Post Your Wins

[AJSimon]

Nice win AJSimon!

Thanks.

[QuarterMillionMan]

I made $529 today on Tuesday trading the VXX basically overnight since Friday.

[disneysteve]

I don't gamble much anymore but still get the urge now and then.

5/15 I deposited $50 into my online casino account.
5/18 I withdrew $300 from that account.
5/19 I withdrew $200 from that account.

So I made a $450 profit in 4 days.

Not as big a win but:

6/5 deposited $50 - lost it all
6/5 deposited another $50
6/6 withdrew $50
6/7 withdrew $50
6/7 withdrew $50
6/8 withdrew $50

So a $100 profit in 3 days.

[skives]

I don't gamble much anymore but still get the urge now and then.

5/15 I deposited $50 into my online casino account.
5/18 I withdrew $300 from that account.
5/19 I withdrew $200 from that account.

So I made a $450 profit in 4 days.

Of course, I then proceeded to blow through the $169 I left in the account after that 2nd withdrawal but at least I was smart and took most of my winnings out first.

If you don't mind me asking what online casino do you use?

[disneysteve]

If you don't mind me asking what online casino do you use?

Tropicana AC. I’m in NJ.

[msomnipotent]

I don't know how this was figured out because my EOB looks nothing like the bill, but I got a refund of over $200 for my daughter's oral surgery. So I expected to have to pay at least $1,200 and wound up paying about $425.

My trade in was just approved, so I wound up paying $226 for a new Samsung S9. I found out after I canceled my home phone that my S8 has a known defect where people suddenly can't hear me, and Samsung wasn't fixing it. So I'm glad that I got a new phone that I am comfortable using that cheap, but I'm ticked off that I had to buy a new phone.

[Thrif-t]

Well we had our neighborhood sale. Out of 50 houses only 3 participated, I made $25, so my first hunch was right, it was a bust with no advertisement.

But I gotta say for the little bit of junk I had out there I was tickled to make $25. In my head I figured if I made 30 I'd be happy so I was just a little short. What didn't sell was dropped off to a donation site. Nothing came back in so that's a win right there

[disneysteve]

Well we had our neighborhood sale. Out of 50 houses only 3 participated, I made $25, so my first hunch was right, it was a bust with no advertisement.

I would be outrageously upset if we had a yard sale and only made $25. If I can't make $400 or more, I'm not wasting my time.

Yard sales are a lot of work Even when we do make that much, I often feel like it wasn't worth the effort. All of the prep time in advance, getting up ridiculously early, a couple of hours setting up, and then sitting outside for 6-7 hours for the actual sale before having to spend a couple more hours packing everything up again. When I think about it in terms of the hourly earnings, it's never worth the amount of time it took. I would be far better off giving everything away and picking up an extra shift at work.

[scfr]

I would be outrageously upset if we had a yard sale and only made $25. If I can't make $400 or more, I'm not wasting my time.

Yard sales are a lot of work Even when we do make that much, I often feel like it wasn't worth the effort. All of the prep time in advance, getting up ridiculously early, a couple of hours setting up, and then sitting outside for 6-7 hours for the actual sale before having to spend a couple more hours packing everything up again. When I think about it in terms of the hourly earnings, it's never worth the amount of time it took. I would be far better off giving everything away and picking up an extra shift at work.

The hourly earnings isn't necessarily the top goal.

One big advantage of a neighborhood/community yard sale is that it provides a rigid deadline. The entire house must be decluttered/sorted out and everything ready to go by a set date. There's no putting off until later.

And in communities where a lot of houses participate, they can actually be kind of fun.

[disneysteve]

The hourly earnings isn't necessarily the top goal.

One big advantage of a neighborhood/community yard sale is that it provides a rigid deadline. The entire house must be decluttered/sorted out and everything ready to go by a set date. There's no putting off until later.

Understood, but if I did all of that decluttering and sorting and getting everything ready and then only made $25 I'd be pissed. I take yard sales seriously. I fully expect to make something in the $500 range when we have one. It's a lot of work and a big time commitment. I'm not willing to do that for $25. I'd rather just put the stuff in boxes and take them to Goodwill if that was all we would make.

[msomnipotent]

There were times when I made more money by selling bottled water and pop during my garage sales than on my junk.


I calculated our net worth the other day. I was expecting a bit of a drop since we had over $42,000 in extra expenses since mid April, but we are almost $16,000 ahead. It helps that we had about $7,000 in RSO that we sold to pay for the vet and we used all of our bonus and some savings for the stupid coins. Increasing the 401k contributions and automatic savings helped and the stocks did ok. Not great, but ok enough.

[Thrif-t]

I'm ok with the $25, I didn't declutter for the yard sale specifically...I already had a pile to go to Goodwill and when the notice came out I just put my stuff out on tables. I have a lot more I could've put out but I figured it wouldn't be a good turn out so I didn't put in any additional work. So stuff I'd of dropped off and got nothing for, I made $25.

And wow $500 at a yard sale Steve. I don't have that kind of stuff lying around that would command that kind of money. Really most of my stuff is junk. In fact I just priced stuff at a dollar or less to get rid of it.

And as someone else said it was more of a social day talking to my neighbors, I really didn't mind

Earlier in the week a friend and I went to a used sports store and I dropped all my kids old shoes and sporting goods stuff off. They took some things not all and I made another 16.25 on that. Not a lot but hey again I was going to just donate it anyway. This way my friend and I ate lunch on it

[disneysteve]

IAnd wow $500 at a yard sale Steve. I don't have that kind of stuff lying around that would command that kind of money. Really most of my stuff is junk. In fact I just priced stuff at a dollar or less to get rid of it.

It tends to be more volume than quality. There's the occasional item for $10 or above but mostly low end stuff like glassware, books, toys, games, general household stuff, old suitcases, etc. We just move a lot of it. After 25 years of marriage and 24 years in our house, and decades of collecting various things, a lot of stuff accumulates.

[disneysteve]

I just redeemed $102 in cash back from my Chase card. I took it as a credit to my account toward the next bill.

[disneysteve]

One last college scholarship! My daughter graduated last month. In today's mail, she got a check from her college for $3,300. Apparently, she was again awarded the English department scholarship she got the previous 2 years. She never applied for this scholarship and never got any notification that she was getting it. The money just turns up a few weeks after the end of the year.

We're going to split it with her, as we did before. She's going to put her half towards her student loan. She only owes about $6,000 so this will take care of about 1/4 of it.

Our half will probably just go toward our HELOC. We owe about $6,700 on that. I was planning to pay it off over the next 2-3 months anyway so an extra $1,600 will certainly help. The interest on that is 4.74% so it's not a bad return on the money either.