A month before my now 2.5 year old son was born, gas was $4 a gallon and We were burning a ton of it at the time, as I was responsible for moving all of our possessions in to a new place and also driving back and forth to school, in addition to the wife and I both driving to work and back. So, I was looking for extra ca$h anywhere I could.
One afternoon, I was trolling Craigslist when somebody posted in the "Free" category.....they were giving away a ton of Christmas lights! A full carload! Must take all! It was a "curb alert" posting with an address, so I headed that way with dreams of the large bulbs and heavy gauge wire dancing in my mind.
I got there and sure enough, it was a car load, but of tangled mini lights.
I loaded them up and took them to the new place, grabbing a six pack on the way. I sat outside that night and clipped lights off the wire for over four hours. I barely made a dent in the pile, and yielded a grand total of six or seven pounds of insulated wire for my effort.
Clearly this was a failure and not an efficient use of my limited time. I shoved the pile of light into the corner of the garage and tried my best to ignore them.
Fast forward to now....I was doing some spring cleaning and finally decided to address the lights. I figured that with a little work here and there, I could whittle the pile down. I taught the 11 year old boy next down about "scrapping" and gave him a pile to do for himself. Last weekend, I earned my Associates degree finally, and so have had plenty of time this week to mess with it. I can sit just inside the garage and snip wire while the little boy runs around the yard, rides his tricycle, stomps in puddles, and picks up pillbugs. This week, I have filled two five gallon bucks with wire (about 35 pounds) and one bucket full of bulbs. Imagine that....a five gallon bucket filled to the top with miniature Christmas light bulbs.
Hopefully I will be done with this ridiculous endeavor tomorrow and can haul the wire to the scrapyard and be done with it. Incidentally, I decided early on to spend the meager money I will receive on ammo.
That got me through another strand when I wanted to quit a few times.
Soooo.....what misguided or plain old mistakes have YOU made in pursuit of an extra buck?
One afternoon, I was trolling Craigslist when somebody posted in the "Free" category.....they were giving away a ton of Christmas lights! A full carload! Must take all! It was a "curb alert" posting with an address, so I headed that way with dreams of the large bulbs and heavy gauge wire dancing in my mind.
I got there and sure enough, it was a car load, but of tangled mini lights.
I loaded them up and took them to the new place, grabbing a six pack on the way. I sat outside that night and clipped lights off the wire for over four hours. I barely made a dent in the pile, and yielded a grand total of six or seven pounds of insulated wire for my effort. Clearly this was a failure and not an efficient use of my limited time. I shoved the pile of light into the corner of the garage and tried my best to ignore them.Fast forward to now....I was doing some spring cleaning and finally decided to address the lights. I figured that with a little work here and there, I could whittle the pile down. I taught the 11 year old boy next down about "scrapping" and gave him a pile to do for himself. Last weekend, I earned my Associates degree finally, and so have had plenty of time this week to mess with it. I can sit just inside the garage and snip wire while the little boy runs around the yard, rides his tricycle, stomps in puddles, and picks up pillbugs. This week, I have filled two five gallon bucks with wire (about 35 pounds) and one bucket full of bulbs. Imagine that....a five gallon bucket filled to the top with miniature Christmas light bulbs.
Hopefully I will be done with this ridiculous endeavor tomorrow and can haul the wire to the scrapyard and be done with it. Incidentally, I decided early on to spend the meager money I will receive on ammo.
That got me through another strand when I wanted to quit a few times. Soooo.....what misguided or plain old mistakes have YOU made in pursuit of an extra buck?
