Debt Freedom Plan » ortofon omb-10

November 2009 Month in Review

Jim Fitzsimmons — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:53:03 +0000

As I didn’t start this site until November 9th there’s really not too much to tell or talk about yet, but this is a good habit to start I think as you can see where you’ve been and if any progress has been made. Hey, it’s a start.

First, let’s start with the fun stuff:

Income

Adsense earnings for this month was a whopping $8.28. But it’s a 100% increase over last month as last month there wasn’t any income. So even though I made only 8 bucks I can toss towards the credit card debt it’s $8 I didn’t have last month.

Ebay Sales totaled $329 for the month and that’s from 2 sales only. I am hoping that next month would be considerably higher as I’ve got lots more auctions online (22 end today). So, I’ve got less stuff and $329.00. Not a lot, but the total income from this site, and my purging are $340.57.

I sold a Blackberry Bold and an Ortofon OMB-10 on eBay so far.

Amazon sales totalled $11.80 for the month. This came from commissions on products I linked to from this site. Your buying items through the Amazon link helps me greatly and I appreciate it fully. I do. The best part about Amazon is the sheer array of items they list. Chances are you’ll find something there you’ll like, and can save on. One thing I don’t care for from Amazon is the time it takes to get paid as it’s 90 days or longer from the time of sale until I see the dough.

I sold the following on Amazon:

Star Trek (Three-Disc +Digital Copy) [Blu-ray]

Canon PowerShot A1100IS 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.5-inch LCD (Green)

Kingston 2 GB SD Flash Memory Card SD/2GBET [Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging]

Mongoose BMX Bike Gel Knee and Elbow Pads

Razor A Kick Scooter

Playmobil 123 Truck With Garage

Assuming I started this site on the tenth of this month, I’m finding new income of $17/day on average for this month. I need to average $47/month in total to get my credit card debt abolished in 1000 days. I’m only 14 days into this project so still lots of time, and lots of stuff to sell. Lots. Of. Stuff.

Probably the most important thing to happen so far is to take action and actually share my credit card nightmare with you, dear reader (I’m purposely using the word ‘reader’, because if there’s more than one of you, I’d be suprised)

Credit Card Balances

Not much to report here really as I haven’t made any substantial start yet. I’ve got $400+ in paypal currently that I’ll withdraw and apply to my BMO Mastercard as it’s got the highest credit card interest rate at 18%. Today’s balance is $16,993.19 which is higher than what I started with, but I wrote about why here. So, it’s acceptable I suppose. I’ve also got a whopper of a Visa Balance too at $$22,163.40, but we’ll work on my Mastercard first. The interest rate on the Visa is much less at 11.9%, so i makes sense to pay off the Mastercard first, even though I have more attachment to my Visa for some reason.I prefer my Visa to be my drug of choice. The Visa balance is a touch higher too, mostly due to interest charges no doubt.

Other

In an effort to build some trust and a mailing list and maybe, just maybe help somebody else out too, I’m giving away a copy of Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover. You should enter. Your odds are pretty good right now. How good? I have 2 entries. I’ll toss this in the mail for you if you win, and it’s legal for me to do so (void where prohibited, blah blah blah). Start the new year off right with a book that might help you on the path to debt freedom. It inspired me, in part to do this.

I wrote about failing miserably, and what I’ve learned and saved from the experience. I’m also up $500.

Traffic for the site is currently averaging about 75 uniques/day which is laughable for some, for two weeks in, it’s a start. If I can get traffic to grow 5%/month even that would double the traffic in a year’s time. Ultimately it would be nice to bring 1000 readers/day to this site in 1000 days. 1000 readers would probably make a bit of income, and maybe even enough to live on (wouldn’t that be the kicker?) and I’d be debt free. Hey, a guy can dream.

If you’re one of my two readers so far. Say hello. Be the first to comment. ever.

Put the needle on the Record. Day 8

Jim Fitzsimmons — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 02:43:56 +0000

Let’s start today with my daily sacrifice to the debt shall we? What day does this bring us to? Day 8.

Today, I’ve got an Ortofon OMB-10 Cartridge going up on eBay

These are photos of the actual item, and not some photo I found on the web somewhere. One thing I have is a macro lens which makes these photos possible. The lens was pricey at $800 used and I could sell it towards the debt, but there’s lots of other things I’d rather part with. Photography of flowers and bees an such is a dream with this lens. It’s a Nikon 200mm F/4.0 ED-IF AF Micro Lens and as you can see it retails for $1800. I’d hate to part with this lens. I know Dave Ramsey says “live like no other now, so you can live like no other later” (be sure to enter the give away I’ve got for his book). But this lens is paid for. I actually paid cash for this lens, so I don’t feel as inclined to part with it.

So, all that to say today’s sacrifice is a cartridge for a turntable.

Credit Card Regret of the Day

I wrote about web hosting the other day, and how I saved $45/month by forwarding a bunch of domain names to this site so this is related. Go back in time to July 1, 2003. I paid $356.91 way back then for a month of web hosting. Now, back then things were pretty rosy and my visa balance was only running about $1000 or so. But, let’s say for fun, I’m still paying for this at 12% over SIX YEARS. At 11.9% interest, my web hosting would have cost me $700.71. That’s close to double the original bill. Funnily, the $700 is close to the cost of my lens, which I’d rather have then yucky credit card interest. See? it’s the little things like this so far..$25 for a DVD and $300 here for web hosting, and my $28 pizza that now costs $60 and up when include all the interest incurred on the stupid thing. Sigh. Live and Learn, I suppose.

The Good News

I think I mentioned yesterday I sold my blackberry bold 9000 and I’ve now got a whole bunch of tennis string listed. I also sold a cartridge just like this for $20.50, so here’s hoping I get at least that for this one too. I’ve managed to find $320 worth of stuff for sale in a week. That’s 320 that can go towards the credit card debt.

Also I’ve made $4.12 with ads on this site in the past 7 days. Which really isn’t too bad considering the age of this site to date.

And, I’ve had some Amazon sales to speak of too: $11.80 so far. Yeah, I know – laughable but it’s a start. The beauty of Amazon is they convert pretty well if you can get the reader to their site. There really is something for everybody at that site – from baby diapers to power tools, and everything in between. Just look at the diversity of this list:

Mongoose BMX Bike Gel Knee and Elbow Pads

Razor A Kick Scooter

Playmobil 123 Truck With Garage

My guess is somebody’s found my link, and has started their Christmas Shopping. To whomever you are, thank you. It cost you nothing to shop at Amazon through my links. And, I make a small percentage ( I won’t see payment for months yet, they’re not the fastest to send payment)

and lastly….

If I had your money

I’d pick up a Nikon D700. Wait, you know what? I wouldn’t I have a Nikon D300 now and it suits me just fine. And the Nikon D300 I’m still paying for with credit, unfortunately. So let’s use the one I’m still paying for first. In a way, that Nikon was a good buy as it’s the first digital camera I thought was worth the money, All previous digital cameras weren’t worth the dough in my opinion. So, let’s pick something else:

I know: An Apple Magic Mouse. It’s more real world than a $3000 digital camera anyway.

But still, it’s $69 and I have a mouse which is paid for. It looks pretty neat though. Oh, old habits. They’re hard to break.