Rain, Pay Per Post and Vending Machines

It figures - It's garage sale day and it's raining. That means it has been potponed to tomorrow. I'm still feeling kind of sick anyways, so I was happy to be able to sleep in. I could run the garage sale tomorrow, but I am leaning towards going to the other garage sales instead since most of the stuff left for me to sell are not Double Challenge items. Also, all of my advertisements have said Saturday, so I fear i will fall into the trap I did last time and waste my entire morning. I'll probably better spend my time looking for bargains tomorrow, especially since I don't have many items to sell at this point.

I've been checking out the website, Pay Per Post again. I think I will try to up my post frequency so I can register and try this out. I have heard good things about them. As I understand it, they pay you to write reviews on products. I have to have 10 posts in the past 30 days in order to register, so it shouldn't take me long since I've already posted 5 times in May. I'll keep you posted on how it goes and if it is worth it.

I also was checking out the Thin Air Millionaire site. He seems to have purchased a vending route, which is making big money for him. I think I may start to research this and see if it is someting viable for me in the future. If I could somehow get some vending machines into some stores close by, this could be a long term earner with minimal effort. If it goes really well, I could even pay someone to go fill them for me. Now that is what i call passive income! We'll see though.

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Sold the Clubs

Yes! The guy came by and picked up the clubs from work today. He didn't try to bargain me down at all, so I made 30 dollars! That brings the total to over $450! It took a long time, but it turned out to be worth it. I've been sick for a week with bronchitis, so my US taxes have sat there doing nothing. I'm starting to feel a bit better, so hopefully I can get back at it soon.

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No Flyer Bites, but One for the Clubs

Well, no one signed up for the garage sale. That was a waste of time. I'm still going to have the sale though. I can't possibly imagine doing worse than last time. On the brighter side, I finally have someone interested in the golf clubs I picked up more than a year ago. They're supposed to pick them up Monday night. I don't know if they're going to negotiate for them, but I'll pretty much let them go for whatever they want - it has been a year since I have had any interest. That's pretty wierd actually. I could never figure out why I was having so much trouble with these clubs, but with the other set, they were sold within a week. I think the difference is that the other clubs were really good, while in this case, it is the bag that is good. They're differet products and no one goes hunting for a bag, while lots of people go hunting for a good set of clubs. Something to think about I guess.

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Flyers Delivered

Well, I printed off the Community Garage Sale flyers and distributed them to everyone on my street. So far no one else has signed up for it (Remember, I need 5 to get the free advertising), but there is still time. My biggest problem is that a house is being built right beside mine and there is a big big ugly rusty dumpster right beside my driveway. Talk about a turnoff. And it will block people seeing my garage sale from the main road. I'd better get some good signs made this time or no one will find me. I have my doubts that many people will sign up on my street because there is a lot of construction. About 1/3 of the houses are still being built. It's a pretty dusty enviroment for a garage sale. Still, I can't possibly do worse than last year. I'm not going to charge the Double Challenge for the printouts, or the signs because my main rule is to not affect my real finances and I can honestly say I would have had this garage sale anyways. There's only a few double items, but the greater majority will be crap I owened before the Double Challenge started. I'll be glad to get rid of it all. And hey, look at the bright side. Whatever I don't sell, I can just heave into the dumpster instead of lugging back into my basement.

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The Garage Sale Redemption!

I just noticed that my community is having a "Community Garage Sale". If 5 people sign up on your street, the community association (I didn't even know we had one) will include your street in the newspaper advertising! I really hope this goes better than it did last year. The posts for that dismal Garage Sale are here and here. This time I hope to end up in the black (That sounds really wierd for a garage sale. You have to suck pretty bad to end up in the red for a garage sale). I should do MUCH better since my mistake last time was a lack of marketing and choosing a very poor day. This time, there should be people out in droves since there will be lots of free advertising and people with garage sales all over the place. The only problem is that no one else has signed up on my street yet. I've printed off some flyers to give out to my neighbors to try and get them to sign up. I NEED that free advertising. I'll keep you posted.

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Finished Once over of 2006 Taxes

I've finally done a once over of my 2006 US taxes. Boy, are they ever different than the Canadian kind. I really hope I did them right. The good news, is I have $0 owing. I still have some questions about where I put some forms of income, but even with this in I should still owe $0 for 2006. Hopefully the rest come out this way. I'm probably going to have to go to H&R Block or some other tax help place to make sure I'm doing this right, but one thing is for sure - I don't have the money to just pay them to do 7 years of taxes. That would probably be something like $1400 bucks! I think I'll do my 2005 and 2007 years before I go there though because I was in Australia in 2005 and sold my house in 2007. Might as well get all my questions ready at the same time.

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