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Free Money Is a Gift You Give Yourself

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Are you ready to make some money?!

In days 22 and 23 of the Living Well & Spending Zero Challenge, we are making a shift to making money – something I love almost as much as I do saving money.

Since we recently did a purge on our homes and worked on cleaning and organizing, chances are you’ve got some good stuff to make some money on.

I love selling stuff so that I can turn around and use that money to buy things that will better suit my needs. You can read more about how I made money redecorating my home on Money Saving Mom in a post called How I Made Money Redecorating My Home.

free money

In the email for day 22 of the challenge, Ruth gives some great tips on how to sell stuff. I have experience with selling on eBay, Craig’s List (which is great for selling cars in our experience), garage sales, and Facebook garage sales. I lay out how these Facebook groups work in a post called How Facebook Can Save You Thousands of Dollars. That would be a great read. My sister also has sold things on Amazon and says that it works well.

  • I find that eBay is great for selling smaller sized things and higher ticket items, which helps account for the shipping. You pay a small fee, but it has worked well for me the few times of done it.
  • Craig’s List, as long as you are being safe, is a great option, too. We’ve sold cars, baby things, furniture, and various household items. We just always correspond via email only, meet only in a busy public place, and have my husband handle all the meetings. Many police stations state that they encourage Craig’s List transactions to take place in their parking lot. Can’t get much safer than that!
  • I have the best luck with garage sales when you are doing them with a friend, and they work even better when you are doing them at the same time as other people around you. Taking part in neighborhood garage sales are the best. There is always increased traffic, and it just makes it less boring.
  • The way I sell stuff the most is in the Facebook groups. Read my post on these groups first, and then what I am about to say will make more sense. These groups have been the way that I have bought and sold nearly everything we own over the past few years. I buy and sell baby and kid things, furniture, clothing, and various toys and get much better prices than I would at a typical garage sale. I find it is best to list a bunch of stuff all at one time. That way I am only having to set up meetings for a certain period of time. I would tire of this method if it was a way of life for me year round. Often you are selling just one item at a time so it is less efficient than a regular garage sale, but you also don’t have the pricing, set-up, sitting and waiting time, and put everything away steps that you have in a regular garage sale situation.

Day 23 brings us to something that I find so exciting…what I call, “found money.”

I love gift cards. I love receiving them as gifts, and I love buying them for the things I am already spending money on when I can get a good deal on them or receive some sort of rebate for purchasing.

The only problem is, they sometimes go MIA at times, or, I forget that I have them. Although, finding them again is an awesome treat!

I can speak from experience when I say, keep all your gift cards in one place, and then keep track of them. Of course you also can’t forget to spend them! There is nothing worse than spending good money on something, only to discover you had a gift card that you could have used instead.

Applying for store credit cards is also a great way to get free money. Stores like Kohl’s and Victoria’s Secret regularly send out coupons for deep discounts or even free stuff. Again the key is to make sure that you take advantage of all the free stuff you can, not forgetting to use them before they expire.

Watching deal sites like Money Saving Mom and Hip2Save is a great way to keep up on the latest free deals. I get a variety of magazines, good ones, for free, get free samples that at times are full size, and learn about ways to combine sales and coupons at various stores to score stuff for free by watching these sites. You must exercise self control when perusing these sites since you can spend money you never intended to spend, but they are a great way to get some free stuff.

Your birthday month is a great time to cash in free stuff of all kinds. Store loyalty programs, restaurant clubs, and various store credits cards all give you free stuff during your birthday month. Do a goole search or a Pinterest search for “free birthday stuff” and you will find posts that tell you where to apply for all of this stuff.

Ruth also talks about cash back programs like Swagbucks and others. I also have good luck with Ibotta. Look into these programs. It is a great way to get some free money. Viggle is a television watching app that also gives you the opportunity to get some free stuff in exchange for watching certain shows. I once paid for Christmas using primarily Viggle points.

Getting some extra cash in your pocket is always a great perk, especially when you have to do next to nothing to put it there. Take some time looking into these and other programs that can really help you get some extra money!

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