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Bored And Broke


Charley

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I am Bored and broke

as I write this I have exactly $4.23 to my name. now this is not uncommon for me. In fact this is more money then I usually have.
Cash is nice but I have been poor my whole life. I can get by without much.

that being said I am also bored out of my mind. I need a hobby or a job, however seeing as i have looked for a job for over a year now with not even one call back. I have decided to go the hobby rote to cure my boredom.

my new hobby is going to be
making money without investing a dime. (sort of)
the actual hobby is going to be chronicling my efforts via both a blog and short videos I will post on youtube. (once i get a descent camera)
this is going to be about the adventure not the money.(I expect to make little to no money.)

I have little to no skills or talents I can exploit, but I have ideas.

In the past I have made money doing various things
such as selling knives
jewelry
and even Tiffany style lamps.
I have in the past made good money at this.
however this all takes money to make money and that is not the point here. I want to see what I can do on my own without investing anything more then time.

my starting ideas are as follows
AdSense (going to have the blog so why not)
recycling
(selling scrap metal, car batteries, ect.)
youtube
(they dont pay much but if your videos gets over 1k views they do pay some.)
odd jobs
(lawn work, house painting, light cleaning ect.)
eBay, craigslist,ect.
(I am always finding small items I can sell on sites like that whether I find them in my barn or someone offers them to me for free)


any ideas you guys may have are welcome (even if you think it may be a stupid idea it might still be worth trying just to see if it works.)

also if anyone can point me in the direction of a free blog site that allows AdSense I would appreciate it. (I have checked out a few but most of them seem to require a cell phone to register and I dont have one.)

I know this sounds dumb to most of you but it will give me the chance to get off my backside and actually leave the house once in a while.
and like i said this is not about the money its just to mainly see what I can do if I set my mind to it.
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This actually sounds very interesting. I will do some research to see if I could find a blog that allows Adsense. I've heard good things about Wordpress, and there's Blogger.com. Blogger.com might work for you.

I hope everything turns out well for you. I don't have any ideas for you, but I've seen some people do reviews for products. You say you've sold knives, lamps, etc? Why don't you do reviews on the products you have sold in the past? I don't know.....it's an idea. Anyway, I hope you figure out something.

Good Luck
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just signed up for blogger.

http://charleyg-boredandbroke.blogspot.com/


also if anyone wants to I can make this a community blog of sorts

write your own articles on how you made some cash and I will post them or send me links to pis or vids of you doing something to make cash and ill link them. (remember tho it has to be something you invested no money into just your time.)
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Sorry to hear about your troubles Charley. Since graduating in May, I have been jobless and know how bored it can be, extremely. I have applied to so many places and have heard almost nothing, it really sucks. Luckily I have some money saved up which has been dwindling, but still allowed me to do some stuff. I'm pretty bored, but have hookah, the gym and disc golf to keep me busy so far. It sucks because right when I finished school I sold my car, so have also not had a car during this time (really adds to the boredom). You've got some good ideas, I hope something pans out for you and you can get stuff going. I'll def check out the blog and see how things are going. Hope to see some exciting stuff there. You could also try getting free stuff (craigslist), or recycled stuff and revamping it/making something else out of it and selling it. I watched Julie & Julia with my gf the other day, and you could try something like that. Find something cheap/free someone has done/written about then follow it and blog about it, who know you may get a book deal (highly doubtful, but it could be fun at least).
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Sorry to hear about your troubles Charley. As far as a job goes, if you are desperate enough, go get a job at McDonald, Burger King, or Taco Bell. Those kind of places are always hiring. It will be crappy work for little money, but if you are bored and have the time, why not? Little extra beer money never hurts anyone.

As far as being bored, knit! I watched a few vids on youtube on how to knit, then talked to my sister and her boyfriend about it, and picked it up in less than an hour. Its cheap, easy, and keep you entertained. Right now, I am knitting a pad to set my pizza stone on once I take it out of the oven. If the vids on youtube don't help, i can try to make a how-to as well...once i get the time....haha waht am i talking about, i don't have time for anything anymore.

Oh, and Jeff, if i tried hard enough, i could have graduated this may, but decided to put it off until december because i figured i was in no hurry to get out. Now that i have seen where the market is still at, I am probably going to put off graduation until NEXT may, lol. Plus, if i stay until next may instead of december, I will have 150 hours (i think/hope) and will be able to sit for the CPA exam if i so choose to, plus Ill be able to pick up the finance minor I was wanting. but ya, even then, i have no idea what i am goign to do, so i feel ya therw
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I have a few more ideas for you, Charley.

Finding scrap metal can be a good way of collecting some money. Most people start with aluminum, but if your local metal scrapyard can recycle copper, then you might start there. Also if there is a glass recycling plant, then you can do that too. If you have a trade or are a handyman, then you can offer your services to people. Since it's the middle of winter, you can also offer to shovel sidewalks and or driveways for people who are unable to. You can also offer to run errands for people with disabilities. I used to do that for a woman who was a sick and shut in. Granted, she didn't give me much money, but I enjoyed helping her anyway. Spring is around the corner also, so you can help prune and trim bushes, mow lawns and do stuff like that. Hopefully by then you'd be able to find a job.


Good luck Charley. Edited by thatonethere
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  • 1 month later...
[quote name='Charley' date='06 March 2010 - 08:47 AM' timestamp='1267894020' post='455601']
I have been busy didnt think anyone was reading it so I put it on hold for a little bit. I will start on it again soon
[/quote]

Did you find a job or hobby to occupy your time?
*I could probably check the blog to get the answer...*
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i will say that craigslist works, typically you can find a ton of items on there that people are selling for less then current used value or are able to barter them down to less... ive made alot reselling stuff from there to ebay.

Goodluck
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[quote name='Charley' date='28 January 2010 - 06:04 AM' timestamp='1264676660' post='448111']
any ideas you guys may have are welcome (even if you think it may be a stupid idea it might still be worth trying just to see if it works.)
[/quote]

You might try dumpster diving. I had a friend that would rummage through an office stores dumpster and she found a bunch of old software that she sold on EBAY for a nice chunk of change. Or even rummage through the trash in a nice part of town. Rich people throw away all kinds of stuff.
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Any nearby college towns? Go on the Saturday and Sunday morning and roam the streets. We have guys that clean up our yard of cans. By the time they get to the bottom of the street, they have four full trash bags of crushed cans. Throw them in the truck and move to the next street. I bet they make a good amount of money.
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[quote name='starlequin' date='07 March 2010 - 11:40 AM' timestamp='1267983640' post='455757']
[quote name='Charley' date='28 January 2010 - 06:04 AM' timestamp='1264676660' post='448111']
any ideas you guys may have are welcome (even if you think it may be a stupid idea it might still be worth trying just to see if it works.)
[/quote]

You might try dumpster diving. I had a friend that would rummage through an office stores dumpster and she found a bunch of old software that she sold on EBAY for a nice chunk of change. Or even rummage through the trash in a nice part of town. Rich people throw away all kinds of stuff.
[/quote]


lol I cant believe i didnt think of that. I salvage all the time for stuff i use to make pretty much everything (my furniture was salvage. the shelves on my walls are salvage, my tv was salvage, my ash trey on my km was salvage lol. )
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If I was you I would start a reshipping buisness.

I know as a Canadian there are alot of places/websites that ship to US cheap/free and or don't ship to Canada.

I would happily pay someone to take delivery of my stuff in the US and reship to Canada for a fee of course.

The only catch would be building the trust of your customers.

The cost would be nill to zero as the clients would buy the product pay to have it shipped to you and pay the shipping to their address and a fee all up front.
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  • 3 weeks later...
well its been a while since i posted anything but I am working on many different things at the moment. I will start updating again as soon as I can but first I want to check into a few things.

one of them is ehow I just found out they pay you for articles based on traffic and ratings and you can post as many as you want. (they pay very little almost nothing but the more you write the more you can make and its residual. one article can make a little bit of money every month if it gets enough views.) I have written several how to articles over the years on other sites and some of them were very popular so im hopping this can make some money. (aparently they also let you use affiliate links and ad sence in your articles as well.)

I am going to aim for a minimum of 100 articles in the first month. (from what I read most people who post 100 articles make roughly $15 a month off them combined. so like i said it wont be much but hey its something.

im going to save the scrap metal I have been finding until prices go back up. I took an old washing machine to the scrap yard today and they only offered me $5 for it. a couple years ago they were buying them for $25-30 dollars each.


im still having trouble with adsence. I apparently made an account with them years ago but I dont remember doing so and as such have no clue what my info is and im having trouble getting it back. (actually im trying to get them to just cancel it so I can sign up again.)
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Here's a few more ideas and I've got another one or two I might fill you in on once I get them worked out.


- flip car parts. Go to a junk yard and find car parts they'll let you have for free and sell on ebay

- dropship on ebay. This requires no start up money just end of the month money after listing it. Which you should be able to cover.

- become an amazon affiliate and link people to amazon products for good prices.

* here's a twist on the amazon affiliate deal

Sign up to be an affiliate. Find a picture of an item (real world picture if you can) and post it on Craigslist.
List the price at like $40 bucks (or whatever is higher than the amazon price) Then post your amazon affiliate link to the same exact product saying it's for (specs and details)
The trick here is the amazon product is going to be $30 or $35 so people are going to buy that instead. Which leads to you making money off the purchase.



Hopefully that helps.
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yay I got my adsence working.

and as for now I am going to bed lol. it is 3:06 pm and I woke up at 6 am [b]yesterday[/b]

when I wake up I am going to work on a few ehows
a couple hookah related ones. (heat management, phunnel packing, general set up, cleaning, ect...) heh what you know that's already 4 articles

then I will do couple about the ecigs (mixing flavors, cleaning the atomizer)

maybe ill even write a few on how to make some of my mixed drink recipes. (altho that means ill have to come up with names for them and I suck at naming things. I mean i had a dog named pup if that tells you how bad I am at naming things.) of course i got one I call chocomint lol but you will have to read the ehow.
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I saw these vids on youtube of supercars pulling up, just that, not racing or stunting, just accelerating quickly or even just revving up. Many of these short, effortlessly made clips got several 100k to millions of views. I thought to myself someone could have made money off of those relatively simply. Finding out different potential audiences and making videos geared towards them could be a good way to make youtube money. Some people have that X factor, charisma that gets them tons of loyal followers just chronicling their day to day lives, i follow the shaytards for example. Edited by Majid
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  • 1 month later...
free money man free money they paid me for blogging. I have read my own blog im really bad at it but yet they still paid me.

I am thinking about starting a second one lol call it the untrue tales of my imaginary life. at least then I could make that one interesting lol
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i don't know if you are looking for jobs relating to your studies or what but if i was that broke i would just apply at a bestbuy, home depot, grocery store or where ever else. Those retail places are always hiring and pay decently.
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I recently got a warehouse job and it seems like they will hire anyone from some of the people there I work with. I'm sure you'd be much more qualified than most of them, could be worth checking out if there's anything in your area. I'd imagine it's the same situation in most warehouses...
Well done with the "free" money though, hope it keeps coming in.
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