Here is what we sold today. We hope to finish step 16 by the end of the week. We have people interested in more chalk boards that we made.  So far, the hardest part of this project is staying focused! We only have $44.81 to go and have inventory to sell. If you want a chalk board, let us know!  

Total: $275.19

These are the chalkboards we have made to sell. There are 8 total and they are all 18"x24". It took a while to make them because we're both busy and Ian was traveling for work quite a bit. But they are done. Below are the tables Ian used to do a cost to profit analysis. 

As you can see above, we had to make sure every item was accounted for. We already owned the frames and paint so using Principle 8, we paid ourselves for those items out of our CENTS. In total, we spent just shy of $77 to make 8 frames. This table has been built out to make even more chalkboards if we think it is worth it to do so. While we have made only 8 18"x24" chalkboards, we are already thinking about making more. 

The table above is what we are pricing our chalkboards at. We would love to get $30 for the 18"x24" but will most likely get $25. If need be, we will go down to $20 but that is only if we have to. 

This table is where we determined if it was worth our time to create these chalkboards. As you can see, we make twice as much profit selling these chalkboards for $10 more than the low price ($30 instead of $20). That's a BIG difference. The cost ratio at the bottom indicates how much of each dollar goes to our cost. Therefore, at the low price, each $1 brought in took 48 CENTS to procure and at the high price, each $1 brought in took only 32 CENTS, a much better ratio. 

From looking at the image above, we lost two chalkboards from a bad cut. That eventually made our costs higher. 

The second problem we encountered was the wood we used. It looked to really smooth at first but when the chalkboard paint was applied to it, the grain started to show through and the texture was not welcome. Chalkboards need to be somewhat smooth or else it is hard to clean them. So, Ian had to figure out a plan to make a textured board smooth. After tying to sand it smooth, and not getting it smooth enough, Ian decided to fill the grain instead. He used wood glue and a painters spatula to apply two coat, sanding after each one.

In total, because of these two mistakes, we lost a total projected profit of $34 - $54. That's a major disappointment. 

After the filter, we painted the boards with two coats of chalkboard paint, painted the black frames we bought, and started to sell them. 

We have made two sales so far and more are pending. We noticed that people like bright colors so we may repaint some of the frames to a brighter color instead. 

If you want to buy one just let us know! 

We also sold this beanbag for $10. It was being thrown out by our neighbor. We decided to empty out all the foam pellets, wash it, and re-fill it before posting it to sell. It sold immediately. 

Karina also found this .07 CENTS laying around. So we will add that to our pool too.

Total CENTS: $239.17

All the items above were found in front of people's houses on trash day. We no longer feel awkward taking this stuff.  All of the items above cost us nothing and are 100% profit and today that was a total of $78. Pretty sweet!  

The wheel chair was an interesting find. One does not see those sitting on the curb every day. We got lucky with selling it so fast too. The person who bought it had her mom visiting and was trying to figure out a way to get her around. She saw this chair and immediately bought it. 

The dining room chair was also an interesting sell. Who buys one dining room chai? A girl bought a new dining room table and wanted different chairs, that she could reupholster, for it would! 

The garland and skateboard took some time to sell and we're glad they did because they were just taking up space. 

We did spend some CENTS on more chalkboard materials so this $78 replenished our CENTS pool. We project the chalkboards we create will generate a $200 profit. We will post an update once we have created them so you can see what we did. Stay tuned. 

Total CENTS: $166.67

Ian has photography gig that sometimes generates a little cash on the side. He has had a very successful gallery in Houston a year ago and was able to showcase his work for the first time. This gallery has enabled Ian to continually sell his photos to interested people. The photos above were sold to his department head today for a total of $225. Using Guiding Principle 10, acting like an agent for Ian Dalton Photography, 100 Million Cents gets a commission of $78.75 added to our CENTS. This puts at $1.25 to go before step 15 is done. 

If you want to see more of Ian's work, and possibly buy your own piece of fine art, head over to his on-line gallery and take a look. 

• Click HERE to be taken Ian's online Gallery to see his work
  
• Click HERE to be taken to his photography website to learn more about what he offers. 
  

Principle 3 is very important to us and is one of the motivators behind this project. We want to be a family of giving. This is not limited to just our money but also in our time, support, talents, etc... As mentioned in our Guiding Principles, giving is an indicator of a person’s character. As this relates to the 100 Million Cents Project, every transaction that puts us over our step goal involves us giving away the excess CENTS. We want to continually give our CENTS away while we earn it. It is easy for people to say they will start giving money away once something else happens. You know what we’re talking about. People say things like, “Once I get promoted I will start giving” or “I need to get out of debt first”.  We’ve been there and understand the thinking. But with this project, we are planning on changing our tune; giving should be a part of everything we do.

Do you know what sandbagging as a sale's term is? When a sales person has made their quota, earned all their bonuses, and received all the other rewards available to them that year, they push off any new deals until the following year. They do this because landing another deal, after they have received all their rewards, does not benefit them anymore. Closing that last deal does not get them closer to a quota, they cannot earn any more bonuses, and they have dried up their rewards. Sure, that deal gives them a commission but they don’t ‘need’ it this year. They would rather sit idly until the next year, when they can close that deal in the first month, when it matters. By holding off on that one deal, they start the year closer to their next quota, bonus, and other rewards. Sandbagging also work for reps who know they will not make quota even when the deal they're working on closes. Therefore, they will wait until the next year to close it for the same reasons mentioned above.

For the company, this is not a good practice, All the money that can be brought in for a calendar year is important even if that means the sales rep does not get anything extra for it. For the company, bonuses depend on total revenue and profit, and every closed deal is vital to the operations of the company. There arises a conflict between the motivations of the sales rep and the needs of the business when a sales rep starts to hold back their deals. In essence, sandbagging stunts the growth of the organization.  

The 100 Million Cents Project is the organization, we are the sales reps, and we have been sandbagging.

While working our Step Goals, we have found ourselves needing only a couple dollars here or there to make the goal. As principle 3 reads, if we need $10 to complete step 13, and the last transaction give us $13, we must give the excess $3 away. That makes us happy and is all fine when the excess is relatively small. What happens when all we need is $10 to finish step 14 ($40 - $80) and the last transaction brought in $100? Following the step goal, we would need to give away $90 but that’s more than the entire sum of the money we have earned to date. What are we to do? We sandbag and it is not beneficial for our step goals. Instead of selling that item for $100 we will find something else to sell, with a smaller price, to get past the step then we will sell that big ticket item once it really counts towards the new step goal.

We had a long spirited discussion about this problem. Although the issue at hand is relatively small now, what happens when were at step 22, need $500, and the last transaction brings in $6000? Giving the excess $5500 away is really awesome but how does it help us get to the next goal if we keep giving away everything we have earned? Essentially, we will end up giving so much at the ends of the goal that all the work it took to make that money feels wasted.

We know how this may sound to some people. We know that it sounds like we are trying to give as little as possible. That is not what we are saying. We love to give and that is why we baked it into our project. What we are learning is that too much giving can halter us from giving even more in the future. It can stifle progress to the next step goal and that means it will take longer to give again.

From step 15 forward, at the end of each step goal, we will give away 5% of the total CENTS in our possession. At every step goal, we will be giving twice as much as the previous step goal, and in some cases, more than double.  

As an example: At step 15 ($80-$160), if we end the step goal with $160 in our CENTS, we will give away $8 (5% of $160). Then, we will start working towards Step 16 ($160-320). If, at the end of step 16, we have $360 in our CENTS, we will give away $18 (5% of $360).

In the end, we will have given away 10% of the total project once we accomplish step 28. That's a lot of CENTS and that is one of the reasons we are doing this project. The Guiding Principles page has been updated to reflect the change. Also, keep going to the Giving page to see how much we have given so far.

We are so very excited about this project and appreciate you following our Progress. 

All the items above sold today. The ladder shelving unit was given to us by a friend for this project; we painted it up and sold it for $30. The two items on the right are the chalkboards we made with the materials bought, as described in yesterday's post. We sold the pair for $20, meaning we made our money back with a little profit.

We're going to take the rest of our chalkboard materials and make more chalkboards to sell. It is our hope that this will prove profitable for the next couple of steps as we try to figure out what to do next.

Were done with step 14 of 28 steps! That means we are halfway to completing 100 Million Cents! Ok, so we're not halfway to $1,000,000. In fact, we're sitting at $80 and still have a very long way to go. But life is all about perspective, isn't it?  From our point of view, it is encouraging to know that each step completed, from this point forward, means we have accomplished more steps in the past than what we have remaining. It's a small win but we'll take it!

We have been busy, both with 100 Million Cents and otherwise. Ian's mom came to visit for two weeks and watched our son, Nehemiah, while we vacationed in the Bahamas. It was the first time we ever had a night (or 4) away from the little guy, but it was fantastic! The picture above is where we stayed. 

However, we should have been updating this blog more frequently before then but failed to do so. A lot has happened since the last update a month ago. 

We have finally parted way with some of our CENTS. Above are the supplies for chalkboards we are creating. It involved us buying the frames, mounting boards, sand paper, and chalkboard paint. Total cost for all that with tax was $18.29. Our goal is to get our money back with those two chalkboards so we can turn around and use the remaining supplies to make our profit. We already found an old mirror our neighbors were throwing away so we decided to pick that up. The frame will be used for another chalkboard, once we spend $2 on some wood for the backing. 

With our money down to $6.76 we were nervous. What if we can't make our money back on these items? Karina did find one CENT around the same time, reminding us that we can always scrounge for whatever we can't makeup in sales, right? We will find out the results of that soon enough. 

Current total: $6.76

"See that?", Karina exclaimed, "It's money!" 

"Yes, but is it American?", thought Ian. 

This 10 CENTS was sitting on the edge of a pedestrian bridge spanning over shark infested waters in Nassau, Bahamas at the Atlantis Resort. It was about 4 feet below making us ponder how we were going to get it. Ian MacGyvered something with chewing gum, his tripod, and determination. Actually, it was not as impressive as it was tedious. 

While lowering the one tripod leg with freshly chewed gum at the bottom, Ian tried to grab the dime by smashing it's face with the gum. The problem is that freshly chewed gum is not all that sticky, instead it is wet and slippery. It took several tries to get the green dime to stick so Ian could carefully pull it back up. We risked the bond between tripod leg, gum, and dime failing at any point, causing the dime to fall off, bouncing into the water below. It almost happened with a 25 cent Bahamian coin we found just a few seconds earlier. Lucky the bond was solid and the 10 CENTS now resides with us. 

Current total: $6.86

In the last post, we talked about some items that the neighbor was throwing away across the street: a chair, two trellises, and two 22' lighted strands of garland. We were able to sell the chair for $25 and the trellises for $10! Cool! So add that $35 to our current total of $6.87 and we're at a total of $41.87! 


Just a side note: People in our neighborhood throw away a lot of decent things that others find value in. So far we have made over $50 selling the few things we found others throwing away.


Step 13 is now complete! On to step 14! The best part of all of this is that we already have a plan and items to sell to complete step 14 and step 15. All of  that should happen really soon.

Current total: $41.87

It feels like we haven't updated this blog in a while. Really, it's only been 9 days. Is that OK? We hope it is OK. We are actively working on some things and will update the blog as soon as we get to a place on those projects worth an update. 

Karina did run over to the neighbors house because it's trash night and, well, free stuff...even if it was trash. Finding something someone is throwing away and selling it for a few dollars to get closer to a step goal is alway good, especially at these lower steps. Low risk is nice too. We can keep lowering our prices until it sells and we will always make money. It's a good way to make some mistakes without really having any consequences. The picture above is what she grabbed. Some trellises in great condition and a cool chair. The chair fabric is a little tattered but the cushions are perfect and the wood frame is very sturdy with no nicks in it. It would be a great reupholster project. We're not sure if we want to sell it as is or do the reupholstery ourselves. What do you think will generate the highest return? Let us know in the comment below. 

We are learning that we need to spend a little time every day on this project to keep it moving forward. Even if it is simply spending 30 minutes on the Facebook Buy/Sell/Trade pages or looking for garage sales. One thing is for certain, we are still very motivated and there are many things we are working on because of it. More to come! 

This toy sold of $5. We found it being thrown out by the neighbors across the street (the same neighbors that threw away the grill). 

The first penny below is from a work errand the other day. We found the other four pennies on our trip to Louisiana. It was the first time either of us have been to that state. 

This brings our total CENTS up to $25.05. $14.95 left before step 13 is done. 

Today, Karina made a quick sale from a portable charcoal grill & half full bag of briquettes. Around the time we started the project, we were coming home late one night and noticed the grill in a pile of our neighbor's garage at the curb for pick up. So, yes after some thought and feedback from friends, we decided it was ok to dumpster dive. 

The grill was in pretty decent shape, but needed some TLC. So, after hosing it down and a little bit of elbow grease (more like degreaser actually), it was looking quite new again. It was definitely worth the time spent cleaning it in the chilly afternoon air, because the posting on a local Facebook group page got a lot of bites very quickly. 

After messaging a meeting location with an interested buyer that same morning, Karina met up with her and received the $10 cash. Since we were at $12.06 and made another $10, we will give away the extra $2.06 and that makes us happy. 

Step 12 is complete! On to step 13 where we take this $20 and turn it into $40.