Pimp My Hundred Bucks - Part Ten
I’m afraid I find myself suffering from a severe case of endofyearitis – being the psychological disposition that causes a general feeling of apathy, complacency and a general feeling of just being over it all. Left untreated the condition can lead to potential procrastination and eventual giving up.
Having just been to an imaginary Doctor, because I can’t really afford to see a real one for a condition that doesn’t actually exist, I found myself staring at a picture of a game of Tetris. There were painfully organized blocks desperately trying to squeeze together as they piled on top of one another by someone who clearly was not good at the game, but on closer examination I could see titles on the misshapen blocks, like “Christmas Presents”, “Church Nativity Play” and “Stuff at Work” jammed into other odd shapes entitled, “General Lazyness”, “Extreme fatigue” and “Morbid Boredom”.
It turns out that what I was looking at was an x-ray of my brain.
It is indeed that time of the year when everything seems to be happening at once. And amidst the storm of end of year responsibilities, obligations and chaos I am still trying to turn my $100 into five times that amount…
Knowing that the North Pole is located somewhere inside my wallet and that Santa’s real toy factory is rather less dependent on Elves than it is on my money, I am even more determined than ever to navigate my way through the next 3 weeks in the hope that I might reach my goal sooner rather than later!
I’m imagining that the Christmas Season will bode rather well for my mission because there just might be some shoppers out there cheap enough to buy second hand books for their loved ones. On the other hand in New Zealand, the Season coincides with the only other thing on the planet nearly as exciting as Christmas itself – the Summer Holidays!
My experience throughout the year has taught me well, that whenever there is a holiday the week or two before it slam me with an abundance of sales, and this is the mother of all holidays.
This is of course wishful thinking not based on concrete statistical data, either my gut is telling me the truth or I have gas.
As you know last week’s blog came out rather late, which means that this week’s sales reflect only what I have managed to fob off in the last five days… but I have to say, for a five day period, I did pretty darn well selling:
Time Flys by Bill Cosby - $6
It’s a Dog’s Life by Murray Bull - $3
Star Trek Perchance to Dream - $3
The Mammoth Hunters by Jean M. Auel - $3
Smoky Joe’s Café by Bryce Courtenay - $3
Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder - $6.50
Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend - $3
The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul by Douglas Adams - $3
People of the Sea by W. Michael Gear - $5
That’s a nice big juicy $35.50 for only five days of “work”.
All things considered, such as listing fees, success fees and postage I am left with $244.24! Almost Half Way! (This figure may shrink a tad if some of these buyers decide to "pick up" rather than pay for postage… grrr!)
But besides cheapskates my biggest enemy right now is puttingthingsoffinitis – the common disease otherwise known as Procrastination. I have close to 50 books sitting on my shelf in the living room waiting to be listed. These represent the stock I have purchased over the last two weeks to replace what I have sold in that period. If I could list them in my sleep I would, but unfortunately when the opportunity to list them has come I’ve been “awake” in the physical sense but very much asleep in the motivational areas of my brain. This is not good; the more books I have listed the more hooks I have in the sea of potential buyers!
Currently I have 156 books listed on Trademe, but it could be well above 200 if I just got my act together!
I have three weeks to make a real dent in my goal. Over the Christmas and New Years period I'll be putting this series in suspended animation while I enjoy my prezzies and a trip to Australia! The question is can I achieve in three weeks what has so far taken me ten? The pressure is on!
As I am now including my adsense revenue in this grand adventure, I can boast a great big $1.57 for last week’s YouTube/blogging efforts! As for this month, I’m soaring to the skies with my great big two cents worth of earnings. Those being very low skies, or maybe what an ant would consider to be the sky, which is somewhere above my toe nails. Of course I can’t add this to my total until I actually get a google cheque in the mail… which at this stage will be when my youngest daughter turns 18 in 2028.
Finally, remember my $20 worth of Bonus Bonds? The $20 I allocated to “Invest” when I started this series? Well, after the first monthly draw on December the 1st, I am happy to report that my $20 is still worth exactly $20…
Oh well.
Tune in next week when I hopefully break the sound barrier and burst past the half way mark. In the meantime please feel free to follow any of the links below for hours of my own brand of whatever it is I do around here. Oh yeah, the “like” button is always a fun thing to click on as well, try it, it’s really cool.
Click Here to read Part Eleven in this series!
Click Here if you would like to follow my progress on Facebook!
Click Here to read this series from the beginning!
Click Here to read my awesome last series, Pimp My Twenty Bucks
Click Here to view my Trademe Listings
Having just been to an imaginary Doctor, because I can’t really afford to see a real one for a condition that doesn’t actually exist, I found myself staring at a picture of a game of Tetris. There were painfully organized blocks desperately trying to squeeze together as they piled on top of one another by someone who clearly was not good at the game, but on closer examination I could see titles on the misshapen blocks, like “Christmas Presents”, “Church Nativity Play” and “Stuff at Work” jammed into other odd shapes entitled, “General Lazyness”, “Extreme fatigue” and “Morbid Boredom”.
It turns out that what I was looking at was an x-ray of my brain.
It is indeed that time of the year when everything seems to be happening at once. And amidst the storm of end of year responsibilities, obligations and chaos I am still trying to turn my $100 into five times that amount…
Knowing that the North Pole is located somewhere inside my wallet and that Santa’s real toy factory is rather less dependent on Elves than it is on my money, I am even more determined than ever to navigate my way through the next 3 weeks in the hope that I might reach my goal sooner rather than later!
I’m imagining that the Christmas Season will bode rather well for my mission because there just might be some shoppers out there cheap enough to buy second hand books for their loved ones. On the other hand in New Zealand, the Season coincides with the only other thing on the planet nearly as exciting as Christmas itself – the Summer Holidays!
My experience throughout the year has taught me well, that whenever there is a holiday the week or two before it slam me with an abundance of sales, and this is the mother of all holidays.
This is of course wishful thinking not based on concrete statistical data, either my gut is telling me the truth or I have gas.
As you know last week’s blog came out rather late, which means that this week’s sales reflect only what I have managed to fob off in the last five days… but I have to say, for a five day period, I did pretty darn well selling:
Time Flys by Bill Cosby - $6
It’s a Dog’s Life by Murray Bull - $3
Star Trek Perchance to Dream - $3
The Mammoth Hunters by Jean M. Auel - $3
Smoky Joe’s Café by Bryce Courtenay - $3
Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder - $6.50
Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend - $3
The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul by Douglas Adams - $3
People of the Sea by W. Michael Gear - $5
That’s a nice big juicy $35.50 for only five days of “work”.
All things considered, such as listing fees, success fees and postage I am left with $244.24! Almost Half Way! (This figure may shrink a tad if some of these buyers decide to "pick up" rather than pay for postage… grrr!)
But besides cheapskates my biggest enemy right now is puttingthingsoffinitis – the common disease otherwise known as Procrastination. I have close to 50 books sitting on my shelf in the living room waiting to be listed. These represent the stock I have purchased over the last two weeks to replace what I have sold in that period. If I could list them in my sleep I would, but unfortunately when the opportunity to list them has come I’ve been “awake” in the physical sense but very much asleep in the motivational areas of my brain. This is not good; the more books I have listed the more hooks I have in the sea of potential buyers!
Currently I have 156 books listed on Trademe, but it could be well above 200 if I just got my act together!
I have three weeks to make a real dent in my goal. Over the Christmas and New Years period I'll be putting this series in suspended animation while I enjoy my prezzies and a trip to Australia! The question is can I achieve in three weeks what has so far taken me ten? The pressure is on!
As I am now including my adsense revenue in this grand adventure, I can boast a great big $1.57 for last week’s YouTube/blogging efforts! As for this month, I’m soaring to the skies with my great big two cents worth of earnings. Those being very low skies, or maybe what an ant would consider to be the sky, which is somewhere above my toe nails. Of course I can’t add this to my total until I actually get a google cheque in the mail… which at this stage will be when my youngest daughter turns 18 in 2028.
Finally, remember my $20 worth of Bonus Bonds? The $20 I allocated to “Invest” when I started this series? Well, after the first monthly draw on December the 1st, I am happy to report that my $20 is still worth exactly $20…
Oh well.
Tune in next week when I hopefully break the sound barrier and burst past the half way mark. In the meantime please feel free to follow any of the links below for hours of my own brand of whatever it is I do around here. Oh yeah, the “like” button is always a fun thing to click on as well, try it, it’s really cool.
Click Here to read Part Eleven in this series!
Click Here if you would like to follow my progress on Facebook!
Click Here to read this series from the beginning!
Click Here to read my awesome last series, Pimp My Twenty Bucks
Click Here to view my Trademe Listings
Comments
Post a Comment