Pimp My Hundred Bucks - Part Thirteen

Approximately four weeks ago I left you facing the possible End of the World, what an anti climax that was! So much for the Mayan Apocalypse!

But it’s not all bad news; I get to continue toward my goal of turning $100 into $500 without having to worry about the earth shaking me to death, for now at least.

However I do find myself facing a less global catastrophe and a more internal disaster – I have no idea what to write today!

It seems my three weeks under the Australian Sun has either fried my brain or programmed me to enjoy doing nothing more than anything else. Holidays are fantastic, especially the one I just got back from in which I read several books, swam every day and ate most of Australia’s supply of mangos and deep fried calamari…

Sadly I always come back from Australia fat; the jeans that only just fit me before I left New Zealand now fit me as long as not doing up your fly is a fashion, which it isn’t, so they’re going on a holiday of their own until I can lose some weight, which means my jeans get to go on a much longer holiday than the one I just enjoyed.

But I’m back now, and slowly and disparagingly, I find myself struck hard in the face by reality and pining for my next holiday… and I’ve only been back at work for two days! And my work pants are killing me!

But this blog isn’t about how I’m multiplying in waist inches, but rather how I am increasing the capacity of my wallet!

Having had such a big gap between this blog and the last I feel the need to bring us all up to speed.

Late in September last year, following on from my previous series Pimp My Twenty Bucks, in which I successfully turned $20 into $112, I decided to take that figure and turn it into a more useful $500!

I felt it was important to give ten percent of it away to a charity I believed in, mostly because of my faith but also because money is worth nothing to me if I’m the only one benefitting from it!

Then I took $11.25 and tucked it away in my bedside draw for a rainy day, I’m glad to say it hasn’t rained hard enough to make me want to spend it yet and it’s still there.

After that I invested $20 in the ANZ Bank affiliated investment scheme known in New Zealand as “Bonus Bonds”, where it has matured into a nice big… er... um… $20… so that investment hasn’t really paid off yet, but I’m glad to remind you that that $20 is and always will be mine to take back whenever I so please.

Finally with the remaining $69 or so I purchased new stock and topped up my Trademe account, making it possible for me to start this whole affair with just over 100 books in stock.

By late December and Part Twelve of this series I had $285 to show for my efforts! But thanks to a few lingering listings and my purchasing some summer reading from myself I actually made it to $300 by the time I went on my holiday!

Apart from increasing in stomach mass I did get the chance whilst on holiday to think about where to go from here, with only $200 to go. I got to sort of step out of myself, metaphorically speaking of course, and separate the wheat from the chaff and came up with a plan of attack for when I got back to the real world in New Zealand.

You’ll be relieved to know that for now I’m ditching my YouTube antics because my adsense isn’t growing fast enough and, well, most of the stuff on my channel is just silly. Maybe as this series progresses I’ll be able to come up with more lucrative video concepts but for the time being me talking, singing or wobbling my tummy at a camera is going out of syndication!

The next thing I decided was that I wanted to hit the ground running upon my return so as far as pimping my hundred bucks was concerned! So in the last few days of my holiday I relisted all the items remaining from last year, about 170 books and actually managed to sell several whilst still on holiday!

So in the past ten days I have sold eleven titles, which I didn’t feel was too bad considering the summer holidays are nearly over and my highest sales usually occur just before the holidays…

I sold

Emma by Jane Austen for $3
Tribulation Force by Tim Lahaye $3
Starman by Sara Douglas $3
Flying Saucers and their Occupants by Jim and Coral Lorenzen $3
Ben Hur by Lew Wallace $5
Birds of Prey by Wilbur Smith $3
A box of damaged books for $2
Heidi Grows Up by Charles Tritten $6
Tomorrow When the War Began by John Marsden $5
People of the Fire by W.Michael Gear $5
Vixen 03 by Clive Cussler $5

Thus adding $43 to my progress which somehow went backwards from $300 to $283.99!

I mentioned above that I wanted to “hit the ground running” and so I spent up on some new stock last week plus paid a bit more than usual on promoting my books within Trademe, hence the figure less than $300… but hopefully the extra spending will pay off!

I now have 202 books listed on Trademe.

I’m currently having an argument with myself about whether doubling the amount of books listed will potentially double the amount I earn? Sounds like wishful thinking.

Until next weekend!

Click Here to read Part Fourteen in this series!




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