Cash Money!

October is coming to an end and winter months are starting-this is a scary time of the year for car dealers. The months of September and October were some of the worst used car-selling months in America's history. I've been looking at some of the articles and data about the industry and most agree that the financial problems of the United States have hit us hard. Unfortunately, Hardman Car Company has felt a pinch too, but we will continue to work hard to make it through this.

As a wife, and a stay at home mom, it has been hard for me to see the stress and worry in Sonny about money and not feel like I could do much to help him. So, me and my friend decided to start a women's money group. We call it Fiscally Fit Chicks and our goal is just to motivate and educate ourselves to be more financially savy. Our first meeting was last month (only the two of us showed up, but that's ok) and it has been exciting to work on the goals I set. It has been fun to change my mind frame from, "I can't do anything to help" to "I WILL do something to help"

Here were the 3 goals I set for the month:
1. Put an extra $300 in our savings account.
2. Put $25 in each of the boy's accounts.
3. Research and find new ways that I can make money.

So, I know that it is not a lot of money to put into savings- but I hadn't been in the habit of putting a set amount in every month. It was hit and miss, and lately, with the economy it was mostly miss. So, after the "book briefing" of Rich Dad Poor Dad that my friend gave in our meeting, I was re-motivated to make sure I always pay myself after paying 10% charity.
In order to find the money I did a few things:

First, I challenged myself to only spend money two days a week. I could only buy gas, groceries, food, etc. on two days of the week. I could not spend money on any other day. Second, I used coupons. (I've been couponing for a while now and am finally seeing a benefit. I get 3 papers every Sunday, browse all the ads and take a lot of time comparison shopping. I then go to Wal Mart because they match all competitor prices and shop, just once a week. So far I've cut around $200 a month on groceries. I know I can do more.) Third, I don't allow myself to eat out. I make sure that I make dinner, even when I don't want to, and I bring food in the car from home if I know we'll be driving over lunch time. I have never eaten out too much, but it saved about $50 just by avoiding drive throughs.

I then worked on my third goal of finding ways to make extra money and used that extra to help fill my first 2. These are some ideas I came up with:
First, I was able to get on the sub list to teach yoga for Gold's gym. Knowing I didn't want a full time commitment to any job, and not wanting to be required to teach at certain times and certain days- a sub was exactly what I wanted. The classes are before Sonny goes to work or after he gets home and I can choose if I want to take them or not. Just by picking up 5 yoga classes a month (something I would be doing anyway!) I will make an extra $150 a month.

Second, I started selling on Amazon. It was so easy to sign up to sell old books that are laying around my house. It takes very little time. I just type in the isbn number, they show the picture of the book, I describe the book's condition, put in the price and that's it. Amazon emails me when someone has bought something and I send it. They give a $3.50 commission on top of what you sell it for so depending on the price of shipping, sometimes I make even more than what it sold for. It usually isn't very much, but it is more than it would be selling for a $1 at a garage sale, or sitting on the shelf in my basement. That extra money gets directly deposited into my savings account.

Third, Ebay. I have never sold things on ebay before, but in an effort to accomplish goals 1 and 2 I jumped in. It is a little more work than Amazon, but it is still more money than you'd make from garage sales, consignment stores, or cluttering up your closet. I found that my name brand items sell best. I took pictures of a bunch of clothes, loaded onto the computer, wrote up descriptions about them and posted them for auction. I have to check my email a lot and see if people have questions about the items, but I usually am on the computer for a little bit every day anyway. Just from selling some old clothes I was able to come up with an extra couple hundred.

Fourth, babysitting. My good friend started a new job and needed a sitter for her daughter that is the same age of my son. I only watch her one day a week, we have fun playing and going to the library. She is a friend that would most likely be at my house anyway and it is really easy to have her with us. My friend pays me for watching her, an extra bit of money I get to put directly into savings.

Future Ideas: I also read up on some other easy ideas to make money as a stay at home mom that we are going to talk about in our next meeting. I am doing the "book briefing" on the book Multiple Streams of Income by Robert Allen.


He has some big ideas with real estate, stock markets, and that sort of thing. (which I plan to get more involved in too.) but some other little ideas I found are:

1. Selling your photos or videos. If you take lots of pictures did you know you can sell them as stock photos or video? It is only a few cents per picture, but if you have hundreds, why not give it a try?

2. Renting out your home for movies or commercials. I looked at the websites that do this and most of the homes they are looking for are in the LA area, but all you do is register your home on their site and if they choose it, you get paid. My cousin rented her flower shop one time for a movie to be shot in and it worked out really well for her!

3. Selling your craft items on sites like etsy.com, zazzle.com, or cafepress.com I am not a crafty girl, but some of my friends make the greatest cards, clothes, pictures. This is like having your own business, just online.

4. Be a mystery shopper. You get paid to shop so companies can evaluate their customer service, store cleanliness, things like that. You can make between $8 to $20 a trip, check out mysteryshop.org

Anyway I came up with a lot of new ideas. I actually have felt pretty excited this month and not depressed. It really has been fun and motivating to try some of these things. I can't believe that I get so excited to save just a little bit of money, but when I see it add up in my savings account. I LOVE IT!

My hope is that you don't need to worry about any of this extra stuff, but in case there are any other car dearler's wives out there, maybe this can give you some motivation during such a down time.