Monthly Archives: August 2010

The Ups and Downs of Selling an iPhone on Craigslist

Written by in Negotiating
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This year for my birthday, I was given my brother’s AT&T upgrade to get an iPhone 4. That excited me for a lot of reasons. I got something new and shiny, the ability to video chat, and a far superior camera. It wasn’t something I would pay for myself, but with the upgrade, it was guilt-free.

Actually, it was also dollar free too.

Actually, I made money on the exchange.

What happened?

Well the iPhone itself was $200 with a $36 upgrade fee. I knew I could sell my current iPhone 3G S for around that much, and a quick search on craigslist showed that the lower limit I would get for it was around $250.

Already, it was a great deal and I was ready to pull the trigger.

I ordered my phone, picked it up, called AT&T to activate it…and the service was down. I spent an hour talking to a customer service representative trying to fix the issue, and when he couldn’t, I asked if he could compensate me for the time and stress, so he offered $25. (had I not asked, I wouldn’t have gotten a penny!) Good but not great. I asked for the $36 upgrade fee reversed and he agreed quickly. For an extra day of waiting, I was rewarded with the equivalent of a free month of service. I wonder what would have happened had I asked for $50..

The Lows

Great, so all I had to do was sell my phone on craiglist. People pay a premium for a jailbroken iPhone, and I agreed to sell it for $300, so I jailbroke it for someone who ended up not being interested (was a weirdo who said that since he already came to me, I should accept $20 less than we agreed on. That bothered me, so I said see you later and went back inside. It wasted 15 seconds of my time and he was left iPhone-less, so who had the bargaining power??). I called one of the other buyers. He came to pick it up, and when I asked if he wanted it jailbroken he said no, so I tried to reverse the change quickly and clear all data.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work the way I expected and instead of clearing the data, it did a hard reset on the phone, meaning I had to do a full install of the latest software, which can’t be jailbroken. Of course, he was no longer interested, and I was sorely disappointed.

I was devastated. I upgraded the phone to the newest version of the software, prayed a little, bargained with the G-man a little, and checked to see how much I could get on craigslist. In my mind, I would take anything over $200.

The Highs

It turns out that I got several offers when I set the price at $250, and in the end, someone came and bought it for $270.

All was better. I only lost $10 from what I wanted to sell it for originally (plus a $20 donation to charity that I promised in my bargaining phase).

My eagerness to get that last $20 cost me about 2 hours of time and a ton of stress. Of course, it all turned out well in the end, as it usually does.

My lesson? Stop trying to squeeze every last penny! Take what you can get, be happy with what you have, and don’t worry about getting the very best price. Just get a really good one.

Readers, have you ever made a stupid mistake you thought ruined everything because you wanted to do too much?

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Best of the Rest: Back to School Edition

Written by in Best of the Rest
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Schools are starting all over this week, and I spent the weekend at Maryland. Kinda weird going back and seeing the new freshmen. They’re so easy to pick out for a number of reasons: They have no facial hair, they talk about the best way to get back to the dorms, and they wear lanyards with their student IDs around their necks. Welcome back everyone, don’t spend all your money on liquor in the first week, go Terps!

On to this week’s links:

In addition to being a staff writer here, Crystal at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff actually writes great articles at her site as well! This one is a response to a Financial Samurai post about someone who called him cheap about not wanting a $5 coffee.

Flexo from Consumerism Commentary writes about why he doesn’t chase the highest interest rate. Awhile ago I wrote about why throwing every penny into savings isn’t worth it. In that case, it was the stress. This is take on why you should stick with a bank you like and not worry about small changes in interest rates.

Remember when stores set minimum purchase amounts and it was illegal? Well now that the new laws have gone into effect, that’s not the case anymore. Might Bargain Hunter lets us know that the minimum must be less than $10 however, so when the lady at the dry cleaners told me they don’t accept credit cards on anything below $15, she should be careful (although she can refuse my credit card for the 6.87 on my bill.)

Evan at My Journey to Million thinks that money can buy happiness. I like this theory and I think I’m in a better mood when I have no money. But what I especially liked about the post is the twitter comment he received in response. I saw it when it was posted and didn’t know what it was in reference to, but I immediately was drawn to it. Check it out.

Finally, check out J’s post at Budgets are Sexy to see what people searched for in Google and landed on his site. Not exactly personal finance related, but it’s a good time. Here’s my favorite search term from this week that landed someone on Sweating The Big Stuff: “no eating challenge.” They got to a post about not eating out for a week, which is what I hope this person was actually looking for. Otherwise..uh oh.

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Interview Series: My Journey to Millions

Written by in Interview
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Today’s interview is with a fellow Yakezie member and one of my favorite bloggers, Evan from My Journey to Millions. Once I got into the blogging scene, his was one of the first I read, and we’ve developed a nice friendship through the Yakezie that has been great for both of us.

What’s the most frustrating personal finance experience you’d had recently?

The most frustrating personal finance experience I have had recently is the general well being of my 401(k). I am young so I know I can’t touch it for a LONG while, but watching it stay the same despite throwing money at it…

If you could go back and tell your 20 year old self one thing (about personal finance or not), what would it be?

Oh man, I’d LOVE to talk to 20 year old Evan. I would tell him ‘come on buddy you have got to save your cash!’ 20 year old Evan was a fraternity punk who was fine with going out 4 to 5 nights a week. Even if I just inspired 20 year old Evan that it was ok to drink, but that if he just did it not at a bar for two of those nights, man, the money I would have saved!

What is one thing you splurge on?

What do I splurge on? This question literally made me laugh aloud. It is funny because my friends call me cheap all the time, but compared to other PF Bloggers I am a spending fool. While I consistently turn friends down for Peter Lugars, The Wife and I go out to dinner multiple times a week.

Recently you’ve tweeted about going to both Yankees and Mets games. I’m a diehard Yankee fan. So what’s your deal?

I am not sure why, but I am always shocked that people read my tweets. While I have gone to multiple Met games and a Yankee game recently, I actually don’t favor one over the other. I am not a baseball fan but who turns down a free/or near free sporting event. I am a HUGE football fan, and while I always watch and cheer for the Jets and Giants, I am a big Atlanta Falcon Fan.

What are your two favorite posts?

I have been writing for 2 years so it is nearly impossible to narrow it down. From this year, I’d have to go with Four Words in Personal Finance that Piss me Off and The Wife Says them All the Time and Three Common Qualities of High Net Worth People. They were pretty popular so I must have been doing something right!

Thanks Evan!

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Where Do You Put Any Monthly Extra?

Written by in Budget, Money
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The following is a post by staff writer Crystal at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff. Her blog covers living expenses, saving for your future, and the fun stuff in between.

As a zero-based budgeter, I am sometimes asked what we do with any windfalls that may pop up. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you, but now we have a plan.

Mr. BFS and I sometimes have a few hundred dollars at the end of the month that is just leftover – extra cash after all our savings goals and expenses are covered. Most of this extra usually comes from the sports officiating Mr. BFS does after work but now a little of it is from my blog as well. :-)

Anyway, for almost a year we just socked the extra away into the emergency fund, but hubby once complained that his extra work didn’t seem to be bringing him any extra money (“fun” money specifically). I don’t have as many hobbies as Mr. BFS, so I had never really thought about it like that. After talking about it, we came up with a system that has worked really well for us so far.

We put 50% towards our emergency savings and/or mortgage depending on how much is in the emergency account. If we don’t have at least $10,000 in the emergency fund, we put it all towards that since $10,000 is the bare minimum for us to feel secure. If that is taken care of, we split the 50% between the emergency fund and the mortgage as we see fit. Another 25% goes to our vacation account and the last 25% is split between our two individual fun money accounts.

This has been working well, but we will now be getting four “extra” paychecks each year – we are both paid biweekly on the same day since he got his new job. We agree (in fact, hubby brought it up) that $2500 just seems like a ridiculous amount to add to fun money accounts, so we will probably be putting those four paychecks a year into a second Roth IRA.

As I was writing this up, I noticed that Daniel even has noted in that he was thinking of putting some “extra” money either in savings or towards a want, specifically an iPhone.

I also came across 4 Ways to Maximize Your Stop Loss Pay at No Debt Plan and thought Kevin had some good ideas too:

1) Put it Where Your Budget Needs It
2) Pay Down Debt
3) Save It – emergency fund or Roth IRA
4) Buy a CD and think about your options

What do/would you do with some monthly extra? Would that answer change if it was a few thousand dollars or more?

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