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May 4, 2012

Multi-tasking: Declutter AND Earn Cash

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At the beginning of March, I had a grand idea to get the house cleaned up, get rid of a bunch of stuff we couldn’t/didn’t use anymore, and make this place feel all the larger for it.

Yeah, so, then I quickly got a new job and found myself busy again. Whoops.

Of course, I’m about as happy as someone could possibly be with my job, so there’s no complaining about work taking me away from my side projects. But I would like to start shifting some of my free time back to those to-do lists I created two months ago.

 The guest room pile o’ stuff that needs sorted and (most of it) removed.

To go along with that idea, this is also the season where money gets tight. Mira’s birthday (and birthday party) is at the end of this month. Aaron, my mother and I all have birthdays in June. And of course summer camp costs are hanging over us, reminding me why we don’t pay for private school during the school year.

So I’m combining tasks to get rid of things and hopefully get a little extra money in the process. I do not have the patience for a garage sale; when we’ve done them in the past, I just got angry at how little people were offering for already freakishly cheap stuff. I’m also not a fan of Craigslist because I get nervous about having people show up at my house if I might be the only one at home.

In Columbus, we have several used clothing and home goods stores that accept gently used products and pay out cash for them. In other cities, consignment stores might be the way to go. I prefer the cash on the spot places because I don’t want to risk the items coming back to my house, and don’t want to wait forever to find out if they sold or not.

I’m fairly experienced at turning some of our old junk into money, so I thought I’d share my strategy for getting a little extra cash in exchange for freeing my house of junk, just in case you ever thought about trying it yourself:

1. Sort the stuff you don’t want. Anything in good condition – free of stains and tears, no missing parts, and no serious signs of wear – goes in one pile. Anything beyond use is immediately thrown away. Everything else gets itemized and boxed up for a donation to Goodwill.

Remember: donations are still money for you, even if it takes awhile. If you keep track of what you donate and get a receipt, you can use it for a deduction on your taxes.

2. Polish up all of those items in your good condition pile. A few minutes of ironing, dusting, and wiping down your items can increase your chances of it being accepted and possibly even increase how much you’re offered for it. Any clothing should be clean, folded and free of lint or pet hair. Anything with accessories or extra parts should have the parts bundled together to keep them from getting lost. Check the requirements for the store you’re going to – some won’t accept items in boxes or bags and request fabric bins or plastic baskets.

3. Drop off your items. At the stores here in Columbus, you can wait in-store or stop back later in the day or the next day to see the results. You’ll probably have to sign an agreement for them to look over your items and free them from any liability should anything happen to your items while they’re looking them over. It’s mostly just a formality – any reputable place will keep your items behind the counter or within eyesight to keep others from picking through your goods.

Depending on how many others have dropped off items before you, there may be a wait to get your stuff evaluated. You’ll likely be given a receipt or some other way to link you to your stuff so there’s no confusion.

4. Get your offer. The stores I’ve gone to will separate the items they’d like to buy in a different basket. They show you the items and give you a total for what they’d like to buy. If you have questions about how much they’re offering for any single item, just ask. If you’re content with the offer, you’ll sign an acceptance form and be given your cash. If you’re at an consignment store, you’ll be shown which items they want to display in the store – you won’t get any money until an item sells.

Note: Don’t expect a lot of money. It’ll be better than a yard sale offering, but probably less than Craigslist. Usually you’ll get anywhere from 1/6 to 1/10 the original price of the item. But you also don’t have to write up an ad for each item, take photos of it, or sit out in your garage in the heat all day while someone asks you if you have change for a $20 so they can buy your Jonas Brothers CD for ten cents.

5. Take the unwanted stuff and immediately get rid of it. There will probably be some things that the store doesn’t want. There are lots of reasons for this – out of season, no demand, they already have five of them etc. Don’t fall into the trap of taking it back home and letting it sit around more – grab a bag or a box, make a list of the items and then drop it off at Goodwill or another charity organization. You didn’t want it in the first place, right? Then why take it back home to clutter up your house again? Get rid of it, get your charity receipt, and plan to add it to your tax deductions next January.

I’ve used this routine several times to get rid of kid clothing that both girls have outgrown. Just last week I dropped off a basket of clothing, a few DVDs the girls no longer watch, and some baby board books to Once Upon A Child (one of the kid resale shops here) and received $51 for it.

I only put an hour of work into cleaning out drawers, sorting and selecting items – not a bad return on my time, and that’s another basket’s worth of stuff out of our house!

In the next week, my goal is to begin cleaning out my closet and getting rid of all of the clothing that no longer fits me. I have several nice dresses, blouses and dress pants that might earn a little money, and I’ll be thankful to have more hangers available for the clothing I DO wear!

Filed Under: daily life, domestic zero, money ·


Nov 29, 2011

Winning at Black Friday

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The sales this year promised some amazing deals. And most of them required you to stand out in the rain and cold for half of Thanksgiving if you wanted any chance at the hot doorbuster items. Seems like a lot of suffering for a cheap waffle maker.

Me? I waited for a total of 20 minutes combined at all of the stores I went to. I don’t mess around on Black Friday.

First, I took advantage of Black Friday online deals. Why wait until Cyber Monday when many of the same Black Friday doorbuster deals are available online on Thanksgiving day? At 6am I scored a new laptop at an incredible discount to replace Aaron’s broken laptop, all from the comfort of my computer desk. (And with convenient local store pickup!) I had to click quickly, as they sold out in less than five minutes, but it worked.

On Friday, when the checkout line for Kohl’s wrapped to the back of the store, I briefly considered not buying the new clothing my two growing kids needed. But then a sales associate announced that anyone who signed up for a Kohl’s card that day could go to the front of the line. Bingo. I was out the door quickly. I’ve been waiting for the right time to sign up for a card, and the right time presented itself.

We also didn’t shop for a lot of the big ticket items. The Xbox 360 bundle was hot this year, but we wanted the deal on the Wii as a gift for my aunt. Aaron did have to wait a little for that one at Walmart, but not too long. Everyone else wanted the TVs and Xbox bundles.

But my top score of the shopping weekend? A new mattress. (Exciting, no?) Macy’s had a mattress set for $249, normally $850. My lumpy mattress has been a constant source of back pain and poor sleep for quite some time. So I was in line when the doors opened at midnight for that one, and made sure I was the first to the mattress department. It’s a lovely mattress with a great warranty and I can’t wait to sleep on it.

I honestly hate the crowds and the frenzy of Black Friday, but I do appreciate the deep discounts on items I’m looking for. The key is to stick to the sale items, and really think about what you need versus what the hype is telling you to buy. We bought a few gifts and a few must-have items for our house that we were already planning to buy, and we saved well over $1200 compared to what we would have paid for these same items if they weren’t on sale.

Which means when it comes to Black Friday shopping, I think I can safely say I won.

Anyone else get any great deals online or in the store this weekend?

Filed Under: daily life, holidays, money, pop culture, shameless bragging ·


Oct 14, 2011

After These Messages

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When it comes to family TV time, we usually limit our selections to Nick Jr (Noggin), Disney Junior, Netflix or DVDs. My thinking was that if I’m going to let my kids watch TV, I’d prefer to limit them to TV free of commercials while they were very young.

I never expected them to shun all marketing and I knew that the licensed characters they saw on TV shows would still lead them to want toys with those characters on it. But if it limited their consumerism even a little, I figured it was worth it.

But then we discovered My Little Pony on the Hub network. And now I’m doomed.

Hub has at least two commercial breaks during every show. We try to Tivo episodes and then watch them with the girls, fast forwarding through commercial breaks. Then there are those times when I let the girls watch TV so I can get something else done, and I’m not always there to hit that fast forward button. Meaning they get to see every “Act now for this incredible offer!” promotion.

So, what do my two impressionable young daughters think of commercials?

Mira now chants, “Take me to Party City!” thanks to their Halloween commercial. Children in the commercial repeat that same statement over and over, and she’s now convinced that she needs to go there for her Halloween costume.

Cordy told me she’d make fewer messes with her snacks if I’d buy her a gyro bowl. Never mind the fact that she never makes a mess when eating a snack.

Mira is begging me for an insulated lunch bag that will keep her lunch cold for up to 8 hours. When I remind her that none of her lunch needs to be kept cold, she gets upset and points out that, “Dat mom bwogger on TV wecommended it!” I guess in her mind, all mom bloggers must stick together and use the same products.

Mira also insists that the chocolate milk shown in one commercial would be “healthy” for her. I tried to explain that just because they say it’s “healthier” because it’s a good source of vitamin D and calcium and is free of high fructose corn syrup doesn’t change the fact that it’s still filled with sugar. And that all milk has calcium and vitamin D.

Mira even asked if we could please buy one of those aluminum storage building. You know, because we need a carport or hobby building next to our garage or something. And they’re sooooo shiny.

I won’t even begin to discuss all of the pillow pets, make-your-own stuffed animals, play-doh ice cream factory and other toys they now insist they can’t live without.

Marketing works, folks.

After recovering from the horror of watching my kids mindlessly ask for junk they don’t need just because the TV told them they wanted it, I decided that this was a prime chance to teach them about persuasion and marketing.

I still fast forward through most commercials, but occasionally we watch them together and discuss what the people who made the ad were trying to do. Did they want us to do something or buy something? Why do they say we need it? Do we really need it? Do we already have a similar item that works well for us?

It’s also started a discussion about money, both how we get money and what we do with it. Cordy and Mira still have trouble understanding that we have a finite amount of money to spend, and there are some things we have to spend our money on first (bills) before we can then consider items that aren’t as necessary. Progress is slow in this area, but I think if we keep talking about it with them it’ll sink in.

I won’t rant about the “evils” of marketing. I know that businesses need to sell their products, and it’s up to their marketing departments to find a way to make the product appealing so that people will want to part with their money. Hell, I have an entire review blog devoted to trying out products of interest, using my real-life experience with an item to help provide an honest testimonial for the product. I sell ad space on my blog. I get it.

But just because I believe there is a place in the world for marketing doesn’t mean I plan to let my children be blind followers of consumerism. If they’re going to see commercials (and as they get older they’ll be exposed to more and more everywhere they go), I want them to think about more than what’s being presented on the surface and consider the truth behind what’s being said. Is that chocolate milk really healthier? Healthier than what? It certainly can’t be as healthy as plain white milk, right?

I think this will be a lesson that continues for some time. I’m glad they didn’t see as much advertising when they were younger, but now is a good time to start explaining how it works. They’re as receptive to the message we’re giving them as they are to the commercials – here’s hoping we can be a little more persuasive than the marketing professionals at least most of the time.

(I can’t say all the time, because let’s face it – marketing works on me, too!)

Full disclosure: Just in case it needs to be said, I do not endorse any of the products listed above, and specifically will NOT be taking Mira to Party City for her costume, but instead plan to visit a locally owned costume shop.

Filed Under: Cordy, daily life, Mira, money, pop culture · Tagged:


Sep 20, 2011

Greener Pastures and the Green-Eyed Monster

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Most days I’m happy to get Mira to preschool as fast as possible, allowing someone else to handle that atomic bundle of four-year-old energy so that I can get some sleep after a long night of work.

But occasionally, when walking the halls of her preschool, I feel a little jealous.

Jealous of the bright-eyed moms talking to each other in the hallway while they sip their coffee, making lunch plans for themselves and their children after class.

Jealous of the moms with the ponytails and workout clothing, taking advantage of their free time to get in a workout and maybe run some errands afterward, but not before relaxing in the sauna first.

Jealous of the moms who stick around to volunteer in the classroom, helping all of the kids with their smocks for finger painting and bringing in a homemade snack for the class.

Mira’s preschool has a large percentage of parents who are, shall we say…affluent. For many, the moms are stay at home moms, or if they do work, it’s only part-time. (I can only assume the dads do some type of Very Important Work that pays well.) These moms have free time that I can only dream of at the moment.

Seeing the other moms breezing through the hallway, not a wrinkle of stress showing, is a stark contrast to me, plodding down the hall half-asleep as Mira pulls me along, stress and exhaustion written all over my face, realizing I forgot (again) to bring in the family photo her teacher has been requesting for weeks.

I stare longingly down the corridor that connects the school to the gym, wishing I had the time and energy to fit in a workout, or that I was awake enough to chat with the other moms and maybe make new friends. Instead, all I can think about is going home to sleep for a few hours before I repeat the cycle of dinner, work, preschool dropoff and sleep again.

But I know jealousy is a tricky little beast. There’s more to the story than what it chooses for me to see. The moms who make life look like a summer vacation could be hiding any number of problems under their Lululemon workout gear and perfectly highlighted hair. There are other working moms leaving their kids behind, too, looking less haggard than me only because they’re just beginning their day instead of ending it. It’s possible they’re looking at the room moms as wistfully as I am, wishing they could be the hero of the pre-K class with homemade oatmeal raisin cookies and storytime instead of giving their child a quick kiss and rushing out the door.

I also realize that my work is what helps provide the needs and many wants for my children. It enables us to have a comfortable house and plenty of food, along with Netflix and toys and more trips out for ice cream than we should probably allow. In this age of recession and the vanishing middle class, we have a lot to be thankful for that many only wish they could have. Some may be jealous of me for being lucky enough to have a job, angry that I would ever complain about my long hours when they would gladly take my position if they could. They’re right – I am amazingly lucky to have the job that I do.

(I should add in that Aaron works just as hard and is just as pinched in his time as well. He’s forced to do more parenting and housework tasks than the average father would ever be asked to take on, but he does so with little complaint while still working full time as well.)

So I try to keep it all in perspective. I may not have lots of free time to spend with my children, but they still have what they need, even if it isn’t always what they want. The majority of my limited free time is spent with my family, focusing on the quality of our time together when the quantity is lacking. My daughters know how much I love them, even if I can’t always remember to turn in permission slips on time and have to put together mismatched outfits because I didn’t do the laundry last night. It may not be the most ideal arrangement for our family, but for the moment it works.

Although every so often, I stare across the fence at that pasture on the other side, and for a moment I lament that my side isn’t as green.

Filed Under: being a mom, daily life, family time, money, the J-O-B ·


Apr 8, 2011

Money Sucks

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I’ve said it several times: I hate money.

I hate that so many people never seem to have enough of it, and that many people who have more than enough of it don’t want to help out that first group.

But I mostly hate trying to manage my own money.

There was a time when money management was easy. That time was the pre-kids golden era. Aaron and I both worked great jobs and so our bank accounts were always fairly healthy. We also had plenty of free time, so I spent a lot of that free time tracking our money in various software programs and spreadsheets. I loved seeing where every penny went. Most bills were scheduled or paid immediately and the credit cards were carefully managed.

Post-kids, though, money management has been a little harder. I don’t have time to keep track of every penny anymore. (I try, though.) The number of bills I have to keep track of has tripled, too, with daycare expenses, pediatrician’s bills, etc. And with various lower paying jobs, layoffs and unemployment we’ve both endured over the past four years, the income hasn’t always been enough to meet needs.

Paying bills and tracking money were fun when there was plenty to play with. I loved seeing the cute bar graphs and pie graphs of where our money went and seeing trends over time. When I had to stare at much smaller numbers that didn’t match up in simple addition and subtraction equations, though, it wasn’t fun anymore. It was completely depressing, actually.

I’m the keeper of the accounts in our house, and I’ve often felt like the big meanie when telling Aaron or the kids that we couldn’t afford some purchase or trip they wanted. It’s not like I was denying only their wants: they didn’t hear me telling myself “no” on a daily basis to things I wanted as well. Wait – forget past tense – I still tell myself “no” on a daily basis. I’ve become so good at it that I’ve been told I’m impossible to shop for, because I don’t want anything. (Soooo not true, but I guess I keep my wants hidden well.)

I can see how money is a top reason for couples to separate. You fight more when you don’t have enough money just from the stress of the situation. Aaron and I have had plenty of arguments about money, and even more that had nothing to do with money on the surface, but were probably caused by our stress over money.

The good news for us is that our financial situation has improved over the past year. While I’m still not finished with our taxes yet (Note to self: seriously? You’re usually done by February 3! Get on it!) I am seeing that we’re in a higher tax bracket in 2010, and I’m OK with that. Yes, I actually wrote I’m OK with paying more taxes. 

Our financial situation was so miserable in 2009 that the government paid us back what little we had paid into taxes and gave us a nice chunk extra in addition – sort of a “Wow, we’re sorry your year sucked so much. Here – we’ll pretend you’re a smaller version of General Electric and give you a little boost for all of those deductions.” That’s the first time I’ve ever experienced a net gain on my tax forms.

Paying more into taxes for 2010 is no big deal to me, honestly – we made more money last year, and so we should pay more into the system. After all, it was that system that helped us through our rough period of unemployment, when we relied on unemployment compensation, Medicaid for our children, food assistance and WIC to help our family keep the roof over our heads. Without it and help from our families, we likely would have been yet another foreclosure statistic.

But just because we have more income now doesn’t mean I’m back to looking at our financial situation with a smile. The past few years left a huge, ugly bruise on our finances. Our credit cards were often used as a last-ditch solution when we couldn’t afford gas, food or some unexpected auto or home repair. I went back to school in 2007 and used student loans to get another degree. The mountain of debt only grew higher and higher until we stood in its shadow, hoping it wouldn’t topple on us.

I just paid off our car loan at the end of March – ten months ahead of time, too. I needed to pay it off early because our older car, after nearly 190K miles, is getting closer and closer to its final rest. We will need a new car soon. But the money I was paying to the car loan each month is now shifted to the credit cards, and I hope to have one card paid off in the next few months. I also try to put a little money in savings each paycheck. If we can keep this trend going, we might be able to breathe a little easier every time we find a bill in our mailbox.

*Knocking on wood furiously at this point so no unexpected doom befalls us. You hear me, fate?  I’m knocking loudly with both hands, and I made sure it was real hardwood, not wood laminate! I know how you work.*

I still don’t consider myself the most responsible person when it comes to money, but I’ll add that I definitely get effort points for trying. At this point, I think I’m doing the best I can. Actions that could improve our situation would be having my job move from contract to permanent, and Aaron finding a job that was more permanent. (He’s working on a short-term contract at the moment.) Overall, though, I think we’re moving in the right direction.

What about you? Have your finances suffered from the recession, and if so, how are you coping? Any money management tips you want to share with all of us?

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Filed Under: daily life, money ·