Selling stuff on eBay with minimal overhead

So, my experimentation with selling stuff on eBay is going remarkably well. I've had an eBay account since 1998, which I previously used mostly for buying things and periodically for selling things I was done with that were worth quite a bit of money, like sporting or music equipment. I maybe listed one item a month, if even that.

Today's pile of stuff ready to ship

A couple months ago I decided to start actually selling. As I mentioned before, I first listed a bunch of free items I had snagged from Amazon. That went well, so I started by listing a bunch of stuff I had lying around that I normally would have donated or given to friends -- kids' and adults' clothes, books, household gadgets, baby stuff sitting in a box in a closet, extra hardware and office supplies I'd bought too much of for projects, and so forth. It's going remarkably well, and I'm making quite a lot of cash off of stuff I would normally have been happy to give away. I'm now looking into buying at garage sales and thrift stores and doing some flipping.

From perusing forums about selling on eBay, I'm seeing that most people are reluctant to get started because the necessary supplies are expensive, shipping is confusing, and the fees are unclear. So I'm putting together a basic tutorial on how to do sell things easily and cheaply.

How eBay fees work:

When you list something on eBay, the first 50 listings per calendar month are free. Relisting an item that doesn't sell counts as a listing each time. Before you hit "list" on an item, it will tell you what the fees will be. Certain features on the listings, like large, bold titles and so forth cost money. Don't use these; there's no need. Once you get over 50 items, it charges you 30 cents per listing. This is refunded if the item sells.

Once an item sells, eBay charges you 10% of the final price AND 10% of the shipping price. It doesn't take this out of the money the customer sends you; it adds it to your monthly bill. What I typically do is: Every time I sell something, the money for the item plus shipping goes into my PayPal account. I buy the shipping through eBay, which deducts it from my PayPal account. Before I withdraw the money, I look at my eBay fee tally (this is in "account settings," located at the top left of the site) and see the two fee charges for the auction. I then withdraw the total profit less the fees, and leave enough for the fees in my PayPal account so I know I have it when the bill comes due. I really wish they'd just deduct it, but they don't, so this seems to work best.

Here's an auction I just shipped off today:

Item: $5.00
Shipping: $2.83

Customer sent me $7.83 via PayPal
I get $7.30 in my PayPal account, because PayPal takes a fee.
I spent $2.60 on shipping via eBay (there's a discount for shipping through them)

So far, the profit is $4.70. Then I go look in my Account Summary tab, where the fees are listed. I see that eBay charged me 28 cents for the shipping and 50 cents for the item. So I subtract that, and withdraw $3.92 to my bank account. I've pocketed a total of $3.92 for this item. I leave the 78 cents in my PayPal account so it's there at the end of the month for the fees.

How to ship eBay items:

If you have any cash at all to put up front, I recommend getting a scale. I have this one, which was $20. It weighs up to 55 pounds in 10ths of an ounce. For a bit more, you can get one that attaches to your computer via USB to use with the eBay shipping portal, but this seems to me like it's just more stuff to break and malfunction, and it takes me like two seconds to read the number on the scale and type it in.

If you can't afford the scale yet, you can still ship without it, which I did at first. If it's a heavyish item, like a box of books, you can weigh it by holding it while standing on your bathroom scale and subtracting your own weight. Round up to the next pound. For items that are lighter, you can estimate it by comparing it to a can of soup or other item of known weight, or you can look up the item on Amazon (or wherever it's sold) and see what they give as the shipping weight. Estimate high, and charge the buyer for the shipping.

When you list your items, it's usually best to use calculated shipping, unless it's a fairly heavy but small item that you can stick in a Priority Mail flat-rate box. Choose the cheapest shipping, because people will be more likely to buy your item.

For under 16 ounces (single items of clothing, etc.), use first-class mail. Otherwise, use Parcel Select or Priority Mail, whichever is cheapest. Enter the weight and size of the item in the eBay listing and it will tell you what the services cost, and you can choose which ones to offer. If you're selling something like a textbook that you think someone might want right away, you can also offer overnight shipping and whatnot.

The fastest and cheapest way to ship is through the eBay website. You get a discount over what the post office charges, and it immediately sends the tracking number to the customer. You will need a printer, which you can find on craigslist for free. For your first few items, print the label on plain paper and tape it to your package. Make sure not to tape over bar codes. After you've sold a few things, buy some cheap labels. I got 200 of these labels for $7.47.

You'll also need something to ship your items in. If you don't already have Amazon Prime, subscribe to it! There's a deal through Swagbucks right now. It's totally worth the yearly fee, because you can get just about anything shipped to your house for free. And stuff that gets shipped to you comes with packaging materials. Save all the boxes, bubble envelopes, bubble wrap, and so forth, and store them where you store your eBay stash. Now you have free packaging material. If you need something large or specialized, there are tons of people on craigslist giving away boxes, tubes, and packing peanuts. For clothing, shoes, or other items that are bulky but don't need the protection of a box, buy a package of poly mailers. I got 100 of these for $12.16. I bought huge ones so I can sell big lots of things, but you can also fold them over for smaller things (as seen in top photo), and they barely cost more than the small ones. I'll go back to worrying about the environment once I can pay my bills.

Questions? Post a comment and I'll do my best to answer. 

This eBay thing is working out well, but it's also making me hate people

So, I've listed a ton of stuff on eBay. Most of it is clothes, books, gadgets that we had lying around the house. Stuff is doing quite well, and I'm happy with the number of bids I'm getting on things.

However, I'm coming across a trend that's annoying me as someone who tries to live as frugally as I can. Certain brands of stuff, regardless of condition, and regardless of whether they're unique or interesting or hard to find, go for a ton of money. Yeah, OK, this isn't a new concept to me. I've taken economics classes and I've lived in this world for more than a minute. But seeing it in action is aggravating me.

I listed this sweater, used, not even in very good condition, that was in some hand-me-downs someone gave one of the kids. I recognized that it's an expensive brand, and it was something we weren't crazy about and probably would have put back into the donate/give away pile. The sweater is a plain cotton one with no branding or stitching or anything on the outside to signify the brand. I thought it was Old Navy until I saw the label. It makes even less sense than Polo and Nike and that whole branding scene where you know at a glance that it's a "good" brand. But this sweater has a ton of watchers and is racking up the bids. It's not even in good condition and is pilled and stretched out.

In the meantime, the "normal" kids' clothing I've posted at very reasonable prices is mostly going slowly. Seriously, people are bidding more for this damn sweater than the starting bid for a set of four pairs of jeans, four hoodies, and a bunch of shirts, which is just sitting there at the moment. And this might not be designer stuff, but it's nice stuff -- GAP, H&M, Aeropostale and so forth. I just can't imagine, even when I've had quite a bit of expendable income, spending money on one boring sweater when you could literally get a whole wardrobe for the same amount of money. Or at least a unique/interesting sweater. It's just a totally different world where people care about that stuff, I guess. I remember reading a young adult fiction book -- maybe a series? -- where the teens would go around school putting their sweaters and jackets on their chairs with the designer labels exposed instead of wearing them. Do people really care about this sort of thing with kids' clothes? Like, the labels might be seen once in a while when the kid leaves the sweater lying in the middle of the damn living room, so it has to be correct label? Who are these people?!

Wassup with instant pots?

Yes, I'm familiar with what they are, and they seem to make a lot of sense for cooking beans, grains, and similar cheap-and-nutritious things for people who aren't at home a lot.

But I'm really concerned about the side effects of these things. It seems they have some unusual property that causes their owners to mention them any time someone discusses food. It doesn't seem to matter whether one is discussing food that would be in any way improved in an instant pot. Instant pots are infesting people's brains, y'all.

Actual conversations I've witnessed recently:

"I had two egg and cheeses from Dunkin Donuts this morning"
"You need an instant pot!"

"Should we order Thai or Indian tonight?"
"You should get an instant pot!"

"I just got a whole bunch of clothes on mega sale"
"Amazon has instant pots for $60"

My god, they've started wearing them. Or cooking their clothes, idk. I quit.

Speaking of the Purina MyPerks thing...

Yesterday I was lamenting that the Purina MyPerks program changed their terms last year, which made it no longer worth it in my opinion. For those who aren't familiar, it was previously set up so that it took 30,000 points to get a coupon for one free giant bag of cat food. This was taking me 6-8 weeks via using the code on the free bag (it doesn't say this is prohibited!) plus the other bag or two I'd buy. It was sometimes quicker if I got codes from friends as well. But then, since people were apparently duplicating the coupons, they discontinued the program and changed it so that it requires 60,000 points and they ship the actual bag of food to you. I decided it was no longer worth it for me, and I'd just get cat food on sale or from Amazon.

Now that I'm really really scraping by, I decided to check back with this program, as I'll do pretty much anything I can do at home to save or earn money at this point, even if it doesn't seem "worth my time." I've got a decent amount of time, and no money, so yeah.

I logged into my account, and what do you know, I have 20,000 points. Apparently the account has accumulated 300 points per month for following Purina on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, plus 100 points each time someone joins using my link.

So, yeah, I'm going to give this thing another try. If you want to sign up, please use my link, and free free to leave comments with any questions you have about how it works.

Where is the cheapest place to buy cat food and cat litter?

So, we seem to have another cat. I'm not really sure why. It decided it wanted to live with us, and who am I to say no?

The cat is pretty cool. Apparently the things have no short-term memory, so they do things like flinging themselves up on the windowsill in horror and amazement every time a car drives by. Or repeatedly trying to jump up on things that are too high or trying to run under something that's too low. And of course being absolutely stunned. Every time.

It's possible we got a dumb cat.

Either way though, bitches gotta eat, and that goes for feline ones too.

So, food for this thing. The cat will eat wet food and dry food. The vet says that it's best to give both, since the less-processed food is better for organ and digestive health, and the kibble is good for their teeth.

Here are the best deals on canned food I've found so far:

This 24-pack of 5.5-ounce cans at Amazon is $9.49 with free prime next-day delivery. That comes out to about 7 cents per ounce.

Edit: Make sure you are shopping at Amazon through Swagbucks, so you can get points for every dollar you spend.

Dollar Tree has 13-ounce cans of Friskies for $1.00, which is also about 7 cents an ounce.

Dollar Tree is also probably the best source for pet toys, bowls, brushes, cat pee cleaner, and so forth. They seem to be decent quality. I would probably avoid the toys though if you have a dog or cat who chews toys to the point that pieces come off and they could swallow them; the pet stores make expensive chew-proof ones for pets who do this.

Now, for dry food:

Dollar Tree has 14-ounce bags of dry food for a dollar. I haven't bought any, and I'm a bit hesitant because it's an off brand. I wouldn't normally care about this for human food, which is highly regulated, but pet food doesn't seem to be, and I've heard horror stories. If anyone has more information about this food producer, I might consider it. (Some Dollar Tree products are actually reputable brands repackaged.)

So, moving on to a little more pricey. If your cat isn't picky, it's possible to get cheap food by buying whatever brand is on sale and has a coupon. Purina often has coupons available on the coupon sites. They often run one that's a dollar off any size bag, and they make a small bag that's $3 or so. The coupons will print two times per computer, and you can follow the various coupon matchup sites to see who has it on sale, and then you can often get the bags for a dollar or two.

Purina has an online pyramid scheme, which was previously getting me a free huge bag every 6-8 weeks, but apparently people were reproducing the coupons, so they're physically mailing the bag of cat food and it requires a lot more points to earn. Still might be worth it for free stuff.

If you're really in a bind, Reddit has a "Random Acts of Pet Food" forum where you can explain your need and people will help you out. Like any of the "Random Acts" pages, it's not meant to be sustainable and is intended to just use once when you run into an actual emergency. Please don't take advantage of these pages, as they're such a great thing for the people who participate and I would hate to see them so overrun by scammers that people stop donating.

EDIT: I should include cat litter too, huh? This is the cheapest clumping litter I've found. It's $13.28 for 40 pounds with free prime shipping. Dollar Tree usually has bags of clay litter for, well, a dollar, but my cat* seems to only use the sand-type litter and will use the couch if said litter is not provided in at least one litter box, because apparently this cat doesn't support using coupons and finding sales.

*The other cat**, not this new one

**I may need to call them The Asshole Cat and The Dumb Cat or something to differentiate

Discover card gave me free money

I have a Discover It* card, which I applied for last summer since it had a 0% APR for a year offer, and I needed to float some debt. I then paid it off before the interest went up to 27% or some sort of highway robbery amount. I hadn't paid attention to the features other than the balance transfer offer, but then they started sending me e-mails that for the next three months, I would earn cash back on purchases at various types of stores. So, I used the card to purchase my gas and paid it off, then used it at Amazon and paid it off, and so forth. I had the card listed as one of my Amazon payment options, and just about every time I went on Amazon, it would show up that I had $5 or $10 cashback bonus available to use at Amazon. I thought this was pretty cool. Oh, and if you'll recall from my past posts, I pretty much never spend actual money at Amazon, because I have all these gift cards from running things on my computer. So I was earning free money from using free money. Even better.

Today I got an e-mail saying they'd matched my cashback bonus for the past year. The money was available to download (yes, I just used "download" for money) into my bank account, which I did. It was a few hundred dollars, on top of the other few hundred dollars, just for making purchases I would need to make anyway. Being a credit card company, they're of course banking (literally) on people running up their cards, making purchases they think will count but don't, and paying a lot more in interest than they get in cash back. But if you're a smart broke person, you can do what I did and read the fine print about what counts, only buy things you were going to buy anyway, and then pay it off. Free money is the best money.

*Doesn't that sound dirty? Like, discover THIS.

Where is the cheapest place to buy beds?

This seems to be a question people frequently message me about, as well as one that gets posted on the broke people forums. To start, I'll spare you the info that it's worth it to buy an expensive bed for better sleep and better spine health. Of course it is. But if you had the money to buy an expensive bed, would you be reading this?

First off, for the absolute cheapest, there are always a ton of free or really cheap beds on Craigslist. Creep their pictures and choose one that's photographed in what appears to be a clean, functional home. Pick it up on a sunny day and spray the mattress with Lysol and leave it in the sun until it dries. Don't use bleach, as this can ruin the fabric.

If you have allergies or just can't deal with a used bed, here are the cheapest new ones I've found. The absolute cheapest is this futon at Walmart (I know, I know...) for $79. It's also available for $98 with a frame, though it's the type where if you're using it as a bed, it's obvious that it's a folded-down couch. You'd probably be better off getting a free platform bed and using this futon on it. The bed pictured above is a similar cheap Walmart futon on a frame I built out of about $20 worth of lumber. It was three 2x6s (cut to length at Home Depot) laid left/middle/right down the length of the bed, then 1x3s (ditto) laid across and screwed down. I spraypainted the whole thing darker brown so it was less obviously homemade. I slept on it for years before I managed to buy an adult bed, then passed it down to a kid -- the height is perfect to use safely with a toddler without dealing with the enormous waste of money that toddler beds are.

For those who don't want a futon, IKEA has this $199 sofa bed that's a firmer mattress than a futon and doesn't look as much like a pullout couch when flat. It's ridiculously ugly as a couch though; I'd suggest the Walmart futon or this $89 IKEA futon if you want to primarily use it in couch mode. IKEA also has by far the cheapest mattresses you'll find anywhere. They start at $149 for a full-size foam mattress. You can try them out at the store; the cheapest one is pretty thin, but was surprisingly decent when on a bed with springy slats. The Morgedal is really nice, and on sale right now. We have one of those. We ended up buying the mattress first and sleeping on it on the floor for about a year, then eventually finding a frame we liked on mega clearance. If you absolutely need the whole thing now, the cheapest IKEA mattress plus the cheapest frame ends up being $239 for a full, which is really pretty ridiculously amazing. I actually thought when I tried out the beds that the pillowtops made the biggest difference. Not surprisingly, they cost almost as much as the damn mattress -- from $89 to $279 for full-size. It might make sense to get the cheapest mattress, then the frame, then the pillowtop as you can afford them.


If you're not into foam mattresses, there are some low-end spring mattresses, and you can put them on the floor without any foundation. This queen at Sleepy's is $199 for the mattress and $299 with a standard boxspring. There are also discount mattress places around the city. I haven't heard great things about them, but if you want cheap, maybe worth checking out. I know there's one on Columbus Ave near Jackson Square.

If you're looking for twin beds for kids, Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless provides beds for any child in Massachusetts who doesn't have one. I'm can't recall what their criteria are, but I believe it's fairly broad (maybe having Masshealth?) rather than requiring that families are completely destitute.

Whatever, post office

Apparently the USPS online postage thing now only sells Priority Mail and Priority Mail Express. The cheap options are all gone.

It still offers everything, including media mail, though Amazon or eBay seller accounts at least. But now I have to go to a post office to ship things to friends and family the cheap way? *sigh*

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.

That time that toothpaste caused me emotional distress

This showed up in the mail today. Sweet! 

Oh hey, the surveys on Swagbucks actually work now

I just took a bunch of surveys on Swagbucks and they all paid out and I got a $3 Amazon gift card for about 20 minutes of my time. The last time I tried surveys, probably a couple months ago, they were all collecting several screens' worth of data and then saying I didn't qualify or they'd reached the maximum number of participants (and presumably using my data anyway!) But that doesn't seem to be the case. Only one kicked me out, and it did it on the first screen and gave me 1SB for my effort.

Second of the meals with the pre-cooked stuff: veggie burgers

Today I formed some of the bread dough into ciabatta-type rolls for veggie burgers. This was completely an experiment, and it turned out pretty well. I used balls of dough that were about the size of golf balls, and flattened them quite a bit into disks. They barely expanded in diameter, but puffed up quite a bit, so these definitely did need flattening. Some of them stuck to the baking sheet and the bottoms got kind of crispy and the insides hollowish, so definitely make sure you flatten them in your hands with plenty of flour rather than letting them get pressed onto the baking sheet. All eight of them were usable though, which was what I was going for. I also baked a loaf of bread with some of the dough, partly because bread, and also so I could slice it and use it as veggie burger bread if the rolls didn't work out.

While that was baking, I made veggie burgers with some of the black beans and slow cooker oats. I didn't add any vegetables or anything to them this time, just basic seasoning. I pan-fried them since the oven was in use. They seem to turn out about equally well in the oven or in the pan; the only difference is that you have to give them more attention if pan-frying, so I prefer to toss them on a baking sheet and let it sit in the oven if possible. These also turned out really well; they turn out a bit differently every time, since the ingredients are ones where the texture can vary quite a bit even if cooked the same way each time. I've never had them turn out bad or not work though; they always will hold together just fine with some flour added or by freezing the patties if necessary.

Here's the assembled product. I ended up with eight of these, which probably cost me a dollar or two. (About a cup of cooked black beans, about a cup of cooked steel-cut oats, probably a cup of flour, pinches of various other pantry ingredients, plus lettuce from Fair Foods and cheese and condiments that I got with coupons.) Buying the veggie patties and rolls at the store would run a dollar for not-very-good dollar store rolls, or $2-$3 for this type of roll, and probably $4-$5 for two boxes of frozen patties. If you have the time and resources to cook from scratch, it's seriously cheap, not to mention healthy and better.

Sunday-night-cooking-stuff extravaganza

I'm trying to get back into the habit of spending Sundays cooking some time-consuming dishes, or at least the time-consuming components of quick dishes. This cuts down on the whole problem of realizing it's time to feed these people, seeing that, as one of the kids puts it, "we don't have any food, only ingredients," and making macaroni and cheese from a box or pasta with jarred sauce for the millionth time. Not that there's anything wrong with those meals, of course, but I like to mix it up a bit with some healthier and more interesting fare. And we don't need to talk about the times I've been even less responsible and ordered pizza with a credit card when I've realized there isn't any food I can make quickly. So, yeah, I spent today making some big ol' vats of things, which can be quickly turned into various meals. I made the first of my quick meals tonight as well (pictured above).

Today I made:

1. a huge vat of white rice
2. a big vat of Spanish rice
3. a medium vat of chili
4. a slow cooker full of steel-cut oats
5. a full batch of bread dough
6. a vat of black beans
7. three pounds of oven-baked tofu 

For dinner tonight, I used a small amount of the rice to make sushi. Sushi is actually ridiculously easy, and a great way to turn random veggies into an entree. You mix a cup or so of rice (white, short grain works best) with seasoned rice vinegar (available at Asian grocery stores for much less than at mainstream grocery stores, and lasts years in the fridge), slap it on some seaweed, put veggies on it, and roll it up. I had a cucumber from Fair Foods, and I made this using a quarter of it. (WTHDIDWTV: cucumber edition.)

Next, I used some of the baked tofu to make two types of Thai curry. I found coconut milk at Dollar Tree in Allston last week and stocked up on it; coconut milk is rarely on sale, rarely included in coupons, and can be two dollars or more per can.

The "recipe" for red curry is simple: sauteed onions, pre-made red curry paste (a little pricey, but store it in the freezer and it lasts forever, and it's cheaper than buying lemongrass and all that to make from scratch), lemon juice, brown sugar, soy sauce, basil, coconut milk. You can also add fish sauce or vegetarian worcestershire sauce if you like. Then add whatever you like -- I used baked tofu and cubed butternut squash. Oh, and the basil I used wasn't Thai basil, but it was basil I grew on my windowsill from an herb kit I got at Dollar Tree last year.

Jungle curry is essentially the same thing, but no coconut milk. Therefore, use less red curry paste, unless you like it ridiculously hot. I prefer red curry, but we have a household member who can't do coconut, so I made both. The jungle curry I made with zucchini and green beans from Fair Foods, and some of the baked tofu. Both dishes took 10-15 minutes to make since I'd already made the rice and tofu. We have plenty of leftovers for later in the week, and still have a ton of rice and tofu. (WTHDIDWTV: zucchini, butternut squash, green beans edition!)

Later in the week I'm going to use some of the oatmeal and some of the black beans to make homemade veggie burgers. The rest of the oatmeal will be for breakfasts of course, and the rest of the black beans will be eaten with the Spanish rice and some Trader Joe's guacamole that was left here recently during an evening of cards and three-buck chuck.

The bread dough is going to go toward some sandwich bread, veggie burger buns, and probably some pizza. The full batch is enough for all that, which is pretty amazing.

I made everything listed using things I had at home already. Everything was pantry ingredients, plus a few produce items I had. I'd say that all the food I made cost me under $10 total, because I got most of it with coupons/from Fair Foods/stocking up at Dollar Tree, but it could be purchased for under $20 if you just went to a store. That's pretty amazing for a week's worth of food. I may spend a few more dollars here and there to add some cheese, some salad greens, maybe fresh fruit for the oatmeal.

At the same time though, I'm always hesitant to post these sorts of food roundup posts, because I fear that they encourage the sorts of people who say that no one should have food stamps and no one needs to be buying processed lunchbox foods, because everyone should just cook a bunch of vegan quasi-ethnic food from scratch. Those people need to stuff it though, for a number of reasons.

So, even though our family is quite a ways below poverty level, we have a lot of privilege at the moment. We have the time, energy, and mental stability to be able to do things like spend all day Sunday cooking. We have stable housing and clean, working cooking facilities. We have basic cooking skills and utensils. We have a reliable fridge and freezer to store the stuff. We have me who is able and willing to tow this wacky family around to different ethnic grocery stores and to the Fair Foods truck, and who is frequently home when these things are open. We have the appearance of class privilege (due to speaking like educated people, work experience, not being young parents, to start with) so that if our kids pack weird lunchbox food or have friends over for homemade snacks, people assume we're health nuts or hippie artists instead of too poor to buy the usual snacks.

So leave people alone who feel the need to buy their kids individual bags of Doritos, OK? But if it works for you, I recommend trying this pre-cooking in large batches thing.

Roundup of free stuff on the internet

OK, so, some of these aren't what you probably came here for. Sure, learning a language or watching a documentary is cool, but how does it help pay the bills? But hey, we all need entertainment and mental stimulation, and the list does include some deals and coupons and so forth too, so check it out.

Can't afford food? Throw a party!

I'm forgetting where I saw this, and my google-fu is failing me, but one of the lifestyle blogs a few years ago wrote about throwing a party if you're struggling to afford food. And since I can't find it to repost, I'm going to somewhat plagiarize the idea. So, um, if you can't afford food, throw a party. Yes, I know, it sounds counterintuitive, but hear me out here.

First, find an occasion. It can be a holiday, someone who's celebrating something, or just a weekend that you decide to have some fun. Maybe have a theme -- particular music you're going to listen to, or encourage people to dress as superheroes, '80s party, or whatever you like. Look on Pinterest or google for party themes if you need to.

Second, tell everyone to bring a dish. This is the important part. You can have people sign up for things, or give suggestions, or just have them bring whatever. If it's a party that includes alcohol, give the option of bringing alcohol and/or a dish. Make sure you suggest they bring appetizers, snacks, desserts, rather than suggesting it's a dinner party or cookout, so that you don't have people bringing serious food and then expecting to pack up a plate to take home! (If anyone does ask to, just roll with it. You still got to enjoy everyone's company. Let the person make their plate.)

Next, spend a very very minimal amount of money on making sure you have the very basics. Assuming you've followed my advice and have the very basics in terms of glasses and dishes and all that, just use your regular stuff; it's free. If not, go to Dollar Tree and get some plastic plates and cups. Remember, that's the one where everything is truly a dollar, so you can get 20 plates, 16 sets of flatware, 12 cups, and so forth for a dollar per package. You can also get serving bowls and foil pans there for a dollar if you need them. Get some cheap paper table cloths and streamers if you need them too. Use a color printer at your house or a friend's house to make most of your decorations for basically free.

While you're at Dollar Tree, get some snacks. They've got bottles of fizzy drinks and juice drinks, chips, cookies, pretzels, and so forth for, well, a dollar. A lot of them are even brand name. With chips and stuff it doesn't matter, because you're going to put them in a bowl. So, for like 10 dollars (depending what serving pieces you already owned), you have a table, covered in snazzy tablecloth, with a bowl of chips, bowl of M&Ms, bowl of cookies, bowl of pretzels, stack of cups, stack of plates, pile of forks. If you aren't sure what people are going to bring and feel like you need more "real" food, you can make a huge pan of pasta with sauce for like $2. Or a potato salad and/or veggie tray with stuff from Fair Foods.

Oh, your party needs music. If you own a music collection and equipment, perfect. If not, find an online radio station and use your computer or tablet speakers; it will sound good enough. See if you know someone who can bring nicer portable speakers maybe. Depending on your friends' interests, it might need games too. See what you have, or a thrift store has, or ask someone who has a fun game to bring it with them. Video game, trivia-type game, lawn-darts-type game, card game -- these are all big hits.

Now, people show up at your house, each bringing a big pan of food, and some bringing adult beverages unless you don't do that sort of thing. Y'all do your thing, and at the end of the night, they leave all these leftovers at your house! But you don't have to feel like you're a charity case or anything though, because you volunteered your space, organized the thing, and brought people together. You contributed something you're able to contribute to your community (time, energy, your space), and the people who are able to work full-time outside the home brought over spinach dip and cheese plates.

Where is the cheapest place to buy dishes?

I seem to know a lot of people who are using disposable dishes for every meal, because they say they can't afford dishes. When I first started working, I had one set of dishes that I washed for every meal like I was at summer camp or something. I had to wait until I was making decent money before I bought my first big boxed set of low-end dishes from a housewares store, because I wasn't aware of places like Dollar Tree and we didn't have an IKEA here yet.

This inspired me to do a rundown of all the places you can get dishes for the price of a week or so worth of disposable stuff; I think this is a worthy investment not just to save money in the long run, but because having dishes is one of those things that helps us keep up the appearance of someone who has a furnished home where we can make ends meet. But you don't actually have to have a spare hundred-plus bucks lying around to get yourself some dishes.


So, to start with the absolute cheapest: that would be free, right? Try the free section on craigslist, or freecycle, for people who are giving away dishes. Don't worry about them being used; you can run them through a dishwasher if you have one, or boil them in a pot to sanitize.

If no one's giving away free dishes, move on to the cheapest. The absolute cheapest are usually at thrift stores. Goodwill on Harrison Ave and Boomerangs in Jamaica Plain both have dishes for 25 cents to a dollar per piece. Some at Boomerangs will be pricier if they appear to be more of an antique/vintage item rather than a "secondhand" item.

Didn't find anything acceptable there, or don't have the time/desire to piece together your own set? Next cheapest are IKEA and Dollar Tree. IKEA has this set which is a dollar per dish, and this line that's sold separately for 89 cents per dish. If you go with the separate ones, you can buy one size of plate and one size of bowl for now, then expand later to have small and large plates and bowls. They also have 20-piece flatware sets starting at $7.99, which is service for four people. And remember that it has two sizes of forks and two sizes of spoons, so you could actually have up to 8 people using the set before washing it, assuming not everyone will need a butter knife for most meals, but will need a fork. IKEA also has some ridiculously cheap glasses, including sets that are 50 cents per glass. Most of their glasses are 99 cents, including some really cute designer-looking ones. During the spring and summer they also sell plastic glasses that look like glass, which some people might prefer. Similarly, Dollar Tree's dishes are all a dollar per dish. Their flatware is two pieces for a dollar, which means service for four (spoon, knife, fork) would be $6. Glasses at Dollar Tree are all a dollar a piece.

So, yeah, assuming you go to IKEA or Dollar Tree, you should be able to get place settings for about $5 per person. This should pay for itself in about 12-20 meals in which you are no longer using disposable dishes. So, come on, quit looking like you aren't an adult who provides for your family, and go buy some dishes!

Focus groups, anyone?

I'm currently exploring focus groups and medical research as ways of making quick money. Most of the focus groups I've done or am set to do are online or over the phone these days, which is different from when I did a few of them decades ago as a young broke person.

So far I've done them with Recruit and Field, Advanced Opinions, and Focus Pointe Global. None of the studies have required me to go anywhere except for one that required me to snap cell phone pictures in a grocery store. I've also registered with others, but haven't been assigned to any studies with them. Does anyone have any other recommendations for agencies to try?

Also, interestingly, I'm finding that healthcare providers doing studies are much more user-friendly than providers seeing people for regular care, even in situations in which both types of providers would be operating under the same parameters as far as what they're allowed to do. The medical studies folks are friendly in terms of discussing what time and which location would work best, completely accommodating of needing to bring children with you, apologetic if not running on schedule, and just all-around respectful and good communicators. Which is interesting, because I'd frankly be willing to do more jumping through hoops to get paid to have my blood drawn and whatnot. But I'm finding that they treat people a lot better than regular clinics. The whole staff's attitudes are just better. Hmmm...

(By the way, I just made a new category, which I'm calling "IRL income opportunities." This is going to be stuff that can't be done entirely online, because it requires some sort of in-real-life contact with people, but isn't standard 40-hour-a-week job-type work.)

Earning through those Amazon referral links

I signed up for Amazon Associates many years ago, with the intention of posting links whenever I talked about books and other media on a blog I had that was related to an industry I was working in at the time. In five years, I had a single number of purchases made through the links, and this was a networky-type blog that had a lot more readers than this one.

I've recently discovered a better way to use them though. Keep in mind that when people click through to a book or similar, they usually aren't going to buy it right then. They're more likely to wishlist it or flip through the previews and keep it in mind for another time. However, there are other times when people's tendency to click through and buy it right away is much higher; these tend to be when there is a sale (which will presumably end soon), or when the person needs a particular item right away. I've had much better luck with the Amazon links when I've posted them here to notify people of slashed prices on items than when I've posted them just in the context of a product that's neat.

The other place I've had good luck with them is when people ask on forums where to buy something or what kind to get. Now, like any sort of money-earning venture, please don't be an asshole about this. No one likes it when people are trying to sell them stuff, spamming them, or otherwise acting slick. Besides, you'll make more money and have better karma if you just are nice, with money as a secondary gain. But wait, what site are we on? So yeah, I'm not suggesting you just don't post links that earn you money. But wait until someone online asks what to use for something, what type is good, where there are good prices, etc. Make sure it's something where you would otherwise give the advice without any financial incentive (see "don't be an asshole" above). Make a normal reply where you tell them what kind you have, what works well, whatever the case may be, and link to the product on Amazon (with your affiliate link embedded). Same for if someone asks where to get something, provided they haven't said they need it right this second or need to try it on -- in other words, a situation in which Amazon would be an appropriate reply without the monetary incentive. Even in 2016, there are a lot of people for whom online shopping doesn't occur to them for something like, say, a spice or other specialty grocery item. Once you point out that they can have Amazon deliver it in a day or two, they may well go with that instead of trekking to a specialty shop.

Another don't-be-an-asshole caveat: I would suggest that you limit this tactic to discussions on blogs and forums and things, and don't do it with friends, family, or online friends with whom you have some sort of ongoing relationship. It just seems like using people, and seems like most people's friends would trust them less if they knew there were strings attached to their recommendations. But if you can post a helpful, genuine link in a discussion somewhere, and you make a few cents off of it, this doesn't seem unethical.

How to earn with Perk

So, Perk is pretty much only profitable through running their apps many hours per day. I wouldn't bother with any of their other activities. The rules say you can have up to 5 devices running on one account/one IP address. To maximize your earnings, use 5 devices. If you're using phones, they don't need phone service to run the apps, just wi-fi, so you can start your farm by having your friends give you outdated phones and iPods they aren't using. Or, you can get going on whatever device you have access to, then buy more as you earn. It looks like the cheapest phone at the moment that will run the apps is a ZTE Whirl. You can buy it for $4.99 (free next-day shipping if you buy five of them!) at the StraightTalk website. Or if the only money you have is Amazon gift cards, they're $15 on Amazon. Which, still, that's a pretty amazing deal for a mobile device. If you give up on doing Perk, for $15 you have an MP3 player, web browser, game player, etc.

The app that racks up points the fastest seems to be the Pop Quiz trivia app. It will run on any android or iOS phone or iPod, but not tablets unless you know how to hack such things to run a phone app. To get it to run passively, go into the menu and choose "lightning mode," then start up a game. You won't get as many points as if you play the game and get some correct, but if you set it to run 24/7, that's about a dollar per day per device.

For larger tablets, PerkTV is good. Set it to play app trailers or movie trailers. It will automatically play them on loop. This will also earn you about a dollar per day per device.

For computers, use the perk.tv website. It will time out, flash will freeze up, and so forth, especially if you have an older and/or less powerful computer, so install an auto refresh extension and set it to reload the page every half hour or so. Similarly, this also earns about a dollar per day per device.

Did you do the math? If you can run it 24/7, you can make $5 per day doing nothing. I haven't been able to get this to actually work, and am averaging $5 every two days, which means they're running about 12 hours per day. (I haven't bought devices for this purpose, and am using some elderly computers and some mobile devices that are also needed at times for things like e-mail and answering phone calls). The people on the Reddit forum have ways to hack devices to reset if the app crashes, and how to reset their internet router if it crashes, so their devices are actually running 24/7. I seem to be doing just fine though checking my setup every couple hours if someone is home, not always having everything run successfully all night, and not always having devices available.

And of course, refer all your friends so you can earn more money, and if you haven't signed up yet, please use my referral link to do so. Thanks!

Swagbucks activities that seem the most profitable right now

1. SBTV, oddly enough, is probably the most consistent source of high earnings. I first checked it out a few years ago when I first got Swagbucks, and realized it was earning me 1-2 Swagbucks for several minutes of clicking stuff. No thanks. But then I read somewhere online that you can add videos to your favorites, and then the app will autoplay your favorites list repeatedly while you do something else. The shortest videos at the moment are in home and garden, and the titles include the phrase "10-second tips." Add at least two of these to your favorites, hit play, and go do something else. Once it says you've earned your 10 SB for the day, ignore this, and let it keep running. It will allow you to earn a random number of bonus Swagbucks each day, ranging from 4 to 38 so far in my experience. If you do only this activity, you should be able to get a $5 Amazon gift card every 15 days or so.
2. Coupons: You can print out the same coupons as coupons.com has from the Swagbucks site under "coupons." You earn Swagbucks when you redeem them, usually credited about a month afterward. If you already use coupons, print them on Swagbucks instead of on coupons.com. If you don't, and don't typically think it's worth the effort, you can still print out the ones for products you buy anyway, and then you'll save money and earn Swagbucks. I've also heard of people printing them out and leaving them near the product in the store, or putting them on bulletin boards in laundromats and similar places.
3. Referrals: I told you, it's a pyramid scheme. Post your referral link on blogs, on social media, and tell friends about all the cool free stuff you get. Just don't be obnoxious about it. People on various websites have also mentioned using free business card deals to print out their referral link on cards and then leave them on bulletin boards with some sort of tagline about how you can earn gift cards and cash.
4. Shopping deals: Use these for things you were already going to buy. There are ones that earn you X number of Swagbucks per dollar you spend on various websites, and some that involve making an in-store purchase and then e-mailing a picture of the receipt. There are also deals that give you a number of Swagbucks for making a purchase. Remember that a Swagbuck is roughly one cent, so there are some that earn you money or get you a free item or service. Reddit keeps a running list. Remember to read the fine print about what you actually have to buy or how long you have to keep subscribing to the service in order to earn the Swagbucks, and remember to cancel the service if applicable.

EDIT (05/24/16): The "sign up and earn" links under "Discover" are also pretty good. A lot of them just require you to click through, enter your e-mail address and make a password, and then you get 50 Swagbucks. I just did Kellogg's coupons and Zulily. 

And of course, if you haven't signed up yet, use my referral link please. Thanks!

How to earn with Bing Rewards

1. Click through to the daily 1-point links on the dashboard every day. Unlike Swagbucks, these daily links don't require you to do anything but click through to the page.
2. Use Bing as your search engine on your phone and your computer. If you don't like Bing, because it isn't as smart as google and tends to pull up crappy results, an easy solution is to set Bing as your search engine on one browser and Google on another. Use Bing for your regular screwing around on the internet (it's fine for "simple" searches like typing in the name of a store), and use Google when you're actually trying to find more complex information.
3. Keep in mind that it won't credit you twice for the same search within some period of time. So typing in "facebook" 30 times per day is not going to count. This is why I suggest that you'll need to actually use the search engine to some extent. It unfortunately sucks, which is apparently why they need to hand out money to get people to use it. 
4. If you don't have a mobile device, you can use an agent switcher in Chrome or Firefox to make websites think you're accessing the page from a mobile browser. This doesn't seem to be against the rules, and I wouldn't consider it a cheat, since you're still viewing their mobile content and they're displaying their mobile ads. I'm not sure how to make it think a mobile device is a desktop device; please comment if you know how!
5. Don't use bots to do the searches, unless of course you can program one that will do various searches at different times of day, refine some of the searches, and click through on some of the search results. If you have the skills to do this, you probably don't need to be making money on Bing Rewards. But seriously, don't use a bot of any type. It will pick up that your search behavior is not normal, and it will ban you. Likewise for searching manually but behaving like a bot. If you're just typing in a lot of stuff and not actually using any of the results, it will ban you.
6. Don't use multiple accounts. They will ban you. There are of course people on Reddit and elsewhere talking about how to use bots to make and manage a ton of accounts and earn from them before they get banned. I just wouldn't though, because I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to press charges or file a suit. Also, I strongly suggest people follow the rules so they don't cancel these programs for everyone. Don't be the reason why we can't have nice things.
7. Just like with any of these programs, refer your friends. See this post about Swagbucks for suggestions of where to pimp your referral links.

If you do the 2-6 daily clicky things, earn 15 points per day for computer searches and 10 points per day for mobile searches, you'll be able to get a $5 Amazon gift card every 17 days. Once you reach gold status, it will be every 15 days. Also, Bing Rewards seems to randomly set some people's accounts to allow 30 points per day from searches, so if this happens to yours, it makes it even easier to earn.

If you haven't signed up yet, please use my referral link. Thanks!

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.

Tons of free and cheap stuff at Stop and Shop, much of it ends tonight

I had stopped couponing very much, back when I was working more and had fewer expenses, because it was getting so it wasn't worth a couple hours of my time to save $20 or so. Now though, it's absolutely worth it, given that I have more time than money. I'm also thinking I need to get back to stockpiling pantry goods, since there are going to continue to be expenses from the issue we dealt with back in the winter, and who knows how broke we're going to end up.

Last night I looked at some couponing sites and found that Stop and Shop's eCoupon program has many of the same coupons as coupons.com does right now. This means you can use both coupons on the same item, and if the manufacturer's coupon is 99 cents or less, Stop and Shop will double that one.

Here's how to do it. Go here and register your Stop and Shop card. Then pick the coupons you want to add to your card. It's free and doesn't require printing anything, so just add them all, unless there's something you absolutely would never buy for religious reasons or whatnot. Remember that some items might end up costing negative money, so you may still want to buy them to donate.

Then find the item price, subtract the amount of the Stop and Shop coupon, subtract the amount of the coupons.com coupon (double it if 99 cents or less), and that's the price you'll pay for the item. Prices of items are often on livingrichwithcoupons.com, or for some items, you'll have to calculate the deal in the store to see if it's worth it.

Here are some that I used last night:

Silk cashew milk half gallon
$3.99 shelf price
$2.99 sale price
-$0.75 Stop and Shop eCoupon
-$1.50 doubled coupons.com coupon
= $0.74

Fancy Feast dry cat food
$2.99 shelf price
-$1.00 eCoupon
-$1.00 coupons.com 
=$0.99

Newman's Own barbeque sauce
$2.99 shelf price
-$0.75 eCoupon
-$1.50 doubled coupons.com NO LONGER AVAILABLE
=$0.74

Okocat natural cat litter
$5.99 shelf price
-$5.00 coupon (you can print two per computer)
=$0.99 (plus a Catalina will print for $3 off of two boxes)

Powerade
$1.49 shelf price
$0.59 each when you buy five bottles = $2.95
-$0.50 eCoupon
=$0.49 each

Old El Paso seasoning packets
$0.99 shelf price x 3 = $2.97
-$1.00 eCoupon
-$1.00 coupons.com
-$1.00 iBotta
= NEGATIVE three cents for three seasoning packets

Suddenly Salad
$2.79 shelf price
$1.00 sale price x 2 = $2.00
-$1.00 eCoupon
-$1.00 doubled coupons.com
= two boxes FREE

Old El Paso canned green chilis
$1.37 shelf price
-$1.00 eCoupon
-$1.00 coupons.com
= NEGATIVE 63 cents

Garnier hair dye
$7.99 shelf price
$6.99 sale price x 2 = $13.98
-$4.00 eCoupon
-$4.00 coupons.com
=$2.99 each

Opti-free and Clear Care contact solutions
$9.99 shelf price
-$3.00 eCoupon
-$3.00 coupons.com (Opti-free) (Clear Care)
=$3.99

Barilla pasta
4/$5 shelf price
-$1.00 eCoupon
-$1.00 coupons.com NO LONGER AVAILABLE
=$0.75 each

Muir Glen tomato paste
$1.39 shelf price x 2 = $2.78
-$1.00 eCoupon
-$1.00 coupons.com
=$0.39 each

Bertolli pasta sauce
$3.99 shelf price
$2.99 sale price x 2 = $5.98
-$1.50 eCoupon
-$1.50 coupons.com NO LONGER AVAILABLE
= $2.98 for two jars

BOOM. 

How can I furnish my place with pretty much no money?

Inspired by some threads on various forums, I'm going to start posting about the cheapest places I've found to get various items. Note that these aren't necessarily the best value, as in, the item that will last the longest, or is the best quality for the money spent. People who are looking for cost-benefit information may want to go to a mainstream review-type site. What I'm going to post is the cheapest place to get a minimally adequate version of a particular item.

Today's topic: furniture and related home furnishings

The cheapest place to get furniture is either finding it on the curb over time if you don't need it right away (try Allston, Mission Hill, Fenway around Aug 31 or college move-out days), or looking in the free section on craigslist, or on freecycle. If that doesn't work, try thrift stores or the non-free furniture on craigslist. Most furniture you should be able to fit in your bathtub to hose it off with soap and water and maybe a bit of scrubbing. Or you may be lucky enough to even have a yard and a hose. If it looks acceptable after this, you're done, and you've spent nothing.

I assume if you're reading this that you aren't a single childfree person with no money, or else you probably would be fine waiting to be able to afford furniture before you have anyone come over. This is written with people in mind who have children or have disability services folks come to their house or whatever the case may be, thus need to make their home look like they're able to support themselves adequately. So we're going for the cheapest and fastest way to get a house looking clean, sanitary, and like people live there who aren't completely broke.

So, now that you've got your free or cheap furniture: If you find something that's badly scuffed or has stains that won't come off, spraypaint it. This way, it looks clean and new. If it appears to be some type of non-wood laminate, or you aren't sure, buy the spraypaint that says it works on plastic. If you're sure it's entirely wood or metal, save yourself some money and get regular spraypaint. If the hardware is ugly, spraypaint it black or silver, or replace them with cheap IKEA knobs. Don't have anywhere to spraypaint? Do it in a parking lot, basement, in the street, or fashion a spraypainting shelter with an appliance box or a tarp. After painting and replacing hardware, your piece of furniture will have run you about $10.

The spraypainting method works well for situations like mismatched kitchen chairs; paint all the chairs the same color, or paint each in a different coordinating color, and it looks quirky rather than broke. It also works great for a bedroom with all different styles and colors of free furniture; paint everything white, black, or a bright color if that's your thing, and it suddenly looks intentional. You can further tie things together with some accents. I saw these kitchen towels at Dollar Tree last week that I thought would look nice spread out on top of a dresser or end table. IKEA has dining chair cushions starting at $2.99 each.

A few years back I had a dresser I found on the curb, which I shockingly don't seem to have a picture of. It was solid wood with carved details and looked to be from the 1960s with a pretty awful marbley sort of stain with high gloss coating. Rather than spend a ton of time and money stripping it, I spraypainted it turquoise and replaced the awful hardware with some mismatched glass knobs that I found on eBay and the Anthropologie scratch-and-dent shelf for a total of about $10. When we needed to rearrange our space to accommodate more people moving in, I sold it for $200 on craigslist to someone who showed me pictures of the room they were furnishing with scarily high-end stuff.

I guess the main thing to remember with furniture is that you can in fact forgo a lot of the "big ticket" items and still make a house look furnished and sanitary and all that stuff that people view as a measure of appropriately caring for yourself and your family. 

This picture was a quick google find, and it shows what could be a nice, proper, adult living room without a couch or upholstered furniture. (Upholstered furniture you would actually want in your house is harder to find for cheap or free, unless you come across someone clearing out almost-new stuff for whatever reason). It looks like the owner of this room took some low-end chairs, arranged them nicely with some pillows, and tied the area together with some accessories.

Forget the messages you've been sent about proper homes having a "bedroom set" and "living room set" and all that. A bedroom needs a bed (cheap beds will be the subject of a future post), somewhere to put clothes (free dresser is probably easiest), and a stool or similar near the bed to set bedside items on. A living room needs things to sit on at minimum, and probably could use some tables and bookshelves. These can all be free or improvised. Then you need some items to put out on surfaces so it looks like a home, looks intentional, and says "minimalist decor," not "this kid lives in a house without much furniture." Dollar Tree sells picture frames, storage baskets, vases, potted plants, candles, framed posters. A local thrift store will have these things as well, though they may actually be more expensive than at Dollar Tree.

Assuming you live in the typical Boston housing with hardwood floors or industrial-grade linoleum tile, you'll want to put down some rugs. Rugs are expensive, right? They can be, but they're also possible to get for not much money, and they make a huge difference. If you can get to IKEA, they have this 4x6 rug for $12.99. That's large enough for a living room rug. They also have those 2x3 thin cotton rugs for $3.99, which are sufficient for next to a bed or in front of the kitchen sink, and, again, will make it look like your house is properly furnished.

You may also be able to find rugs at thrift stores for not very much money, or on the curb, freecycle, or craigslist free section. Rugs often are in surplus in these places, since people pass them by assuming they're going to be gross. But you can get a rug clean without spending money at a professional carpet cleaning place. Put it in a large laundromat washer, or in your bathtub with a ton of hot water and shampoo. Wash it as hot as you can for as long as you can. It's a myth that you can't wash wool, so don't worry if your rug might be wool. If it is, it will smell funny for a few days and the texture might change slightly if it's really furry, but it will probably be just fine. Most of the ones I've washed have seemed to have wool in them, and they came out fine. If your rug is huge, rent one of those Rug Doctor things. Or wash it outside with a hose and scrub brush. Take it to a self-serve car wash with those giant pressure washer hoses and a bottle of dollar store shampoo. Or laundry detergent if it's really gross. Dry it outside if at all possible, on a balcony or roof or something, or dry it in a clothes dryer if it fits. If you can't do that, dry it inside, but use stuff out of your recycling bin or whatnot to raise it up off the floor. Or if the rug doesn't weigh much, hang it over your shower rod.

What's left? Wastebaskets, dish towels, hand towels, soap dishes, organizer baskets, potholders, shower curtains, etc. I would start with freecycle and the free section on craigslist. There are often people who are moving and want to give away all of their stuff, including the small things. If you can't find one of those people, try Dollar Tree. It's going to be cheaper than thrift stores for the most part. (For those who are new to dollar stores, Dollar Tree is one where everything is actually a dollar. There's one in Roslindale, Mattapan, Allston, Somerville, and they all have the same basic departments, but they stock different things even if you go on the same day.)

Perk: A new passive income thing that seems to have a ton of potential

OK, so I'm laughing at myself for even typing "passive income," because that's when people who already have money put their money somewhere to make substantial sums of money through dividends or rental income or something, right? But I'm still going to say this counts.

I came across Perk on a Reddit forum. It's similar to Swagbucks and Bing Rewards and all that. The app plays videos (with ads, naturally), which reward the user. The difference between Perk and the others though is that the Perk apps will run passively on autoplay pretty much indefinitely, with no daily limit. The folks on Reddit are doing things like buying $5 smartphones and running entire farms of them sitting on their desks. I haven't tried that, and I'm not sure I'm actually going to go that far with it, but I have it running on my computer pretty much all the time.

Please help me out by using my referral link if you sign up. And save yourself time by checking out the Reddit tutorials on what exactly to do and how to maximize your earnings on these various sites. Pretty much anything you were thinking about trying or weren't sure what it does, the Reddit people have already figured it out and posted about it. The people on there are seriously smart and typically very helpful (though I could do without the racism and sexism that run rampant on there).

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!

Help Fair Foods get a new truck

As I've talked about before, Fair Foods is really amazing.

They need a new truck. They've been incredibly resourceful and gotten 720,000 miles out of their truck, but it's beyond repair at this point.

Please help them out as much as you can, and share their fundraiser. 

Fuel assistance is getting harder to get

Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for the fuel assistance program, but at this point it's almost becoming a hazing ritual.

We're having the same problem we've had in past years where they don't seem to understand that people in our household have per diem jobs where we might go several weeks or more without any work from that job. Someone in our household works in the arts and will get paid by a particular employer sometimes one or two times, or sometimes for a string of several weeks but then not again. The employers are often one person, who doesn't appreciate writing a letter stating you don't work there every couple months when trying to apply for something. Or the jobs are through a friend of a friend, and you can't even track down the company that sent the stack of checks to the gig with the person who pulled together the artists. ABCD and DTA and Masshealth and all of them of course don't get this, and say to call the HR department. What HR department? The "business" is one guy who put on an event once. You'd think they'd realize they're dealing with poor people. We often have weird and inconsistent employment. We're honest and we save everything and we file our taxes correctly, with the dozens of W-2s and all. Any reason these places can't accept tax forms instead of paystubs? They need to harass us to properly document a few hundred dollars from somewhere -- which we're being honest and telling them happened -- when you know they have applicants who make much more under the table.

In addition to that problem, they seem to have some new requirements. Now, instead of just submitting your Schedule C for self-employment, they want you to request a transcript from the IRS and send that, except they don't tell you that until they deny you for sending the normal copy of the Schedule C.

They also want proof that one young member of the household is a citizen. They haven't needed this in past years for this person or anyone else. I have to order a copy of that person's birth certificate, unless anyone knows a better way to prove citizenship for a child.

Is it even worth it for the $400 or whatever? I'm thinking I might just find something to sell on eBay to pay for fuel this winter instead.

Cooking with WIC stuff

Since we are once again on WIC, I thought I'd start posting some recipes that can be made with entirely or mostly WIC ingredients. I've talked about chili before and how cheaply it can be made. It can also be made almost entirely out of WIC ingredients, plus cheap spices.

From WIC package:

• beans
• onions and/or garlic
• canned or fresh tomatoes
• zucchini, bell peppers, corn, or other veggies if desired
• hot peppers (fresh, from produce department)

These WIC ingredients, plus a few cents worth of salt and pepper, will make a vat of chili to feed your family for days. It freezes well too. If you have the cooking facilities and cooking skills, get the dried beans instead of the canned beans, because it's a lot more beans. A whole bag of dried beans pretty much fills a large crock pot or large soup pot.

Masshealth is discontinuing the premium assistance program. Act now if you want free private insurance.

If you don't already know about the Masshealth premium assistance program, it's a program where Masshealth will buy children a private insurance plan. There is a brochure here that gives the basics.

Apparently they are discontinuing the program as of Dec 31 this year, which is unfortunate. They will continue to pay for plans indefinitely for people who are already participating or who enroll before Dec 31. It's convenient that right now is open enrollment for Blue Cross Blue Shield. (I don't know about other private insurance plans; Google is your friend). So, if you have Masshealth and you want private insurance for your child, here's what to do:

1. Call 1-800-422-3545, the Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA sales department. You can't buy a child-only policy online. Tell them you would like quotes for a child-only policy. If you have multiple children, explain that you need individual child-only policies, because Masshealth is paying. They will tell you you need a family plan. Insist on separate child-only quotes. Tell them you need a plan under $349 per month.* You will need to tell them your child's name, date of birth, and address. If you want to be able to use providers who are "out of network" (like, if you want to get reimbursed for therapies from therapists who don't bill insurance directly), ask for quotes for PPO plans. Otherwise, ask for the HMO and PPO plans and look them over and see what you prefer.

2. They will e-mail you a quote within a matter of minutes. Send that quote, along with your child's Masshealth number, to Lekecia.Powell-Watkins@umassmed.edu and state that you would like to see if your child is eligible for premium assistance. She generally does not call back or e-mail back, though if there is a problem or you do need to speak to her about something, she is very nice and very knowledgeable.

3. You will receive a letter from Masshealth within a few days saying you are eligible. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts will either mail you a check for the premium each month, or will direct deposit it if you have a direct deposit account on file because you receive other payments from them.

4. Enroll your child in the BCBS plan right away by sending all the necessary paperwork to the address on the forms that were included with the quote.

5. Note: Every December you will receive an odd form letter addressed to you (whoever enrolled the child and is receiving the payments), asking you to verify that your employee, [your own name], is still receiving health insurance benefits. They're actually asking you to verify that you are still paying for the BCBS plan for your child, and you'll need to send them your current contract with BCBS, or a bill, or whatever you have. I called them and was confused the first time I received this, and they said it's the same letter they use when Masshealth is reimbursing someone for insurance through their job. Right.

*If your child is certified by Masshealth as having a disability, which I believe means they receive SSI, the benefit amount will be higher, which means you could get a more expensive plan. In this case you should call 1-800-862-4840 and ask them to check and see what your child's eligibility is. If you haven't applied for SSI because your income is too much or child gets different disability benefits, you can do what we do and just go with the $349; I believe there is a process for getting your child certified as having a disability, but I'm sure you couldn't get it done by December 31.

Aeropostale's website has good deals on kids' clothing this weekend

Everything in the PS sections is marked down, plus you can use code holiday20 to get $20 off a $100 purchase (I found the code at retailmenot. When making online purchases, ALWAYS google "aeropostale coupon code" or whatever before checking out to see if there are additional codes the store isn't publishing on their own site). Oh, and free headphones when you spend $75. They don't appear to be brand-name or anything in case you have a kid who cares about such things, but if you don't, they look like something that would be perfect to stash away for a holiday present.

Jeans aren't a great deal; still $18 for the cheapest ones and $30 or more for most of them, while Old Navy, Crazy8, and H&M regularly have plenty of decent ones for $10. Tops are a good price though, with a number of nice short-sleeve and long-sleeve ones for $5-$10. Sort them by price, skip past the approximately eight million shirts that say PS on them (unless you like that sort of thing; I do buy them for sleeping and sports when they're down to like $3), and there are some nice tops. If you need school uniform shirts, they have polos for $6-$10.

Kids' snow boots $17.99 on H&M website

Black, unisex kids' boots, sizes 7.5-2, are on their website right now. We have a pair of these from last year (I think they're the same ones) and they're great. A lot of winter coats, snow pants, etc. are marked down on their site too.

Black Friday

Ah, the inevitable barrage of posts on blogs and social media about not shopping on Black Friday. I appreciate the sentiment as far as not feeding into the aspect of society where people get into brawls over televisions. And I definitely feel for the people who are working at the kinds of places where this happens. But really? I'm also seeing a lot of posts from some really privileged people, talking about how they aren't going to buy anything this weekend, thinking they're combating capitalism or some ish. How exactly does that work? Whether you're someone who's conscious about really only buying what you need or someone who purchases freely, aren't you just going to buy the stuff on a different day? How does this actually affect capitalism at all?

And another thing: all this rhetoric about not buying things this weekend to make a point, do people really think it's hurting giant corporations? Of course it isn't. Maybe it would if they had planned to have extra staffing for the weekend and literally no one came to buy anything, but I just don't see that happening. What it really does is annoy struggling people, like me. Of course I'm going to take advantage of Black Friday deals. I'm online right now to do just that. No I'm not buying video game systems and designer sneakers. I'm buying winter coats and socks and underwear, because that stuff is way cheap this weekend and most places have free shipping. But these privileged people who don't have to worry about how they're going to afford coats for everyone want me to wait until Monday or Tuesday or whenever it becomes socially acceptable to shop so I can pay $80 I don't have for a coat instead of $24.99 today. Right. I'll get right on that. See, most of us taking advantage of these deals are people who spend every day really only buying what we need, checking thrift stores first, swapping things with our friends and neighbors, buying and selling on eBay. But go ahead, y'all who think about capitalism and consumption one time per year, and put up your posts about how we should or shouldn't spend this weekend.

The new WIC app is great, as are the changes to the program

 We once again have a young child living in our household, so we are getting WIC again.

Several things have changed since we last had it, making it even more helpful and wonderful.

1) They now FINALLY have a card that is scanned at the checkout instead of the awful paper checks that half of the cashiers didn't know how to use. It no longer takes any more time than any other grocery purchase once you get to the register.

2) They allow families to get a vegetarian/vegan package without requiring a doctor's prescription. The package allows tofu and soy milk to replace the cheese, milk, and eggs (or just the dairy or just the eggs, depending on the family's personal or cultural preferences). We were very pleased to see this, as we don't do a lot of dairy out of personal preference, but don't have a medical reason and aren't strict vegans.

3) The whole grains can now be brown rice or whole grain pasta instead of just bread.

4) They have an app that lets you check your available benefits in real time. It also will scan the UPC codes to see if something is allowed on WIC, which is an absolute lifesaver. If anyone reading this has an issue with WIC ("but them are my tax dollars!") being aware that most people of all income levels use mobile devices in 2015, read here.

If you don't get WIC and have a child under 5, check the income limits here to see if you might qualify. A lot of my friends and family who work and make too much for food stamps weren't aware that they qualify for WIC. Also, the federal guidelines say that a family qualifies based on income if people in the family get Medicaid. I'm not positive how WIC does this in MA, since we have people who are eligible for Masshealth but not federal Medicaid, but it's worth a try if you're over the income limit but you or your child has Masshealth.

Required reading for anyone who thinks people with SNAP, WIC, etc. shouldn't have smartphones

If you missed it, this is a good post explaining how circumstances can change, and how it doesn't make any damn sense to sell your car and clothes and home at a huge loss because you suddenly can't make ends meet as well as you once could.  

I would expect that anyone reading my blog is not of the mindset that anyone getting government anything shouldn't have a mobile device, but just in case any poor-people-haters decided to swing on by, I wanted to explain a few things. I was also thinking it would be a good idea to have all this info in one place for handy sharing the next time some jackass on my facebook feed starts talking about how they saw someone with a food stamps card using a smartphone.

1) It's none of your business. Really. This should be enough, but since it isn't for some people...

2) It might not be their phone. Or SNAP or WIC card. They could be picking up things for a friend, a relative, their clients at the group home where they work, their foster kids, their grandkids. It could be a phone they have through their job. Who cares? 

3) Mobile devices are no longer ridiculously expensive. Several mobile plans have a low-end smartphone as their free phone at this point. An iPhone 4 or 4s can be purchased on eBay or amazon for $20-$30 at this point. People are routinely giving away iPhone 4s and 5s to their friends for free to use as an iPod for their kid or to use as a backup when their phone broke

4) You don't even need phone service on the device to use apps or check e-mail. People might have a device because they're using it to e-mail their job or check their kid's school grades. You can use apps anywhere you're connected to wi-fi, and you can compose e-mail, write notes to yourself, listen to music, etc. without any network connectivity. Home internet can be as little as $9.95, or you can pool together with several people in your building to share wireless. Or just piggyback on all your neighbors who don't know to put passwords on their networks.

5) A lot of low-income folks don't have a computer, cable, or home internet. They may have a device connected to phone service, and it might be the only way they receive phone calls, pay bills, send e-mails about work and school, and stay in touch with their kid's teachers. If the phone was cheap or free and the plan is $50 a month, they're likely spending a lot less than you on technology.

5) Oh, and just in case I do have someone reading who thinks that people who get WIC, SNAP, Medicaid, etc. should have their income and expenditures scrutinized, I'll just mention that I really hope they feel the same way about people who take mortgage interest tax credits, student loan tax credits, and so forth. It's all free money from our tax dollars, but some of it just somehow gets viewed differently by some people.

Free stuff at Amazon right now

Apparently Woot wants to get rid of some overstock, so badly that they're listing items for free. If you have a Prime account (and if you don't, find someone who is a student so you can save on the fee), go to Amazon, put something $25 or more in your cart, and then go here and sort it by price: high to low. Click on something that says Price $0.00 to $10,000.00, then click through and see what size and color is free.

I ordered a bunch of Reebok shorts, some men's shirts, fleece jackets, and kids' pajamas. I'm not sure if it will fit people in our home, but surely there will be someone who can use it.

There are a lot fewer items left than there were last night, but try it and see. If nothing that works for you is left, maybe order whatever is left and donate it to a shelter or to someone else who is scraping by?

(By the way, even when this crazy deal isn't happening, you can sort entire categories on Amazon from low to high and sometimes find things that are either free or had their price entered incorrectly, and score some amazing deals. All I ask is that you please look and see whether the item is sold by a small family-owned-type business or a large retailer. Please don't order 10 of an obviously mispriced item from a small business. That's just cold.)

Snow boots on Amazon for $14?!

Interesting. These boots, which have great reviews, are $14-18 for certain sizes and colors. Size youth 13 in the star print came out at $14.03. That's cheaper even than most of the boots on aliexpress, and these come right away with prime shipping.

A few Kamik and DC shoes items are coming up this way too. Search for the generic item ("child high top sneaker," "toddler snow boot"), then it will come up near the top with a range of $15-$60 or whatever. Put in a size and see if any colors come up heavily discounted. Try the next size up if nothing comes up. Wow.

UPDATE: The boots arrived, they fit, and they're as sturdy and well-made as Kamik or any of the other swanky brands.