Those times when scraping is an advantage

OK, so, when something from a nice brand in the original box comes into my home (hey, it happens sometimes -- online closeouts, eBay, new or close-to-new stuff at thrift stores, TJMaxx, etc.), and I need to save it for a birthday or whatever, I've discovered I actually don't even need to hide it aside from just sticking it on a shelf.

People in this house see a box with a brand name on it and the last thing they assume is that anyone here bought any such thing. They just figure someone gave me something in that box and I saved it, or I rescued some out of the building's recycling or someone packed my items in it at a garage sale or something. #winning

Wheeee more free Amazon money, from different places this time

OK, this is pretty great when things like this just show up in my inbox.

The $100 one, I'm not even sure what it's from. The company name was a pretty generic research project name. I've frequently gotten offers on Swagbucks and MTurk and other places to provide them with additional feedback either to enter to win an Amazon gift card or to get an Amazon gift card. I generally figure, why not, I have a lot of time and not a lot of money, so I might as well help out and see what happens. The thank-you message suggested it was from a survey and was their thanks for my helping them out, not from winning a drawing. Note: I don't do this when it's something that sounds scammy, and I typically don't volunteer my time for market research around consumer products. I will if it's nonprofit-type research.


The $75 one was also a surprise; a friend who works in healthcare patient-experience research posted on social media looking for people who could comment about practices and policies in our various states of residence, and I responded with some personal experiences and a lot of links to pages on state/hospital/university websites that I found on the google. The friend's project director e-mailed and thanked me for the information and asked me what my pay rate was for this type of work. Damn, apparently 1) I've apparently been working in the wrong fields, since I assumed she was looking for volunteer assistance and 2) I apparently need to set pay rates for things! I just responded to him that it took about 30 minutes of work, and I hadn't expected anything for it. He responded with the $75 Amazon card and said he hoped it was enough. Um, OK!

I guess the moral of this story is, be nice. Do things without expecting anything in return, and you may just get something tangible in return. And if you don't, then you still come out ahead. Also, apparently we all need to look into which fields have a ton of money lying around and very different standards in terms of what people are worth. And be sure to set your pay rate.

Oh, and people who are new to having a large portion of your family income be in Amazon gift cards; spend some time checking out what all Amazon sells. They sell damn near everything, and their prices are often the best ones for new items, except for some IKEA and Dollar Tree items. I've bought nonperishable groceries items, hygiene items, office supplies, books obviously, snow boots, other clothing items, electronics, bike parts, cat food, cat litter, etc. I think I'm going to use my current bounty for an actual new printer, or perhaps an actual new vacuum. I am pretty damn handy at fixing printers and vacuums that people have thrown out, but sometimes it's nice to have reliable things for once.

FYI: PayPal credit doesn’t go on your credit report

The interest rates are ridiculously high if you don’t pay it within the six-month no-interest period (around 20% APR seems to be the usual), but they give just about anyone credit, and it doesn’t show up on any credit report. I’ve used it a few times recently when I’ve needed to pay folks like lawyers and contractors. To use it with people like this rather than an online store, you just have to ask them to send you a PayPal invoice, and then it will give you the option to use PayPal credit if you’ve already applied.

State of the scraper address

Wow, OK, so half of the country voted for a filter-lacking narcissist whose campaign centered on blatantly racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, and ableist insults and threats. So, I've known all my life that these views were this widespread, but this guy and his "plans" are nonetheless much scarier and more threatening than, say the Bushes, who at least seemed to have some basic professionalism and sense of human decency even though the impact of their policies was just as marginalizing.

A lot of us are terrified, not just around the end of our day-to-day relative safety from harassers and attackers, but also because we depend on government-funded programs for healthcare, disability services, children's services, or employment.

So, what can we do now?

• Here is a list of some concrete things we can do, like stockpiling emergency contraception to distribute if it becomes unavailable next year, along with advice for trying to preserve rights for green card holders and our transgender brothers and sisters.
• For internationally adopted folks (thinking especially of the many people in the community who have brought relatives here from Haiti through adoption rather than sponsorship), if you don't have a Certificate of Citizenship and only have your entry papers, go here and follow the steps to get one.
• If you're transgender, make sure your gender and name are current on all your documents. Go here to learn about Boston-area organizations who are helping people do this for free, and similarly to volunteer if you have legal training or experience navigating these systems.
• Write to your legislators, even if they're progressive, even if you're in Massachusetts where they've been telling us most of the federal changes won't affect us, and tell them why it's important that they support your family in maintaining insurance, disability services, housing assistance, and anything else you receive that's partially federally funded or might be affected by a federal mandate.
• Go here to learn how to respond if you witness Islamophobic harassment (or any other type).
• Be sensitive and sensible. It's fine to participate in movements/rallies/safetypinwearing that focus on positivity and understanding. But be aware that others, especially some marginalized folks, feel betrayed by these actions and feel that no one should be attempting to "build bridges" with the oppressors. Others take issue with people voicing their opinions in progressive spaces but being afraid to speak out against those who support bigotry. Still others don't appreciate privileged folks finally speaking out for the first time this week, because it highlights that these folks have been refusing to listen to the voices of the oppressed for years. Ask people how they're doing. Ask what would help. Don't take this as an opportunity to brag about how enlightened you are or how your manner of coping is the best one.

EDIT: You know how I mostly post about how our spartan lifestyle involves a lot of unprocessed food, walking and biking, and simple hobby items acquired at thrift stores? Yeah, it's not doing it for me right now. Someone point me to tips for how to get good deals on strong drinks, crappy TV, violent video games, tubs of cookie dough, and so forth. Thanks.

Modern-day equivalent of finding coins in the couch cushions

Y'all, I've got this drawer full of credit cards. I surprisingly have pretty decent credit. I've never paid a bill 30 days or more late, so even though I don't have any cash flow, my credit is up there. So, banks that I have any sort of account with will send me credit cards, and credit cards that I don't carry a balance on will send me cards with bigger and bigger limits and shinier cards with holograms and cool names.

I usually toss these into the drawer, because I'm not about to start running up debt when I have no way to pay it off. Sometimes though, I need to go through the cards and figure out which one has the lowest interest rate, like when I need to call a repair person, or when I recently needed to hire a lawyer. While I've never been wealthy, back before The Stuff That Made This Blog Need To Be A Thing happened, I typically had an extra $500-$1000 or so in my checking account in case of emergency -- at least enough to be able to give someone a substantial down payment that showed them I was an employed adult who wasn't messing with them. 

So, yeah, following what we'll call The Stuff™, I have no money, but sometimes I run into these situations where I need to find a credit card with room on it. We have enough steady income to pay for housing, we find ways to get food and clothing and any other normal everyday things we need, but the barter system just doesn't work for most one-time services when you don't know someone in the business. So for the foreseeable future, until some things hopefully shift and we're able to work more, emergency expenses get paid for by the drawer o' cards.

So today, as I was looking through my file of cards to check some credit limits and interest rates, I decided it was also time to throw out the expired and the duplicates where they send you a fancier card for the same account to convince you to use it. Boy was I surprised to find several $5 and $10 gift cards to stores, and five $25 Visa gift cards! I checked these on the websites, thinking maybe I had tossed them in there with a couple dollars left on them, but found that they actually were unused. Who was this person who was so rich that they were just tossing perfectly good money into a drawer?

I do actually get how it happened though. A relative sends the Visa gift cards for adult birthdays and sends presents to the kids. In my not-completely-broke thinking over a few birthdays a few years ago, I decided it was greedy or self-absorbed or something to use them for expenses, and figured I needed to save them for something really nice that we wouldn't normally spend money on. Yeah, now I'm in a pretty different mindset. Those are going toward bills. And the store cards? Those were all ones that were handed out at events or sent to us as promotions. Again, in my pre-completely-totally-destitute thinking, I figured I would toss a $5 Home Depot card into a drawer until next time we wanted to make a home improvement purchase there. Now, I'm in a place where I'm like, holy crap, I can get $5 worth of cleaning supplies, or the paint brushes one of the kids needs for art class, instead of sitting here not buying those things because I'm trying to figure out how to pay bills. And all the Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts ones? That I was saving thinking I'd apparently buy myself fancy drinks? Those places have bagels and juice and stuff. These are going in my wallet for a free way to stop and grab dinner next time we're stuck out somewhere.

Not usually a superstitious type...

But it's like the universe knows I'm broke. I took a survey a few months ago, an academic survey that didn't pay except for entry into a lottery, which I took it because the research topic was one I wanted to support. I just got an e-mail that I won the (substantial) gift card. Nice.

It has come to this

So, remember when Amazon had that thing going on where you could get a whole bunch of free stuff?

Most of the stuff didn't fit anyone in our household. I gave away a few things to friends and family, planned to donate the rest of the huge haul, then things happened and I never got around to it.

Last night I decided to eBay the stuff. As you saw in a past post, I'm beyond broke right now, and people will buy anything on eBay. I feel really guilty that I'm profiting from it instead of going with my original plan to donate it, but I guess at least it came from a large corporation that I assume benefited from the tax writeoff more than from having items around that weren't selling, and at least most of the people buying shorts and hoodies on eBay are probably people in similar situations who could benefit from some heavily discounted necessities? Still, I feel gross.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel

Yeah, so, I swallowed my pride and made a donation button thing. If you feel so inclined, help me out by going to my sidebar and giving me a couple bucks for each post you've found helpful, or going to my various pyramid scheme, er, online income posts and signing up using my referral links. Thanks.

Back to the grind, if you can call it that

I apologize for not posting as much lately. An emergency came up that originally was occupying a lot of my time and energy. Fortunately, it seems to be mostly resolved now, and the family member should be fine. Unfortunately, I ended up spending my entire life savings (a sincere thanks to the Earned Income Tax Credit for my even having any savings) and maxed out my credit cards, and there still may be more expenses to come. This is how being poor works; I was doing really well by my standards anyway, had a little extra here and there to have a decent life, was able to help out Fair Foods (go donate to their fundraiser if you haven't already!). Then this situation hit, and our family is worse off than we were in the first place.

The family situation is now such that there's even more no possible way I can work outside the home for more than a few hours, because I can't make enough to hire other people to care for those who need caring for. So, back to the drawing board, I mean, the internet.

I've recently come across the Beermoney forum on Reddit. This is basically a forum where people talk about the best ways to maximize their earnings on Swagbucks, Bing Rewards, and several others of these sites. I also found out about a new one with a lot of potential, Perk, which I'll post about tomorrow. I had mostly stopped doing much in the way of Bing and Swagbucks, but now I'm doing as much as I can on them so I can keep the family in Amazon gift cards for when a household item breaks or a kid needs a sportsball thingy or underwear or whatever. The Reddit folks have figured out a number of tricks I didn't know, and I'm racking up the Amazon bucks on these sites.

If you want to help me out while helping yourself out, click the "online income opportunities" link to find the posts with my Swagbucks and Bing Rewards referral links, and sign up from my links. Then go read what the Beermoney folks say to do with the accounts. Or if you feel so inclined, you can also send the Amazon gift cards to me at locomotive1313@gmail.com. Or if for some reason you're reading this and you aren't poor, I also accept PayPal. Oh, and feel free to share my blog and all that to increase my pageviews and ad revenue. Also feel free to e-mail or comment if you know how to actually make blog ads make any money. Thanks!

Health Connector website, you gonna make me lose my mind...

You know, I was gonna come on here and write about how the new website on which I had to enter my family's income and everything to renew Masshealth was refreshingly easy, and how I wish DTA would get something similar going on that checks your income against your tax returns, instead of having you send in a big packet of paystubs, a buncha paper forms, and only going by most recent month's income...

But then I finished the process, and I got this:

"Congratulations! Based on your household's federal poverty level..."

BAHAHAHAHAHA...what

I mean, I'm glad we're eligible, don't get me wrong. But. Um.

Oh well. Made me laugh at least