THINK TANK! How to donate $2,300 in the fourth quarter!

[TechnoGuyRob]

The goal of this post is to explain how to donate $2,300 to Ron Paul from your own finances (not asking others to donate).

Alright, so there's 92 days in the fourth quarter. That's exactly $2,300/92 = $25 a day. $25 a day certainly seems reasonable, and some of you might be able to make than in an hour of work. While $2,300 seems intimidating, $25 a day sounds much more doable. Of course, the key is to do this every day.

So how are you going to do make $25 a day? Think of it as a 92-day fast for a better future. Here's ways to chunk out a few dollars out of your day to reach that $25 every day:

1. Spend $5 less on food/movies/etc. every day (as long as you have a new five dollar bill in your hand every day). Heck, if you're dedicated enough, just make the sacrifice and stock up on 92-days of Ramen.

2. Rake leaves for your neighbors. Shovel their sidewalks. Plow their driveways if you have the means. Babysit their kids on snowdays (or any day.) Have an end-of summer garage sell. Sell stuff on ebay. Make crafts and sell them at local craft shows (we have winter craft things at the churches and such.) [Suggestion by McDermit]

3. Have a bake sale with your meetup. [Suggestion by McDermit]

4. On Halloween, Haunted house with admission fees or "suggested donations" [Suggestion by McDermit]

5. Temporarily cancel services (e.g., paid TV and radio, cable, satellite; gym membership; etc.). [Suggestion by Corydoras]

6. Apply for a 12 month introductory 0% Credit Card and use it to donate the $2300. Pay back within a year in increments of $6.30 / day. [Suggestion by nyjohn]

7. Walk, take the bus, or carpool to work and donate the gas money. [Suggestion by abobo]

8. Sell blood. [Suggestion by abobo]

9. If you can code, do a monthly assignment of $100-200 value on Rent-A-Coder.

10. If you live in a state with refunds on cans and bottles, collect them and cash 'em in. [Suggestion by Corydoras]

11. If you're a student, sell back this term's textbooks and donate the profit! In fact, sell anything you can whether on eBay or a garage/yard sale (or even going to store that buy as well as sell things)!

12. Take an hour out of your weekend, and go around businesses telling them you have a personal challenge to make $25/day, and your goal right now is to chunk in $5/day (or $35 for the whole week). Ask if there's anything you can do for them that they would be willing to pay you $35 for (advertising, doing some service, etc.).

Think of more ideas, everyone!! Good job, so far!

[McDermit]

With fall/winter coming, able bodied people can pull it off. (At least those in the north!)

Rake leaves for your neighbors. Shovel their sidewalks. Plow their driveways if you have the means. Babysit their kids on snowdays (or any day.) Have an end-of summer garage sell. Sell stuff on ebay. Make crafts and sell them at local craft shows (we have winter craft things at the churches and such.)

[McDermit]

Have a bake sale with your meetup. Christmas cookies ftw!

[McDermit]

Haunted house with admission fees or "suggested donations"

[Corydoras]

Temporarily cancel paid TV and radio (cable, satellite)
Temporarily cancel gym membership

[nyjohn]

Apply for a 12 month introductory 0% Credit Card and use it to donate the $2300. You can stretch out the payments for a year and make sacrifices/sell stuff along the way.

[Abobo]

- Walk, take the bus, or carpool to work and donate the gas money.
- Sell blood.
- Sit on the street corner asking for change.
- Don't stop taking about RP to your friends until they pay you to shut up.

There's plenty of ways to save/earn money to donate :D

[libertythor]

Make sandwiches for the kids to bring to school instead of buying lunchables.

Smoke the cheap brands or mail order them from Indian reservations. Quitting will help even more.

Go to the barber college for your haircut.

Shop at Aldis and the breadstore.

If you live along the border, fill your prescription in Canada or Mexico.

Hold off on that news magazine or book.

Use your imagination.

[Corydoras]

If you live in a state with refunds on cans and bottles, collect them and cash 'em in.

[TechnoGuyRob]

Updated! I decided we should go with "specialized" tasks after all. The more the better, since people can probably find at least a few things they can do!

[McDermit]

- Sell blood.


On that note...
sell plasma.
sell your spermies.
sell your eggs.
sell a kidney on the black market.
sell yourself in the name of medical research. (craigslist etc is a goldmine for this stuff)
sell yourself in some other manner.

[Ninja Homer]

92 days is just over 13 weeks.

In the first week, get out and find 2 people who will support Ron Paul and donate $10 each. Get those 2 people to go out and find 2 more people each who will support Ron Paul and donate $10 each, as well as find 2 more supporters each.

If this continued successfully for 13 weeks, there would be 16,382 new Ron Paul supporters that donated a total of $163,820, all from you starting with the first 2.

[Corydoras]

Specialized: Join a home sales company and donate your profit. (Partylite, Longaberger, Tupperware, Mary Kay, Avon, etc.) If you're shy about strangers, just get everyone you know to place one gigantic order (make sure you earn back your starting costs), donate the profit, and drop it.

[TechnoGuyRob]

92 days is just over 13 weeks.

In the first week, get out and find 2 people who will support Ron Paul and donate $10 each. Get those 2 people to go out and find 2 more people each who will support Ron Paul and donate $10 each, as well as find 2 more supporters each.

If this continued successfully for 13 weeks, there would be 16,382 new Ron Paul supporters that donated a total of $163,820, all from you starting with the first 2.

But unfortunately, pyramid schemes don't work in reality! :(

[McDermit]

Temporarily cancel gym membership

Blasphemous!

[McDermit]

Specialized: Join a home sales company and donate your profit. (Partylite, Longaberger, Tupperware, Mary Kay, Avon, etc.) If you're shy about strangers, just get everyone you know to place one gigantic order (make sure you earn back your starting costs), donate the profit, and drop it.

Mary Kay has too steep an entry cost.

Adult toy parties are where it's at. Get the woman in your life to host one.. or do a couples one. My ex used to go to a ton and she dragged me to a few. They were actually kind of fun. And everyone drank and ended up buying a ton of stuff at every one I attended.

[McDermit]

Tutoring, if you have kids in school or know people with kids that could use some help.

Teaching second languages, if you know one. There was an ad in our paper today for a guy teaching Italian. $25/week, 12 people per class, 12-16 week programs. Not bad at all.

Give guitar/piano/drum/etc lessons if you play an instrument.

Hook up with some local bands and host a little concert fundraiser.

Use coupons. En masse. Shop like you have $100 for groceries to feed your family for a month. Shop sales. If you have stores that double coupons, take full advantage. (Publix used to be great for this in some areas.) Do it up FatWallet stylee. When there's a coupon that matches up with a sale to get you stuff for free or near free, stock up. (We used to go get 100 Tony's Pizzas some weeks, and end up making money on the deals. Same with Dannon Frusion Yogurts, Softsoap bath gel, etc. If you really look, you can get a ton of shit free. Sell what you can't use. A little ghetto perhaps, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do.)

[TechnoGuyRob]

Excellent! I will update everything tomorrow morning/afternoon and we should link this topic to poor but enthusiastic friends!

KEEP IT UP!

[Corydoras]

Mary Kay has too steep an entry cost.

Adult toy parties are where it's at. Get the woman in your life to host one.. or do a couples one. My ex used to go to a ton and she dragged me to a few. They were actually kind of fun. And everyone drank and ended up buying a ton of stuff at every one I attended.

Hosting often means being paid in kind, which can be fun but then you don't get any cash to donate.

Mary Kay isn't that expensive to start up relative to the retail cost of the product... depends on the income level of the people who will buy from you. Same with Longaberger. Know your clientele.

[McDermit]

If you're REALLY trying to pinch pennies, visit your local bagel shop/bakery right before they close. Most will give you tons of crap for free. Same with pizza places, buffets, dunkin donuts, etc.

Dumpster dive. lol. Depending on your local, you can hit up commercial dumpsters and get products that are perfectly fit for use, still in packaging and all... no real trash in the dumpsters.. and sell or use the stuff. I have friends in Philly who get cases of Odwalla fruit juice and breakfast bars every week straight from the factory. Usually the labels are applied a little lopsided, and thus they aren't fit for distribution. They've found cases of new dvd-r's that they ebayed. Video games, computers, random store returns, you name it. It's a legit hobby for a surprising number of people... and not just homeless people and freegans. Lots of regular ol' frugal soccer moms.

[Badger4Paul]

Play online poker

[Ninja Homer]

But unfortunately, pyramid schemes don't work in reality! :(

I'll agree that you would never get the numbers that I listed. But, this campaign is almost all network marketing and internet marketing. There's almost no mainstream marketing at all, and look how well it's doing. MSM wants people to think that multi-level marketing doesn't work, because they make their money off of advertising, but if you look at some of the largest companies within certain industries, there are a lot of MLM's (Mary Kay, Avon, Herbalife, Pre-Paid Legal, Tupperware, etc.). Network marketing works in the real world if there is something for people to gain from it... like Ron Paul as President.

If you spend a few hours a week getting new Ron Paul supporters, and spend a little time with them to get them to do the same thing you are, I think it would be a lot more productive than, say, walking to work every day.

[Thom1776]

I would eat nothing but Ramen the entire quarter.

[McDermit]

Hosting often means being paid in kind, which can be fun but then you don't get any cash to donate.

Mary Kay isn't that expensive to start up relative to the retail cost of the product... depends on the income level of the people who will buy from you. Same with Longaberger. Know your clientele.
I think it depends on the company. From what I recall, there was one where the girl hosting it made something like $400 in cash. But you're right, most did pay out in "products."

I don't know too much about MK, as I've never sold it myself. lol. But when my aunt got into it, she had to spend nearly $3000 up front. You have to buy the product yourself. Then sell it. And they push you to buy a TON when you start. Then they want you to attend X number of meetings, most of which you have to pay for out of pocket. For someone who has trouble coming up with $2300, I don't see how they could swing something like that.

But yeah, the consultant usually pays half of the retail price. The markup is ridiculous.

It's worth looking into if it's something you'd enjoy... but not something I'd personally recommend to anyone.

[Ninja Homer]

I would eat nothing but Ramen the entire quarter.

lol... I had a couple quarters of college like that. Never, ever, again will I eat ramen. I can no longer keep it down.

[McDermit]

lol... I had a couple quarters of college like that. Never, ever, again will I eat ramen. I can no longer keep it down.

jail food! "chi-chi's" haha. Ramen noodles with cheese-its mashed up and dissolved in it.

worst crap ever, but my little brother makes it all the time.

[Corydoras]

they push you to buy a TON when you start. Then they want you to attend X number of meetings, most of which you have to pay for out of pocket.

Your aunt had a really lousy director! That's the sort of thing that gives home sales a bad reputation.
:(
It costs like $110 to get started and then you can take orders by giving out the catalog, and with a 50% profit, that means that only $220 retail makes back all the startup costs. With some of their single products costing more than $50, that is not hard to do. But again, doing this to make a fast profit means you have to be fairly certain that your ready clientele (family, friends, coworkers) is willing to shell out at least enough to cover the startup costs.

Again, home sales is SPECIALIZED.

[Ninja Homer]

jail food! "chi-chi's" haha. Ramen noodles with cheese-its mashed up and dissolved in it.

worst crap ever, but my little brother makes it all the time.

Cheese-its were out of my price range. I used generic cheese-flavored saltines.

[McDermit]

Your aunt had a really lousy director! That's the sort of thing that gives home sales a bad reputation.
:(
It costs like $110 to get started and then you can take orders by giving out the catalog, and with a 50% profit, that means that only $220 retail makes back all the startup costs. With some of their single products costing more than $50, that is not hard to do. But again, doing this to make a fast profit means you have to be fairly certain that your ready clientele (family, friends, coworkers) is willing to shell out at least enough to cover the startup costs.

Again, home sales is SPECIALIZED.

Wow, that sucks. She put in nearly 3k startup.. and then was talked into another $4k in her first 2 months. I know my ex bought over $1k from her ("Oh. That's neat! So's that! And that! I want one of every color!" Ugh) and we ended up buying a ton of crap for our moms for Christmas too. But she was still so far in the hole that it wasn't even funny. Most of her friends/family/coworkers are lower-middle class folk who think that AVON is pricey.

How do the directors get away with that crap? Had my aunt just done the basic startup, she would have made a ton and would probably have stuck with it. Instead, she got discouraged after digging herself into a huge hole and got stuck with all the unsold crap and no profits.

[Corydoras]

How do the directors get away with that crap? Had my aunt just done the basic startup, she would have made a ton and would probably have stuck with it. Instead, she got discouraged after digging herself into a huge hole and got stuck with all the unsold crap and no profits.

Well, some of the directors are trying to set up everyone as a professional business that has inventory on hand (several of every color etc). And $7k is extremely cheap for starting up a retail business-- capitalization can mean the difference between a business that succeeds and one that fails. And training that costs only $10 a week is pretty cheap compared to an MBA. So that's how they "get away" with it-- they treat it as a normal retail business, and if someone fails at it, it's comparable to if someone had started up a gift shop in a mall using a bank loan and failed at it because the gifts were too swanky for the neighborhood.

Other directors have an eye for seeing how much inventory someone can sell and what their financial resources and clientele are. For example, they have a sense for just how much capital someone can provide to start up. And they tend not to charge much if anything for their training. They know that if someone wants to do it for pin money, selling a couple of hundred dollars every few months, that can lead to an income stream that can last twenty years. Some of them have gotten pretty prosperous by recruiting sales personnel from among immigrants and even migrant workers.

If you know what you're doing-- and that's why I call home sales specialized knowledge-- you can make a quick buck doing one huge sale to all the people you know and then not pursuing it further. Not that directors like it when people do it, but it's perfectly within one's rights to do so.

[McDermit]

Cheese-its were out of my price range. I used generic cheese-flavored saltines.

My bro gambled for them. He had no cash what-so-ever, and started out playing poker with sugar packets. By the end of week one, he had stockpiled a huge stash of oreos, cheese-its, ramen, etc. :rolleyes:

[McDermit]

Well, some of the directors are trying to set up everyone as a professional business that has inventory on hand (several of every color etc). And $7k is extremely cheap for starting up a retail business-- capitalization can mean the difference between a business that succeeds and one that fails. And training that costs only $10 a week is pretty cheap compared to an MBA. So that's how they "get away" with it-- they treat it as a normal retail business, and if someone fails at it, it's comparable to if someone had started up a gift shop in a mall using a bank loan and failed at it because the gifts were too swanky for the neighborhood.

Other directors have an eye for seeing how much inventory someone can sell and what their financial resources and clientele are. For example, they have a sense for just how much capital someone can provide to start up. And they tend not to charge much if anything for their training. They know that if someone wants to do it for pin money, selling a couple of hundred dollars every few months, that can lead to an income stream that can last twenty years. Some of them have gotten pretty prosperous by recruiting sales personnel from among immigrants and even migrant workers.

If you know what you're doing-- and that's why I call home sales specialized knowledge-- you can make a quick buck doing one huge sale to all the people you know and then not pursuing it further. Not that directors like it when people do it, but it's perfectly within one's rights to do so.
Ah. that makes more sense. But the way it was laid out for her, she didn't even realize that she had the option to just do catalog orders. She's a nurse, and intended to start small and hoped to eventually work her way up to selling Mary Kay full time. I'm not entirely sure what she expected to happen with all the inventory given the area we live in... but I guess it's a lesson learned.

[TechnoGuyRob]

Alright, it's updated!

[uncloned21]

too bad we can't sell a kidney =(