous” credit card category, so I can now say I’ve wiped one debt officially clean!  #SmallVictories



Payday this week, so I’ll have better monetary updates soon!
M


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