eBay, anyone?

Are you guys getting tired of hearing about saving money?  Good, because I'm not finished.  One of the biggest ways to get money back into your account is to take a good long look around your house and get rid of those things that you don't really need.  Idea:

On January 1, turn all of your hangers in your closet around backwards.  Every time you take something out and actually WEAR it (I'm guilty of taking it out, putting it on, changing my mind and putting it back), then flip the hanger around the right way.  In 6 months, get rid of any item that's still hanging backwards.  You can have a yard sale if you're wanting to make a little extra cash.  I think this is going to be on my mid-year resolution...I don't want to wait until next January! 

I think we all have that one item in our house that we regret buying.  That we know we spent too much on, that we didn't really need, that we wish we had the money back on it every time we see it.  My item was a Dooney & Bourke Disney sketch purse.  I saw a girl at a UK basketball game with an adorable clutch with Mickey ears and balloons all over it.  Had. To. Have. It.  Literally, the next day, I went on the Disney Store's website and located them.  You can see the entire Dooney & Bourke Disney collection here.  I wanted one so badly.  Until I saw the price.  I was not going to spend that much money on a purse.  It was absurd.  So I put the idea out of my mind....for a little while.  Until Christmas came along and my dad gave each of us a cash gift.  Enough cash to buy my little purse.  Instead of being a smart, financially saavy little girl and saving my money, I bought the purse.  I was so excited, until it came in the mail.  And it was a lot smaller than I was expecting.  I was disappointed and, more than that, I felt guilty.  Literally, every time I saw the purse sitting in the back of my closet, my stomach turned.  I had to bury it in the back of my closet because I became nauseous every time I caught sight of it.  Terrible, I know.  But I didn't want to give it away or sell it in a yard sale because I'd paid so much for it!  So it sat in the back of my closet, unloved and unused.  When I began my Penny Pinching quest, I started to go through my closet in preparation for our family yard sale.  That's when I came across the purse again.  Instead of putting it in with the yard sale junk, I discovered eBay.  I've always been really hesitant whenever eBay was involved.  Auctions make me a little bit panicky.  I don't like bidding up until the last minute on something that I really want.  So I've decided to take advantage of all eBay has to offer, not as a buyer, but as a seller.  Here she is!

You can buy this item HERE

 Cross your fingers that it sells!! Because I really hate feeling nauseous and being intimidated by a purse.

Update: in less than 24 hours, I've got a bidder! I'm guaranteed at least $95 back on this baby! What on earth was I afraid of??

Get on with it....

I came in with the full intention of being a whiner today. It's been one of those weeks. Where I wake up in a horrible mood first thing Tuesday morning, and that mindset continues for the rest of the week. Nothing seems to go right, I hate my job, people make me mad, I don't feel good, I'm listening to a child screaming at the top of it's lungs as I currently write this....it's been that kind of week. Sitting down to my computer, I planned to unleash my full wrath of emotions, disappointment and frustration. I want to write about how financing is NOT at all what I want to do with my life. How I hate sitting at a desk 8 hours a day, talking about auto equity loans and ATM deposit holds. How I feel my creativity and brain cells slowly dying away while I tell people their credit score and how it got to be that high/low. I wanted to write about applying for job after job, only to be told that I don't have the experience necessary for that position. How I am at a total loss on how to gain said experience if no one is willing to take the chance and hire me in the first place. I wanted to write how I have been experiencing intense stomach pain for the past 7+ months, only to find I have a bacteria in my stomach, go on an intense round of antibiotics to supposedly kill it and then have the pain return. How I have a "consultation" with a surgical specialist next week and I am scared to death of having a colonscopy or an endoscopy or whatever other "scopy" that involves sticking a camera where a camera isn't supposed to go. I wanted to write about how I've seen at least 15 things that I want to buy for the spring season, only to be restricted by my stupid self-imposed shopping ban. This was my plan this morning....I thought the writing would be cathartic and make me feel better about my all-around crappy week. And then we opened our doors for business this morning. And a lady walks into my office and is practically in tears over the loss of her credit card and the charges that were made to her account by some hoodlum. And I realize that I am whining over a job when there's a lot of people that don't have one. I'm whining about not being able to buy things I want, but thank God I have the money available to do so. So many people have it worse...what gives me the right to complain about not being able to shop or being forced to discuss interest rates? I wish I could have this attitude more often. Unfortunately, I get caught up in the "not me's" and the "it's so unfair" attitude and complain more often than I should. But today I've been enlightened. It's ridiculous for me to complain whenever I have so many things to be thankful about. If you know me at all, you know that I have a teensy obsession with quotes. I shouldn't have looked any further than the wonderful Ms. Hepburn: "It's that wonderful, old-fashioned idea that others come first and you come second. This was the whole ethic by which I was brought up. Others matter more than you do, so 'don't fuss, dear; get on with it.'" Thanks Audrey.