Back in December I decided to join in on this year’s $20 Challenge, but haven’t been posting about my progress. So here goes!

First, my guidelines:

I’ll count any money earned outside my stipend towards the challenge, excluding gift money. I want to use the challenge to motivate me to find new ways to generate income. Gift money, even when it goes into savings, doesn’t fall into this category. I hope that by keeping a running tally I’ll have something to be proud of by the end of 2007.

I will count the money I make on my Personal Chef job. This is a job I “fell” into, and the family I cook for may decide at any point they don’t need my services. As it is, they cut back on meals during holidays and when they travel, so the money isn’t always something I can depend on. (see revisions to my challenge posted 1/11/07). I’ll also count money I make selling things on eBay, half.com minus listing fees, shipping, cost of padded envelopes, etc.

I’m not going to count money saved using store cards or coupons. The reason for this is that I’ve always used store cards, and figuring out coupon savings is just too darn confusing (case and point: I recently got a box of Barbara’s Puffins cereal for free after using coupons. I’ll eat it, but I don’t love it, and wouldn't have “bought” it if I hadn’t known it would be free. That’s not really savings, or at least not savings at full price.)

I’m also not going to count money for exercising, forgoing an indulgent treat, or the like. It’s A-OK if other people want to do this, but not how I want to use the Challenge to help me track savings.

OK, so now that my Guidelines have been established, here’s where I stand:

$20 beginning balance
+285.99 eBay sales
+41.69 Half.com sales
+75.00 Personal Chef
$422.68

A note on my eBay sales: Back in the day, I earned a varsity letter at Ohio State, but then I transferred to another university. All varsity letter winners at OSU get a beautiful wool jacket with leather sleeves-- regardless of if you letter in football or gymnastics. Since I transferred, I never wore my jacket and it never had a lot of sentimental meaning to me. So, I listed it on eBay right before the BCS Bowl and it fetched $305 + $18 S&H. I don’t anticipate having such great eBay sales in the future.

Interestingly, PayPal's and Ebay's cut of the action on the jacket was about $25!