Money from Garbage

So I am pretty addicted to monitoring my 24 hour Facebook bidding site and due to a posting by another member yesterday I was inspired to list a 9 year old HP laptop with a dead battery that quit working properly about 6 years ago. It turns on, but something is broken in it so that certain things are not functioning correctly. At the time it broke it was not worth the money to pay someone else to fix it. It had a DVD player so we kept it. It has sat wholly unused for 3 years. I spotted a non-working laptop on the site that had a starting bid of Free (you can do that and people bid it up in .50 cent increments or if they are really serious they take the bidding up in several dollar increments). It ended up at $35. For a non-working laptop!


So, inspired, I listed it last night with a photo showing that it starts up, gave full disclosure due to the broken issue and battery being dead (it has a cord so you can still plug it in) with the idea that some techie could likely buy it and fix it. I even indicated it was 9 years old. The bidding ended at $30 - it just goes to show what you think is garbage may be worth money to someone else if you take the time and effort to try and sell it. Frankly, I was thinking of taking it to my local recycle centre where all old tvs and electronics go to die. Items like these have lots of chemicals inside them and must be properly recycled rather than end up in landfills. The $30 will go straight into the Adventure Fund which I used to call my Weekends Away Fund. It was completely drained with our trip to Ucluelet and Tofino and needs some plumping up as all that is in it now is $29 from some rolled change.

In other news as I have signed the release forms and they have been accepted I am now going to share with you what I have won - a ride for two in the Goodyear blimp!!! And 5000 airmiles!! That is the equivalent of 5 low season flights between BC and Alberta which we make that run regularly to see our family and to fly kids in to see us. What a great prize! So on July 3 we are going to be flying out of the Abbotsford airport for about an hour over the City of Vancouver and lower mainland. They had 12 sets of winners so there are several flights scheduled that day as the blimp only holds about 10 people at a time. What a neat prize. When I entered the contest I told hubby that I really wanted to win this - something that you can't even buy! A lifetime experience, that is for sure. The prize did not include transportation to get to the blimp so we are absorbing that from our travel fund, taking the ferry over a day prior, going to the Vancouver Aquarium because I've wanted to do that ever since we moved to the Island (We have both been there 15-20 years ago) and then spending the night in a hotel the night before our flight is scheduled. This is one of the reasons that I constantly put money in the travel fund - you never know what might come your way. The prize is valued at approximately $2500 total(between the blimp and airmiles) so although it will take some money to take advantage of it is totally worth it to us.  Apparently the blimps are not in Canada very often, only a couple of times a year and only in Toronto and Vancouver.   Pretty neat - I am so freaking excited!