#might sell the unused designs if anyone likes them

[ghastimart]

i already have a cookie run oc but i feel less attached to her, so i started conceptualizing some new ones. guess which one i fell in love with

[skinsort]

I don't think I have a ton of followers, but for those who are here, below the cut is basically a very long think piece on jcink skinning that will probably offend a lot of people, but it's my honest take and I'm willing to hear other people's constructively expressed criticisms, and am very open to revising my opinion. I just was surprised by the SOPs I found in the jcink rpc when I started writing this skin and was doing research into whether I wanted to try selling it or not. For anyone wondering about the future the TLDR is as follows: I will probably make another skin and sell it as a multisale and see how that goes. This will probably happen a long time from now. I will probably never take custom commissions. I will probably charge more than people would like for my skins, but I think I have good reasons for that. More below the cut on the actual thoughts.

There were a few obstacles that became immediately obvious when beginning to work on a jcink skin for the first time.

First off, jcink is imo fundamentally bugged.

It has a slow initial load time even on the default skin, always over a second, usually over 2 in my testing. Industry standard is .5, and php (the backend language of jcink's templating system, and i assume the databases), though old, is perfectly capable of meeting that threshold. I personally find this an infuriating fact about jcink, especially since I can do nothing about it.

There are two distinct skins on any site by default, neither of which are responsive. Responsiveness basically refers to whether or not a website looks good regardless of screen size. It's a universal concern in any modern tech company. I understand that when jcink was first written, a lot of what's possible today wasn't available, however we are long since past the time (in my opinion) that it would have been simple for John to reskin the default view of jcink to be responsive and provide that as an alternative to the og defaults. If nothing else, this would provide a better standard for what a 'functional' skin might look like, and maybe even a baseline for people to build off of. Instead we have tables which are generally unusable in modern web design.

Jcink is also not terribly accessible by default. I found text labels missing in several places (for screen reader users), no keyboard accessibility on a few default functions (for people who can't use a mouse), and of course, nothing in the docs to remind people to keep what features there are in the default skin.

Then we have the added complications of the jcink rpc community, the skinners and coder in general within the space. I think I can break down my thoughts on this into three main categories: Price, Product, and People. I have a lot of thoughts about these topics, so bear with me.

Price

Look me in the eyes. Not one single skinner I could find was charging a market rate for front end web development. The most expensive person I could find wasn't even asking for 25% of the money a front end website developer would make for a skin professionally, and I found them because people were putting them on blast for charging as much as they did. The jcink rpc has been getting bargain basement prices on code for EVER, and seems to have NO concept of the time and complexity of writing actually good code.

I have mixed feelings on this.

I have not seen a professional grade skin in the wild, not once, not even my own. The css on my skin is sloppy. There are areas I got a serious case of the fuckits on and wrote some ugly code. There's at least one info page on my site that looks weird af on mobile and I have no intention of fixing it. I say this with love, compassion, and appreciation for everyone who codes for this community. Not one single jcink skin I have ever interacted with would constitute a professional level of work in my field. No one whose work I have interacted with (again, including my own!!) should be charging a fully professional rate.

This is a hobby. We do this for fun. We shouldn't be in an arms race for the prettiest skins, but we are. People like nice interfaces, it will affect their decision to consider or nope out of a site. So, we're in a situation that for a 'not boring' skin, custom skinning has become much more of a norm. In order to have a successful site, admins generally need to invest in a decent skin. With a custom skin, you can easily get to $250 in cost, and I've seen it go quite high from there. That's a lot of money for a site which may not survive. That's a big fuckin' deal. Some people are serial site starters so if one fails, that's fine, the skin can be reused, but I personally have not adminned a site since 2016 until a month ago. If I had sunk $250 into a skin, plus $80 for jcink premium for a site that never took off, suddenly my 'free' hobby becomes quite dear. I think it's only right that there be a certain degree of friendliness in the community when it comes to pricing because of this, even for truly professional coders (again, of which I've seen zero). Skinners are part of the ecosystem and deserve to be properly valued. Admins shouldn't have to pay out the ass just to have a better chance of their site taking off.

There's a great deal of risk involved in most skinning transactions I know of. First off, unlike the real world, we often don't know each other's irl identities. This makes a situation rife for scammers on both ends of the transaction- from skinners not getting paid for delivered work, and customers not getting the product they asked for, if they get it at all. This rightfully affects both parties' feelings on how to adjust pricing to account for risk. If you're a coder, prices should be higher, if you're an admin, prices should be lower. This has been more or less solved for multisales with payhip etc, but custom skins are still fraught, and in a world where plenty of players won't consider a site if they've seen the skin too much, that is still a significant chunk of the activity at play.

So do I think skinners should be paid fully professional rates? No. From what I have seen and learned, absolutely not. It didn't occur to me to track the time spent on my skin until quite late in the process, but if I had to guess I'd put it at about 40 hours worth of work. I'll talk more about this in the product section if that seems like a lot of time to you. I'll throw out a very loose figure and say that $50/hr is about right as a figure for what a professional developer would make doing this kind of work, after tax etc. If you're being responsible about the IRS, it would bump significantly higher. If you multiply that by the 40 hours I spent on my skin, we're getting into multiple thousands of dollars for a custom skin if people were charging professional rates. Now it's very possible that if I made skinning My Thing, that I'd build up a library of components I could pull on to make skins much more quickly. I know for a fact that many skinners do. But even if we say I halve my time on my second skin (optimistic but v possible), we're at $1000 if I was charging the prices I charge my employer to keep me on board. That is CLEARLY unsustainable for a hobby centric community where money never gets involved. So what should pricing look like? I really think that depends on the product.

Product

So. I think there's some room for honest reflection in jcink skinning communities about what is being sold. To contextualize this, I have to lay out the basics of what my general mindset is around what makes a website good for its users.

The obvious one, and the one that I think gets the most attention in jcink skinning is aesthetics. How a site looks, whether it's pretty, etc. I think this is important, I care about things looking good, but out of these five concerns, this one is frankly last on my list of what's important.

UX Design/Functionality. No, this is not the same as aesthetics. Is a site easy to understand, use and navigate. Does it make it seamless for a user to get where they want. Does it provide the contextual information they expect from the page they're visiting. These questions are fundamental for me, and I'd rather have a well designed user experience, than a well designed asethetic experience on a site.

Accessibility. Is a site readable. IS A SITE READABLE. IS A SITE READABLE. Is there enough contrast on a page that a colorblind user could read it? Can you navigate it with a keyboard? How about a screenreader? Is the text large enough for standard screen sizes. Does it stay large enough across devices?

Responsiveness. If someone on a phone visits my site, will they have a good experience in every view? Will they have the functionality they need? What about a tablet? What about someone with a small desktop screen, or a huge one? If I have hovers somewhere on my site, is it still navigable on mobile, or is it now an unintuitive situation? Phones take way longer to load than most computers, do all the assets (gifs, images, multiple fonts, etc) on my site make it frustrating for a mobile user to visit my pages?

Performance. When I said jcink is bugged earlier, performance was one my complaints. The base page load time of jcink is shitty. However, what's worse is when a skin takes a baseline of 2 seconds for pages to load, and bumps it up to 5, 8 or (the worst I've seen) 13 seconds to load after someone tries to visit a page. I have not seen a single jcink skin (aside from my own), which adds less than a second of loadtime to jcink's default performance. Again, in an industry where the basic standard is under half a second, jcink skins do not perform to a professional level.

If a website fails along these metrics, it cannot be considered professional for general public consumption. The problem is, everything except aesthetics requires a considerable baseline of knowledge and practice to do well. These are problems that many fortune 500 companies have not figured out (that's because their execs are dumb dinosaurs, but still). So when it comes to the question of 'how much should a skin cost', I think a skinner is obligated to consider their product. Is it aesthetically pleasing? Is it functional? Is it accessible? Is it responsive? Is it performant? For most skins, the answer to at least three of these questions is NO, and I think that pricing should reflect that. In my opinion, I think most skinners do well with asethetics, some skinners do well with functionality, and I have yet to see any truly accessible, responsive, or performant skins in the wild. When it came to writing mine, I think I needed about 5 hours to get familiar with how jcink worked, and then if I only wanted my site to look good on a desktop monitor, I probably could have spent 10-15 hours to write my skin as a noob having to look up every php variable John uses in jcink's terrible docs. That is not what I did. My skin is fully responsive, it is fully accessible, it is to my personal taste aesthetically, and is very performant (on average .25-.35 added seconds to my load time) despite having piles of functional scripts (all of which i wrote myself) on several pages. I also wrote several things that make my life and my member's lives easier. I have a member directory and face claim that require no work on my end past sorting an accepted character into the right member group. I have an autotracker built into member profiles so people can keep track of their threads. I have a button which allows members with lower end computers to turn off most graphics on the site so their computers don't sound like airplanes taking off. I have a light mode/dark mode switch that guests and members can both use. Personally, I would not feel like a freak for charging $1000 for a custom skin of this caliber. It's half what I would earn normally (using the $50/hr figure from earlier), and it lives up to all my standards for what professional code ought to do for its users vs. one or two. The css is not my best work, but I can say without undue arrogance that it's far and away easier to touch without breaking things than any other skin I've looked at, and the actual interface that people see and interact with is great. Again, the aesthetics are simple and to my taste, but it makes sense and has lots of quality of life bits and bobs in it. I'm proud of it. I understand if that entire paragraph read wildly, but I don't say any of it lightly or with the intention to belittle anyone. I'm trying to contextualize how I think about how price relates to what is actually being delivered. But even though I genuinely feel $1000 would be an excellent deal for the work I have done on my skin, I could not possibly stomach charging that much money to a single person for this skin, which (in addition to me using it on my own site) is why it is not going on sale.

To be honest, I have NO idea how much time a typical skinner spends on a custom skin. My approach is different from most people who do this for the community, and I also do adjacent work professionally and have for many years. I suspect that if asked to achieve all 5 of the above criteria, I would be able to do that significantly faster than most skinners. That said, I have no library of components I can turn to, and I hate a lot of the standard choices in building skins and would rather write my own. Isotope, cfs, etc can burn, they're bad code. There's tradeoffs to how I'd do things and how others would, which have significant impacts on time spent, but also on the outcome. Generally however, when it comes to jcink pricing, and how much people should charge or spend on a skin, I think the above 5 things should be the primary metrics. I made my own because I couldn't find a single skin that was truly accessible or responsive, and because I know how the sausage is made I simply couldn't stomach it. I can't really tell you how much you SHOULD pay for a skin that only does Aesthetics and Function, or only Function and Accessibility or any other combination. It's really not my place. I have thoughts on what I would charge, trying to be fair to myself and others if I were to make a multisale. But that's for a different post.

People

And then there's people. I touched on this earlier with some talk about scamming. I have heard horror stories on both ends of this interaction, and I think, simply speaking, it has created a lot of distrust around something which is a core decision for a lot of boards- which skinner to work with, what standards to set, how much things should cost, how to arrange payment. Payment structure has to take care of both you and the commissioner, but it also has to take into account that lots of people are gonna drive you up a wall, go ten rounds on their requirements, and then expect finished work two weeks after they finally got back to you about a core feature. With all due respect, clients who know NOTHING about tech and still have a lot of opinions on exactly how things should be done are my personal nightmare. I have not figured out any good way to account for this. I think custom commissions can be great for both the coder and the customer, but it's a total crapshoot as far as I can tell with no solve that I know of. I think there is also greater than average honesty and flexibility required from both parties in a non-professional setting(like jcink coding is) where money is still being exchanged. I think skinners have to be honest about their capabilities, their timeline, and how they want to work with customers. I think customers have to be honest about their expectations, their priorities and their consistency (are they going to change their mind frequently). I think both people need to be willing to find compromise. Since NO ONE is producing professional products and NO ONE is paying professional prices, there needs to be an understanding that sometimes things need to adjust. But, with custom skinning, it's often a lot of money for people. 250+ is a significant chunk of change. It feels wild to pay that much and not get exactly what you want. However, exactly what you want may be outside the skillset of a hobbyist, or it may simply be difficult or tedious or finicky, even for a professional. You want me to do custom svg clipping all over a skin? I'd rather die than do that during my free time. Furthermore, no skinner is being paid to do EVERYTHING that a professional site might demand. Being unhappy that you didn't get every concern addressed is not reasonable with the rates getting paid right now. There's ground to give on both sides. Flexibility is key, and it gets hard when there's money on the line.

Okay but so what?

Bish i don't know!!! Skinning is difficult niche stuff, especially if you're actually meeting any kind of professional standard. It's really easy to do badly. Paying for products where there is literally no professional available is always complicated. Idk what to tell you man. I'm just saying that I don't think anyone is getting paid a rate they deserve relative to the time they put in (probably), and simultaneously people don't get a product that lives up to the rest of the web right now because there's no real industry level professionalism available. And what's worst is that it's nobody's fault!! It's a tough spot to be in as a community! As for me, I'll probably do multisales in the future, and I'll probably charge significantly more than others because I'll be delivering significantly more. I am simply incapable of coding something that isn't responsive and accessible and performant if I'm going to charge money for it. It simply shan't happen, which means my time and skill will be reflected in the work and ergo the price. As for commissions, other people's taste irritates me too much to willingly get into typical freelancing in any capacity (affectionately, i will never be doing certain aesthetics unless people are willing to pay me my full rate, which no one should lol). I will almost certainly never do fully custom commission work. It is simultaneously not worth my time to do it for the rates offered by the jcink rpc, and it's not worth a commissioners money to pay for my skills when people are well used to skins that don't rise to professional standards anyway. Since I've finished my skin I've started posting some of the scripts I whipped up on caution. You can scroll back in this blog and find some of them. I'll probably continue to do that with anything I think another skinner could use. I will probably also start posting tutorials for discrete components so people have some examples of what responsive coding looks like. It's a tough nut to crack if you've never seen it up close before! If I'm really going to be a good member of the community I should probably start posting those here too more regularly. I basically just really want to help people out with their coding and contribute to the overall health of jcink skinning without undervaluing myself or gatekeeping good code. I will probably post my thoughts on how I'll be structuring the pricing for upcoming work in the next week or so. Expect updates after the holidays on upcoming skin ideas. Most of them have to do with implementing fun design stuff I never get to do at work- parallax effects, color manipulations, funky shapes, abusing css filter rules. I'd love to hear what kinds of things people would be excited to see first!

[guhamun]

@tenkoseiensei said (inbox):

' ah! mori-san, how about one of those? ' keeping close together as they went down the market street to stock up on groceries, a finger suddenly points to a sugar painting stand; its artist and wheel waiting. yan qing first offers the merchant a little coin, then spins the waiting arrow with a fairly gentle push, its tip spinning about dozens of different designs. ' you'll like this, i think. though, i'd end up a little embarrassed if it landed on the peony or - ' ah. the swallow. cheeks flush but yan qing still laughs off any bashfulness. the artist was already working, and it wasn't long until they were offering a beautiful, amber-sugar bird to the enormous man beside him. ' alright, that one's yours! i'll get one more for myself. if i get lucky, maybe i'll end up with the phoenix or a dragon ... they're not just for decoration, by the way. you can eat these, of course! '

     NAGAYOSHI WAS COMPLETELY FASCINATED by what he saw as they walked through the marketplace, but that was primarily because he was unused to this level of hustle and bustle. There were so many sounds and colors, each one holding his attention as they passed by countless stalls with individuals trying their best to sell their wares, but he was quick to take notice of that sugar stand the Yan Qing pointed out. ❝Huh? What’s this…?❞ Stepping close, he watched as the merchant spun a wheel to pick which design they would be creating. ❝Whoa…❞ The awe was uttered with the same fascination a child might have in a situation like this, his gaze glued on where that wheel came to land, and equally as fascinated as the merchant went to work. Although he heard Yan Qing’s words, they were almost distant as he had to force himself to pay attention in full to what was being said. ❝Huh? Why would you be emb…❞ he paused, pondered…then understood. ❝Ah, nevermind. I get it.❞ He glanced over to the other, gaze clearly amused.

     The peony… That had to do with the tattoo the other had on his body, right? And the swallow was due to his name, wasn’t it? Yan Qing... Heh, he thought it a fitting name. They did remind him of the bird. In regard to the peony that adorned their body...tattoos were an abnormality for Nagayoshi, but not in an unpleasant fashion. Just in the fact that he had never seen them before on anyone else. Thus, if he even caught a glimpse of the other’s skin, he was already staring with the intensity of a thousand suns. Even so, he couldn’t help but want to laugh at the other’s bashful demeanor. Perhaps even tease just a little…but he would spare them that…for now. As soon as the bird was finished, he reached out to take it, so careful that he might as well be holding porcelain than a sugary treat. ❝…How am I supposed to eat this?❞ It was too beautiful to eat! Even Nagayoshi couldn’t bring himself to casually chomp down on it like some common confectionary! ❝…Y’sure you just...eat it?❞ One hundred percent? A thousand percent sure?

[closedspeciesteahouse]

Here to complain about Fleuros lmao,,,, TLDR; was thinking of trading my fleuros myo I made years ago and barely use, but then I remembered how much money I paid for the slot 😬 (55 USD, 75 in CAD for me)

and like. The slots are on a time limit lol, if don't use your slot within a time limit, they become unusable which personally I think is a crime, lol

So I ended up rushing my design back then, and I used them for a bit and they've just been collecting dust in my TH. The group isn't even active much I've been out of the discord for months and the last event was last December for christmas.

I'm upset I barely use them, but since I spent so much on them I don't??? Really want to trade them??? Ig I could sell them, but I don't think anyone wants to buy them cause I made them when I was like a beginner, so the art for them is bad.

I thought about getting a new slot so I could make a design I actually like, but you can't trade slots and the only way to get more is to buy them (which happens like. Twice a year lmao) or earn CS currency and the price of slots is. Stupid lol,,, you get more currency the more effort you put in, but I did the math and if you only drew for the events which barely happen anymore, you'd need a year to earn enough currency to buy a slot. 🧍

I thought about trading them for a CS I actually like, but the price of the other groups slots are relatively cheaper so it would be a loss financially. BUT I actually use that CS and enjoy them immensely.

Finally, I tried redrawing my fleuros' ref to make them more appealing to others (might be a lost cause if they just edit them anyway) and 💀 I kind of like the design again.

So idk. I'm still not that interested in keeping them, but its a loss financially and honestly if I just had a fleuros I liked I'd probably use them.

If any of yall have opinions on what I should do please weigh in lol, I'd love to hear them

☕️

[jamisonblog]

Used Peloton Warranties and Transfers

When buying or selling a used Peloton, understanding the warranty and transfer process is crucial for ensuring a secure investment and peace of mind. Here's an in-depth look at how these aspects are handled, particularly when engaging with services like Trade My Spin.

Used Peloton Warranty

Purchasing a used Peloton bike can be an excellent way to enjoy high-quality fitness equipment at a reduced price. However, a significant concern for many buyers is the warranty. Warranties provide a safety net, covering repairs and replacements for a specified period, which can be crucial for such high-tech and expensive equipment.

Trade My Spin's Warranty Offering:

Trade My Spin distinguishes itself by offering an 18-month warranty on all used Peloton bikes, including the regular and Plus models. This is a unique selling point, as they are one of the few, if not the only, providers offering such extensive coverage for second-hand Pelotons. This warranty ensures that if any part of the bike malfunctions or requires replacement within this period, Trade My Spin will handle the necessary repairs or replacements, giving buyers confidence in their purchase.

Peloton Warranty Transfer

When it comes to transferring a Used peloton warranty, it's important to understand the official policies and how third-party sellers manage this process. Peloton's official policy does not support transferring the original warranty from one owner to another. This means that the new owner would typically not benefit from the remaining period of the original warranty.

How Trade My Spin Manages Warranty Transfers:

Despite Peloton's policy, Trade My Spin effectively bypasses this limitation by providing their own warranty. This means that when you purchase a used Peloton from them, you are covered by their 18-month warranty regardless of the original warranty status. This approach simplifies the process for buyers and ensures they are protected against potential issues, which is particularly important for high-value purchases like Peloton bikes.

Benefits of Buying from Trade My Spin

Comprehensive Coverage:

By offering an 18-month warranty, Trade My Spin ensures that buyers of used Pelotons are not left unprotected. This is especially beneficial as it covers a significant portion of the bike's lifespan, addressing any issues that might arise from previous use or hidden defects.

Seamless Process:

The process of buying and selling through Trade My Spin is designed to be user-friendly and straightforward. Buyers receive their bikes with the assurance that they can test them upon delivery. If any issues are found, Trade My Spin will swap the bike, ensuring satisfaction from the start.

Eco-Friendly Option:

Opting for a used Peloton warranty transfer also has environmental benefits. It promotes recycling and reduces the demand for new production, aligning with sustainable practices. Trade My Spin's commitment to recycling unused Peloton bikes helps reduce waste and supports eco-friendly consumer choices.

Summary

When considering the purchase of a used Peloton, it's essential to account for warranty coverage and the ease of transferring such warranties. Trade My Spin's unique offering of an 18-month warranty on used Pelotons provides a significant advantage, ensuring buyers are protected and can buy with confidence. Their streamlined process and commitment to quality service make them a standout choice for anyone in the market for a second-hand Peloton bike. By understanding these factors, you can make an informed decision and enjoy the benefits of a Peloton without the full price tag or the worry of potential repairs. For more detailed information and to explore their offerings, visit Trade My Spin.

[onemomstrash]

The Ethics of Reselling

As a parent, you always want to lead a positive example for your kids. Most subjects and lessons aren't black and white - there are pros and cons to consider and sometimes you have to step back and calculate what does more harm than good. Reselling is no exception.

If you're new to reselling, you may not know that there is a hotly debated question that every reseller needs to think about: Is it ethical to purchase items from a thrift store to resell, or should thrift store goods be reserved for low-income shoppers who plan to use the items for themselves.

No one can answer this question without some bias. Your current and past personal finances, attitude about money, location, and more are going to affect how you feel about it. As you've probably figured out, I consider the pros of reselling to far outweigh the negatives, which is why I feel good about reselling in order to support my family.

But if you browse Reddit (as I do daily) for posts about reselling, you'll see many like this one from r/ThriftStoreHauls in December 2022: "Reselling goes against what thrifting is really all about and resellers have damn near ruined thrifting. The 'side hustle' is killing the hobby and killing a place for people with low income to buy half decent clothes."

I want to cover the pros and cons of reselling and point out some things to consider when thinking about the ethics of shopping at thrift stores and reselling.

Reselling Keeps Items Out of Landfills

Global warming - heard of it? Consumption and waste is a massive issue today, and the best ways to cut down on waste are to 1) avoid buying more stuff and 2) reuse the stuff you already have.

According to TheRoundUp.org, the world produces 92 million tons of JUST textile waste per year, with China contributing 20 million of that and the U.S. contributing 17 million. 66% of unwanted clothing ends up in the landfill, with less than 15% of it being recycled and 19% of it burned.

That's a TON of waste.

A lot of textile waste from developed countries is also sent to Africa or Asia. This is often referred to as a "gift" to these areas when in reality the textiles are often unusable, causing communities to have to figure out how to dispose of them. As you can read in this Greenpeace article, textile waste is literally sitting along African riverbanks because there is no other way to deal with it. With so many cheap clothing options being sent to these regions, textile waste is also crushing local textile markets with consumers choosing cheap prices over quality.

Resellers keep items from making their way to the landfill - and global riverbanks. And since we are talking about oversupply...

Most Thrift Stores Do Not Have An Issue of Low Inventory - Rather the Opposite

I'm not quite sure where the myth that there is not enough to go around when it comes to thrift stores came from - but it's absolutely a myth. Sure, there may be a limited number of designer items available at low thrift store prices, but when it comes to functional, warm, stylish clothing, thrift stores are literally overflowing.

Anyone who has ever been to the Goodwill Bins can attest to this. At the bins, donated items are dumped into large bins, where shoppers can sort through and pick up what they want, then pay per pound for their treasures. Certain larger items may be a higher, flat, price, but the general pricing for bin items is between $1 and $2 per pound.

Thrift stores get so many donations, that the goods are often not even sorted before heading right to the bins, meaning that they are never looked through in order for workers to pull items to sell at Goodwill retail stores. Because of this, you often have a better chance of finding designer goods at the cheap Goodwill bins than Goodwill retail stores, as many designer items are pulled from retail stores in order to be sold online at Goodwill auctions.

Many resellers are also niche resellers. They might focus on selling vintage, designer, or band tees. Some of the most popular and well-loved clothing and shoe brands don't resell for much, which means that they are often untouched by resellers. These items still provide warmth, comfort, and functionality, and are ALL over thrift stores. I've never been to a thrift store that wasn't filled with American Eagle jeans in a variety of sizes and Gap sweaters in tons of colors! I could easily take another reseller friend and a non-reseller friend with me to the thrift store, and all of us would find things to buy while leaving plenty for others.

Since I brought up bins pricing, I feel I need to mention a thrift store pricing reality:

The Goal of Most Thrift Stores is NOT to Provide Low-Priced Goods

Many thrift stores' main goal is to fund initiatives like career growth, NOT to provide low-priced items to shoppers. Even Goodwill, probably the first name you think of when you hear thrift store, has this as a mission statement:

"Goodwill® works to enhance the dignity and quality of life of individuals and families by strengthening communities, eliminating barriers to opportunity, and helping people in need reach their full potential through learning and the power of work."

Their #1 goal is to earn money, and resellers often spend more at thrift stores than regular shoppers. Browse through the Reddit thread I linked above, and you'll see a comment from a thrift store worker who said that they are a top three store in their region largely due to sales to resellers. Resellers keep thrift stores in business so that they can reach their goals and still continue to offer items at reasonable prices for low-income shoppers.

Resellers CAN Inflate The Prices of Sought-After Items - But So Can Thrift Stores

I often see resellers being blamed for inflated thrift store prices. People believe that because resellers are selling brands for resale-level prices and making content in order to promote brands that they like to pick up, they are giving thrift stores all of the information they need in order to mark up prices.

But here is the thing: Thrift stores are in charge of their own pricing. They may see that a brand is selling for hundreds online and then decide to price their item at hundreds as well - but this is a corporate choice. They get free donations, and they obviously want to profit off of these donations in order to stay in business, but sometimes their markup can get pretty ridiculous. I've seen my fair share of items that still have tags selling for $5 at the thrift when I can clearly see the original $3 price tag. Sometimes this pricing can benefit us as buyers, as overpriced and unsold items also often end up at the Goodwill bins to be sold by the pound.

Under this heading is also where I want to mention a type of reselling that I personally don't find to be ethical at all: The buying up of retail items such as medical equipment, basic necessities, or children's Christmas gifts to be resold at a profit.

Almost every Black Friday, I see someone with a pallet of the season's hottest toys and get embarrassed that they call themselves resellers. Last year it was Magic Mixies that started to pop up for triple the cost once they sold out of stores. The year before that, parents couldn't get a hold of Cocomelon dolls. During the pandemic, you had people marking up toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and other things that people needed to stay safe and healthy. To me, this is a completely different type of reselling and one that I can't support. If you're willing to have someone become ill or ruin a child's Christmas morning because you wanted to make a fast and high profit, I don't consider you a reselling peer.

Reselling Isn't Just Selling

It's hunting for the right items. It's washing and stain-treating them. It's mending holes or tie-dyeing away stains. It's steaming and photographing and listing and shipping. Reselling might be fun to those of us who do it, but it's also WORK. No reseller is sourcing for inventory and then laying around watching the money roll in. Many reselling skeptics will say that they feel it's okay to upcycle thrifted goods, but much of the work of reselling goes unnoticed. But this work is important! Often the difference between something heading to a landfill vs. heading to a new home after it sells on Poshmark is a deep cleaning and someone to believe in it.

Low-Income Shoppers May Not Be Able to Make it to the Thrift Store in Time to Nab Treasures

One of the most complicated aspects of reselling ethics is that there are so many factors related to someone's opportunity to shop and the amount of money they can spend. At what point does someone no longer qualify as low-income? Is it ethical for someone in poverty to start reselling in order to improve their financial situation? And does everyone have the same opportunity to shop for the same goods?

The answer to that last one is a complicated no. The area you live in is going to affect what is available at your thrift stores. This is the case when it comes to the quality of the items and the kind of items. A higher-income area will often have higher-dollar items donated. A store in the south will probably not be a great place to source for outerwear.

Schedules also play a big role in reselling. The more time you have to browse thrift stores, the more opportunity you have to source something good. I've seen many people point out that low-income shoppers also often work longer hours or multiple jobs, meaning that they have less free time to spend finding deals at the thrift store. Again, something I feel needs to be mentioned in order to paint the picture that reselling is a gray area.

Some People Want Thrifted Items but Don't Want to Thrift

I feel like it's not talked about enough that thrifting just isn't for everyone. It's time-consuming. It's overwhelming. It takes a lot of knowledge in order to make good buys. And sometimes it's just plain gross. I LOVE it, but if I didn't love it, I would absolutely buy from a reseller in order to get something I really wanted without all of the searching and cleaning. Luckily, I find that this is how most non-thrifters look at thrifted goods: I'm happy to pay a price we agree upon, especially because I didn't have to go hunting in a basement to find it.

Reselling Offers a Flexible Way for People to Earn Income

I started reselling 6 years ago when my son was about 6 months old. I was not living in poverty. We had just made the decision that I would be a stay-at-home mom because my mental health was struggling postpartum. Most of this was because I was working for a startup that offered me almost no resources as a new mom. I didn't get any paid maternity leave. They chose not to bring me on as a salaried employee but rather keep me on as a contractor so that they would not have to offer me benefits. I worked from home, which seemed like an amazing deal for a new parent, but they expected the baby to not be seen or heard. I was trying to do the bulk of my work at night, which meant that I handed the baby off to my husband when he got home and locked myself in my office.

Eventually, we couldn't take it anymore, and he told me I could quit. Because we were planning on me working, we had not been saving up for this transition. We very abruptly lost more than 33% of our household income and had a new baby who needed lots of things. So I started to shop for baby clothes at thrift stores. One day I found a nice pair of shoes that weren't his size, but they were SUCH a great deal. They were priced at $3 and I knew my in-laws had recently bought him a pair at the retail cost of $45. I decided to see if I could earn a little bit from them, went home to make an eBay account, and sold them the next morning for $15.

That's how it all started.

I could go on all day about how our country treats new mothers, but I'll focus on the fact that it is REALLY hard to be a mom and earn any kind of money. Whether you're a working mom who is having a hard time balancing it all, a stay-at-home mom who is struggling with not contributing financially, or a mom who just simply wants to earn some extra income for a special trip, new stove, or kids' activities, I love the flexibility that reselling has given me, and I want to help women make it work for them too. When I decided to stay home with my son, it was the first time that I hadn't worked since I was 15 and the first time I was financially dependent on someone since I was 18. That was tough for me. Until I discovered reselling, I felt like the only way to spend time with my kids and make money was to join a sketchy MLM and work for pennies while never looking away from my phone.

I'm happy that I found another option.

I'd love for this to be a post I come back to over and over again to edit. For it to be an accurate and insightful take on the ethics of reselling. So I'd love for you to drop your comments below and keep the conversation going.

[darthasterisk]

366/366 | #3288

End of Year 9 on this blog. 

What started off as a toy photography blog has kind of morphed into a combination of toy photography and WIP photos of my work. The majority of the past few months’ posts have been either edits of unused old photos or photos of my completed artwork, so much that I started thinking, “What am I doing with this?” and “What’s the point?” . Honestly, I hate that this has started to feel like a chore for me.

Now, I’m not gonna completely stop with this blog. I still am collecting toys (mostly designer toys and nendoroids nowadays) and definitely want to share new pieces from other artists I admire. But it might just not be a daily thing anymore (which I don’t think really mattered to anyone, as this was more of a self-imposed personal...thing...I wanted to do...?) 

Haven’t photographed a lot of my action figures in awhile, so I may be selling off some of them in the coming weeks.

Anyway, here’s a WIP of my newest sculpt for my Knight Blooms figures. This one wears 15th century gothic armor and holds a peony. 

[ogbonnaohakwe]

How To Make Money Freelancing Online In 2021: The Definitive Guide

This is the beginner guide on How To Make Money Freelancing Online In 2021: The Definite Guide Part 1.

Freelancing can end up being a great way to make money for individuals who do it part-time or full-time. The way to make money freelancing is to be dedicated and create a good reputation. Without these two things, it will be hard to find jobs and generate new ones in the future. There are a lot of different types of freelancers out there; including web design individuals, people who have blogs, and writers. How to make money freelancing in Nigeria in simple steps. With all of these opportunities, there are a lot of ways on how to make money freelancing for anyone who has the skills.

Freelancing is probably one of the most well-known ways of making money online. It is by no means the only way but if you have a skill that you can offer others, such as writing, editing, photography, graphic design, or many others, you can become a freelancer. Just choose something you are good at or have a passion for doing and you should be able to make money doing it.

WATCH RECOMMENDED VIDEO ON HOW TO SOURCE FOR PRODUCTS ON ALIEXPRESS & ALIBABA

How To Make Money Freelancing, Probably one of the best ways to get started is to look into reputable freelancing sites like Upwork.com, Fiverr.com, or even PeoplePerHour.com that connect skilled freelancers with individuals who want to hire them. There are a few of these and you should take a look at three or four of them at least.

Most of these sites have both free membership and paid memberships. Once you find one or two that have a layout and system that appeals to you, get a free membership and start bidding on projects. You should be able to get a job or two and this will be enough to let you figure out which site is your favorite.

Generally it is recommended that you stick with just one site – especially if you are going to become a paying member. There should be more than enough work on just one of the big sites to keep you making money online, so there is no reason to pay for more than one membership.

A lot of people are intimidated by the idea of getting onto a bidding site and competing with other freelancers for work, but you really shouldn’t be. It is true that you won’t win every project – in fact, you may only get one in every five or ten – but the important thing is that you bid what you think you are worth. Some freelancers think that in How To Make Money Freelancing, undercutting everyone else is the best way to win jobs. But most buyers are more likely to go with the provider who gives a reasonable bid and crafts a good proposal than the provider who just has the lowest price.

As you complete jobs and get the feedback you will become more comfortable with your timetables and prices. This will make it easier and easier for you to get jobs. How To Make Money Freelancing 2021 guides

This also applies to the other common method of finding freelance work – having your own website. By creating a website or blog about yourself and the services you offer, you are basically setting up a sales page for yourself. Many freelancers will say that their website is their most important tool.

READ ALSO  5 Best Ways to Make Money Blogging for Beginners In 2021

You don’t have to have a website right away, especially if you are still figuring out exactly what kind of services you want to offer. But you should consider getting one as soon as possible. This is because you can reach out and introduce yourself to potential clients as well as stay in contact with established clients.

While becoming a freelancer may seem like a big challenge, the fact is that it is something that anyone with selling skills can do. If you start small and on a part-time basis you shouldn’t have any trouble finding your strengths and moving up to bigger projects and paychecks.

Some people may ask these questions on hot to make money freelancing online:

How can I make $100 a day on the internet?

Here are the sure ways to make $100 a day online freelancing: Start a dropshipping store Run a print-on-demand store Sell custom products online Sell handmade crafts on Etsy Sell products on Amazon Create digital products Start an affiliate marketing business Build online courses Sell freelance services

How can I make money right now?

Start a Shopify ecommerce store and sell dropshipping products online Sell virtual assistant or freelance services on websites like Fiverr or Upwork Sell used stuff on Amazon, eBay, Craigslist, or Facebook Marketplace Do micro-tasks on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk program Tutor kids online in English Rent your unused space on Airbnb Drive for Uber or Lyft Create information products Become a Tasker on TaskRabbit Trade in items on Gazelle or Amazon for gift cards

There many ways you can make money online in Nigeria from freelancing and doing affiliate marketing.

Important Steps On How To Make Money Freelancing Online In 2021

Discover the most crucial steps on how to make money freelancing online, although there are too many steps to take, below are the listed and most comprehensive steps to follow to make money freelancing online in Nigeria.

Advertise on Existing Websites:

How to make money freelancing online in 2021 is by advertising your skills on an existing website to attract clients to your profile and work. People who already have their own website can easily generate more money each month by advertising on it. There are a lot of potential advertisers that will pay website owners to advertise their brand or product. This could be a blogger giving away free products that the company sends in or simply putting up some banner ads. When more people click on the banner ad, more money will be made. Website owners who use advertisers that will target their regular visitors have really good earning potential. A good example of such site you can join in Nigeria is Expertanire.com

READ ALSO  How To Get Google AdSense Approval On Your Blog In 2021: Tricks And Best Practices In 2021

Join a Freelancing Website:

Freelancers can easily find new jobs by joining websites that are designed for them. These are free for most members to join, although there might be fees associated with jobs once they are completed. People who need work done will post their job up on the site for all freelancers to see. Individuals who are interested can easily bid on the project if they are qualified. The poster will then be able to look at the profile of the freelancers who bid on the job to see who the best choice is. Although this can be competitive, it’s a great way to make money online for anyone who has a special skill.

Start a Website And Teach:

Anyone who has special skills can easily teach others how to use them online. Like my website, you can see that I offer different services and mentorship programs, you might want to check it out. This could be via a newsletter or even through video sessions on Skype, Zoom, WhatsApp, etc. Most people are willing to pay for these things because they are less expensive than taking a real class in person. Freelancers who are skilled and can teach others will have a lot of earning potential online. When more people find out about the classes this will increase the number of people who desire the service.

Become A Writer

There are a lot of different websites that allow freelance writers to join for absolutely no cost to them. They can then find people to write for and get paid whenever the articles are accepted. These websites vary in how they work. Some writing websites are meant for writers to find random people to create articles for. Other sites are meant for writers to find regular people they can work for all the time. The pay will vary based on the types of articles that are written, how long they are, and a lot of other factors. An example of such a site is Fiverr.com

Selling Products

Some freelancers can turn their knowledge of how the internet works into large profits just by selling things! There are a lot of different websites that allow people to sell products to people all over the world. This could be through an auction site like eBay or a marketplace like Amazon; there are a lot of different choices out there. If someone is good at selling and knows how to navigate through the site, they can end up making a lot of money.

There are even photography websites where photographers can sell their pictures to websites or just list them for buyers to find. In addition to this, there are art websites where artists can sell their creations to buyers who want unique items. The best part about these is that sellers can set their own prices for each of the different pieces. A lot of people have made businesses out of these types of websites.

Like in this my website, I created a space where I sell all my digital products, from courses and books some freelancers or digital marketers do create a section on their blog where they sell eBooks and Videos as well, I think you should give it a shot, it worth trying

Read more: https://ogbonnaohakwe.com.ng/how-to-make-money-freelancing-online/

[sariahsue]

So I mentioned last night I was thinking of making an Etsy shop. These are things I’ve made in years past.

This is a sterling silver bracelet.  Very fun to make and to play with.  I hate the clasp.  It’s so hard to get on.  I might want to try it with a tube clasp instead.  Also took FOREVER to make.  (Funny story, I was working on this while waiting for my eyes to dilate at an eye doctor appointment, years ago.  It gradually got harder and harder to see what I was doing.  By the time they called me in, I was doing it by touch alone.  Or maybe I gave up working on it.  I can’t remember.)

These are also all sterling silver.  That middle earring is heavy.  The last one is less heavy, a little bit.  It’s also a weave called dragon scale, which makes it 10 times more awesome. 

Shout out to anyone who knows what book that is. 

A stainless steel necklace that barely fits over my head.  If I sold something like this, I’d definitely want a big, strong clasp for it.  It’s pretty unuseable as is, unless you have a tiny brain skull like me.

I think in the future I would want to do things with color and stretchy rings too. So something more along the lines of these:

Nerd.  I don’t think these would look very good hanging, though.  I like the idea anyway.

(source)

Extra nerd.  That’s a dice bag, if you couldn’t tell from the picture.  I tried to make two before, but they came out terrible.  I’ve watched videos recently on how to do it the right way, so I know I could do it better.  Very labor-intensive.

(source)

I’ve actually done bracelets like this before, except the black rings were colored and the colored rings were black and stretchy, so the bracelet could expand and didn’t need a clasp.  I hate clasps. Could easily be made into a necklace.

(source)

Hmm. The coloring looks suspiciously reminiscent of a tv show I like.  Quite possibly on purpose.  I have very concrete ideas for glow-in-the-dark bookmarks that have this weave and color scheme and pendants with glowing green paw prints (and similar bookmarks with red and black and spots).  *wiggles eyebrows*

(source)

I found little star beads that I’d put on top, if I could figure out how. Depending on the size, I could make necklace pendants or earrings, or even an ornament.  (Yo dawg, I heard you like Christmas trees.)

(source)

I’ve never tried to make these before, but I really, really want to.  You can easily buy kits for them online.

(source)

I wouldn’t be copying these products, obviously, but designs like these are very common in the maille community.

There’s so many complications that would come from selling stuff like this that I’ve been learning about in the last few weeks.  How am I going to store all the products and bazillions of little rings to make them?  How can I safely ship them?  What should I make?  How much should I charge?  Will I finally be tempted to join Instagram to promote my shop?  What supplies do I need right now?  Lots of things to consider.  They’re fun to make, at any rate.

[someonestole15]

Gateway

When you have every option available, you seek to close out those that don’t interest you.

Hauling cargo with the limited space inside this ship seems like a waste, but hauling information as a courier might suit it better. Heavy armor, added safety for those who want it with the firepower to match.

Idea proposed to the rest of the crew, flying colors, the boredom had settled in with the lack of combat or missions we had taken after retrieving the Phoenix. Like a well-oiled machine, Valkyrie and I took to the cockpit and plotted a course to the Empire capital.

Shipyard, designated as SY-2052, a branch of the larger portion carving its way across the planet. Thick mist forming as we approached the landing pad. Wheels down, engines off, we dismounted from the ship and took in the scene. Pad number 551, printed on the memory as the maintenance crew arrived.

“Welcome to Shipyard 2052, how may we assist?” Younger man, his face covered by a see through visor and a bright orange jumpsuit made sure you could not miss him.

“Refuel.”

“Understood, you have one free refuel curtesy of the Empress, after that you will have to buy the fuel like the rest of them.” The man explained as he tapped the order into his PDA. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“You have the map for this place?”

“Certainly, here you go.” Uploaded to my storage, the map showed the entire shipyard with several markers for utilities around.

“Thanks.”

“Have a nice day.” The man turned back to his work as I got back to Valkyrie and Nine.

Map shared, the landing pad connected to several of the areas services via an access corridor, engineering to our left, quarters to the front and transport hub to the right, the map showed a job station inside the hub, so we made our way there.

Greying walls with bright adverts blasted across them, the corridor was quiet but a constant flow of cargo moved by overhead on a rail, the markings unreadable from this distance. Scan my hand on the panel, the doors opened up into a large room with several monitors above kiosks of people buying and selling their goods, wherever to be transported or used here.

Scent of food, spices and cigarette smoke, I felt the looks on me as I walked through the crowd to an information desk and tapped my hand on it.

Overly happy greeting before a display showed up with a selection of jobs available.

Locked away from the higher paying ones, lacking the license and training for them, I picked out two jobs that payed out enough to refuel and rearm the gunship if required. Bullets are cheap, but autocannon shells aren’t.

Confirmed with the rest of the squad, a courier job for data and a small cargo run of medicines to a system close by. Gate connection up and running, I confirmed the job and filled the details. Easy to miss between the larger kiosks, a woman in rags sat behind a table covered in weapon parts. Burnt, damaged, unusable, many of the parts would pass as salvage to anyone without the tools to repair them. The woman glanced at me as I looked through the parts.

“See anything you like?” She leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms as the light hit her face, revealing a burn mark across it. “Most of the stuff is useless to the builders around here, too damaged.”

“Do you have a revolver cylinder?”

“A few, yes, what caliber?”

“.44.”

“Going with the classic, I see… Gimme a moment.” She turned around and dug around the cardboard box next to her, finally picking up a cylinder from it and placing it on the table before me.

“There, 50 credits and it’s yours.”

Mild scrapes, but otherwise fine. The Empire reward had contained a small amount of credits amongst everything else, the balance on my end sat around 250 after it had been shared to Valkyrie and Nine. Shake of hands, confirm the sale and credits transferred, I left with the cylinder in my pocket.

“Pleasure doing business.”

Back at the ship, the orange suited man had confirmed the loading of the cargo and fuel; all we had to do was get it to its destination in one piece. Cylinder secured in the armory with the gun, I sat down in the pilot’s seat and went through the preflight checks. Switches hot, the engines spooled up and the cooling systems kicked in, status showing up green on the HUD as we were given the all clear for takeoff.

Stick with the limited speed while in the access corridor; speed up once out of it, the instruments steady and the tank full as I pushed the throttle forward and felt the acceleration push me into the seat. Soon enough in orbit, the navigation systems made it easier to find the gate and know how far it actually was. The sense of scale gets messed up when you’re sitting in the pilot’s seat, everything looks small and close by but the distances are vast and everything is massive.

Hell, even this ship is larger than I think it is. The crew compartment in the back can sit around twelve passengers and the cargo bay fits an ATV along with the few crates we currently have in there.

Back to the task, we approached the gate, even while sitting at 10 kilometers away several larger ships paled in contrast. Signals crossing over everywhere, requests and adverts for those without the drives to get through the gate, the flight control guided us to the correct position for passing through as an electric mist formed between the gate segments.

The ship shook lightly as sparks formed amidst the mist, hit a few more switches on the panel above me and turn the key, Rapidly speeding up spooling from the drives, I lifted the safety cage off the button on my throttle and waited for the green light.

“Atlas, you’re cleared for gate travel. See you on the other side.”

Hit the button, sparks from the gate matched with the ship as it was pulled in. Spark in the dark, the acceleration was heavier than with the normal engines, but stabilized soon after we were in witch space.

Short flight through the darkness, dot of light approaching rapidly from it before the mist started forming around the ship again, the flash happened again and we were in the other system. Could have gone worse, the ship felt a bit heavy before I turned the drives off and switched us back to normal engines.

“Welcome to ZG-522, Atlas.”

“Thank you Control, Atlas resuming own navigation.”

“Skies are clear, safe travels.”

White star, the navigation panel showed a few targets; amongst them was our target, an outpost on nearby planet’s surface. Earthlike, breathing shouldn’t be an issue, we took the short time we had been in the black as enough for the day and headed to the surface.

Storms brewing.

Hi again. So it took me a while to regain my creativity after the last post, but now I have an idea on where to take this short act.

Thank you all for the follows and likes, see you in the next one. Harry

[screamingatanemptyroom]

I Can’t Eat Love pt 10

Here it is guys! Here’s part 10, we’re at 23k words! I made the master post with links to the story and will just link that at the top from here on out! 

Link to master post here. 

Enjoy! 

__________________________________

Ten months passed, faster than I could have imagined.

The store “Prosperity” took off. True to her word, Milane had improved upon my own designs, and after showcasing the dresses at a few parties, (I had reluctantly resumed my social responsibilities, reminding myself it was for the business), and the orders came in, faster than we could fill them. Expanding production, Milane hired a few more seamstresses, and even then we were stretched thin. We continued making and selling new designs, however, with plans to open up another store before the next season.

The Duchy thrived alongside my business. The officials I “retired” left without further complaint, and their replacements worked hard to gain experience and independence. Until they were completely trained however, the bulk of the work was left to Nile, Terrence and Me. We met weekly, going over accounts and day to day issues in great detail. Fortunately we worked well together and rather than resenting the hands-on approach I took, they seemed relieved.

“The Duke just always told us to do what we thought best in difficult matters.” Nile confided one day. “But with no idea of the overall financial state of the Duchy, it’s hard to make these sorts of decisions. With you in charge, things are running much smoother.” 

Seeming to realize the improperness of what he had said, he panicked, waving his hands.  “Not saying that the Duke is incompetent! He’s a very kind man! And as a leader… of course he…” he paused as if trying to think of something else good to say about my father.

I chuckled, trying to relieve the poor man’s misery. “It’s fine. Father’s gifts lie… in other directions. “ I had no idea as to what direction that was, but as long as he stayed out of my way, I was content.

No longer hemorrhaging money, I was able to work on improving the infrastructure of the area, improving the safety and stability of the roads, increasing the schools and preparing some previously unused land for farming. 

Marile, looking ahead to our second store, convinced me to use some of our profits to open up a vocational school for seamstresses, taught by people she trusted. We charged a minimal fee, funding those who couldn’t afford it, and waited excitedly as they gained skill. I planned to hire some of the top students upon graduation, and as the number of skilled workers increased, the duchy of Armeny began gaining a reputation as the place to buy well-made clothes.

The success spread, and I was already being approached by other trades to expand the school to cover their professions as well.

__________________________________

I continued my lessons with Jim and Nate, although the assigned reading was decreased as more and more of my time was taken up with the business and the duchy. Instead, Jim had me bring practical issues and questions to the class regarding economics or governmental structure, and we worked though it together. I was often able to implement some of the answers we came up with, continuing to benefit my home.

 Nate and I settled into a comfortable pace. He was the calm one in class, frequently mediating between Jim and me when we began to get too loud about a certain subject. He listened well, and when he did speak up it was with purpose, often coming up with ideas that caught me by surprise.

“You should build a place that provides food for people who are starving.” After class one day, he was escorting me back to the carriage in thoughtful silence before suddenly bursting out with that suggestion.

I stopped in my tracks. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, it’s something that you obviously care deeply about, and since you’ll manage to free up some extra funds with the changes we came up with today, I thought it might work! ” He continued as he stopped as well, gesturing excitedly with his hands. “Think about it, a place where people who are starving can come by and have a meal. You can ask for donations and volunteers to offset some of the costs, it should be doable…”

He trailed off, staring at me with an uncertain expression. “Sorry, I got excited on my own, maybe it isn’t the best idea.”

__________________________________

“Do you have any food?” A young boy pulled on my leg, the bones too prominent on his already small for his size face.

I looked down at him, already feeling lightheaded and weak. I hadn’t been able to find work. I hadn’t had a full meal since Rig’s gang had been split up most of them lost, dead or imprisoned. I had begged on the street, only managing to earn enough for some bread, hardly enough to fill my stomach. I wanted to cry, but held my tears, they wouldn’t solve anything.

The boy saw my distress and slumped, sitting down beside me, as I hung my head, feeling hopeless.

“It’s okay.” He mumbled, using a dirty hand to gently pat my head, trying to comfort me. “I’ll help you.” A small hard object was pressed into my hand. I looked down at it, surprised. It was a regular stone, a little shiny but otherwise there was nothing special about it.

“It’s my lucky stone.” He tried to smile, tried to appear brave for me. “You can have it. It will protect you.”

I thought about the bread in my pocket, it wasn’t enough to fill me, but for a child…

“Here.”

I handed him the bread, leaning back with my head against a wall, closing my eyes to keep tears from falling. I wasn’t going to last much longer. I had long given up hope for myself. But that boy... maybe he would survive.

And that was something.

__________________________________

“Lenora?” Nate called out, concerned. I shook my head, I had been silent too long, thinking of a different life, a different fate.

One I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

I smiled at him; ignoring his visible shock at I did so. “Tell me more about this idea of yours.”

__________________________________

Between running the Duchy and the business, as well as continuing lessons and socializing with the nobility to advertise our new dresses, I was busier than I had ever been before in either of my lives. But despite the long hours and the hard work, I was surprised to find I was happy.

There was still just one thing keeping me from being fully content: 

The royal etiquette classes continued, despite the mastery I had displayed. Mrs. Rendler had greatly increased the speed at which we moved through topics as well as the difficulty in each lesson. The advantage I had gained over the extra three years of training in my previous life dwindled, and I reluctantly began scheduling in time to study those topics as well. 

I grew more and more frustrated each week. With all the other demands on my time, why was I bothering to waste any on learning something I would never use? If I were planning on trying to continue my engagement to the prince this would be worth it, but not even the chance to tackle management on a national scale could tempt me to stand by that worthless prince’s side.

I hid it, as best I could. Mrs. Rendler tried to keep the lessons fun and varied, likely sensing my lack of enthusiasm. We learned new dances, tried exotic foods and studied different cultures. It was interesting and I appreciated the effort the older woman placed on keeping me focused, but there was still one, unavoidable problem with the lessons:

Queen Amerande.

She was present every single week, as she had been in my previous life. Smiling, cheering me on, saying silly jokes to try to make me laugh, and picking arguments with Mrs. Rendler to distract her whenever the lessons were getting too difficult for me … she was every inch the mother I wish I had.

But it was a lie, and every minute I spent next to her was pure torture. 

It all came to a head around ten months after I woke up in this second life. The etiquette lesson had completed early. I was packing up my books, planning to take a walk in the gardens to waste the time before my lesson with Jim and Nate in the treasury. Before I could leave, however, Queen Amerande held out her hand, gently stopping me.

“Can we talk, Lenora?”

I nodded stiffly, disliking the thought of spending any time alone with her.

Her smile slightly sad, she gestured for me to sit down, and after I was settled continued.

“Has your mother returned home yet?” The discomfort on her face made it clear she knew this was not going to be my favorite topic.

I sighed, leaning back and shaking my head. “No, she’s still with her family staying in the southern province.”

Or so she tells us. I thought of the contents of the file Rig had brought me, the second assignment I had given him after the blackmail for the duchy officials. It had only confirmed what I already knew from my previous life, but it had hurt more than I wanted to admit to see it in writing.

“She’s been gone almost a year!” Queen Amerande muttered, looking furious for a few moments before poorly hiding her anger behind a smile, trying not to upset me. After being surrounded by expert liars like Angela and Edith, it was almost amusing to see someone who couldn’t lie well.

That’s not true though is it? She lies all the time when she says she cares about me. My brain whispered to me, but I shrugged it off, not wanting to be distracted by the topic at hand. She was already asking another question.

“Will she be back soon?”

I wish she wouldn’t. In my last life, her trip had only lasted a few months, but that had been due to limited funds and our large amount of debt. Once I had most of our debts cleared, I had sent her some money, and thankfully she had continued to extend her trip as much as possible. The servants seemed grateful for the break from her critical presence and my father… he was happier than he’d been in years. But as relieving as this time away was, it couldn’t last forever.

“She’ll be back in a few weeks, before my sixteenth birthday.” I answered, watching her eyes light up at the topic.

“So yes, about that…” Queen Amerande hesitated, “I knew your mother hadn’t been… around, and your father…”

“Forgot.”

“I’m sure he… remembers… deep down.” She looked angry again, but not at me. “But the point is, I didn’t want you to have to plan your own party, so I’ve been making some arrangements.”

“...” 

“Nothing that can’t be canceled if you don’t feel up to it, but I’d really like for you to have a chance to really have fun and celebrate with friends. You’ve been working so incredibly hard lately.” She smiled. “I know I don’t say this enough but… I’m so proud of you. I heard about the work with the duchy and the vocational school and even that charity to help feed those in need, it’s so amazing. YOU are amazing.”

She turned to the side to get something from her bag. I sat there, trembling, filled with anger, barely able to contain it. My fists were clenched, so tightly that the fingernails dug into my palms, starting to tear through the skin.

“I know it’s a little early, but I want you to have this:” She pulled out a necklace. It was beautiful, thin golden chains delicately interwoven, with a small sapphire amulet hanging from the longest strand. She placed it into my hand. “My mother gave this to me when I was a girl, and although I’m not your biological mother, I think of you as my own.”

My ears were ringing, the jewelry in my hand was cold, but felt like it was burning my skin

“I love you dear, and I always will.”

I could barely breathe, it felt like knives were stabbing me in the heart, I sat there frozen, staring at the gift I had once thought meant everything, but meant nothing.

“No matter what.”

__________________________________

“I love you, and I always will.” Queen Amerande hugged me, patting my back comfortingly with one hand.

I returned the hug, unable to hold back my tears of frustration and embarrassment. After being publicly humiliated at my own birthday party, I had come into the backroom to hide, She had been planning to give me her present, but instead found me a sobbing in a corner, and immediately dropped on the floor, ignoring the creases and dust that gathered on her expensive formal gown, comforting me. Once I had calmed down, she handed me a beautiful necklace, one I had always admired as a child, and reached out, wiping a tear from my face.

“No matter what.”

__________________________________

Thud.

The necklace slipped from my hands, falling to the floor between us.

“Liar.” My voice was quiet, but in the otherwise silent room she could clearly hear me. Her face paled and she tried to reach out for my hand, only to have me pull back, avoiding it.

“Lenora, what…?

“Stop lying. Please.” I forced the words out through gritted teeth, tears gathering in my eyes. “You won’t love me like your own child, and you won’t love me NO MATTER WHAT so please. Don’t lie to me. Don’t fool me into trusting you when you don’t mean it.” 

I stood up, planning to leave, but she ran after me, standing in the doorway, blocking my only exit.

“Let me out.” I ordered, throwing etiquette and caution to the wind.

She shook her head furiously, her carefully styled hair coming slightly undone with the force of the motion. “No! Not until you tell me what this is about!” She was shaking, but her hands gripped the doorframe tightly, refusing to move. “I’m not lying when I say I love you like my own daughter. I’m not!”

“Easy words to say.” I was sneering, hating that my voice broke with tears instead of sounding stronger. “But when your precious son drops me in a few years, and I’m disgraced, then you’ll forget all about this ‘daughter’ you love so much!”

“…” She stared at me, horrified. “You think he… that I… “ She was stuttering, trying to work through what I had said. “Ronan wouldn’t cast you aside. And even if he did I…”

“I’m not an idiot, Your Majesty. So don’t treat me like one.” I interrupted her, laughing, but it was an unpleasant sound. “I’m not so foolish as to believe that a boy who has absolutely no interest in me will keep this engagement the moment he finds someone he likes better.”

“…” Queen Amerande was silent for a few moments. I noticed she looked upset, saddened at my words, but she didn’t look shocked, not at all. She had seen her son’s lack of interest in me as well. She knew exactly what kind of person Ronan was, and that he was capable of doing exactly what I said. I continued onwards, not wanting to hear any excuses or explanations.

“And WHEN he casts me aside. You’ll move forward just like everyone else will, without a thought spared for me.” I clenched my fists, wanting to run. “You’ll forget all about me. So please, keep that necklace. Give it to the woman your son actually WILL marry. Or a grandchild whenever they have one. Someone you truly care about. Not a placeholder. Not me.”

Having said what I wanted to say, I pushed past the Queen, running out of the palace. I skipped my lesson with Jim, getting into the carriage. And it wasn’t until I was there, protected by the window covers and safe from prying gazes, that I finally relaxed, put my head into my hands, and cried.

[paydayloanszas-blog]

How to Create a Gift Certificate Program

It's that time again - you're starting off a new year and thinking about your business goals for the year. One of those goals will most likely include an intention to bump up your business a little and bring in some more revenue. One promotional idea worth exploring is a gift certificate program. Retailers almost always have a gift certificate system in place, but a lot of service businesses don't.

Why not? The answer I hear most often is "I haven't got around to it yet!" So I'm going to share a couple tips to get you started.

What kind of gift certificates do you want?

There are 2 basic types. It's really nice to have both:

The paid-for kind of gift certificate is purchased by one of your customers for another person. Not only is it a way to serve new customers, it's a way to serve your current ones. People love sharing experiences, and when you create a really positive one for the recipient, the gift giver will feel great about it!

Another type is the free gift certificate. That might be a gift from you to a current customer, a promotion to attract new ones, or a thank you gift for the people that help you throughout the year.

Tracking your gift certificates

The simplest way is to create a paper log-book or Excel spreadsheet. Besides recording the purchase date, amount, recipient's name, and redemption date, also include the purchaser's name & contact information in case you are must issue a refund as per some state laws.

Showing the dollar value

If you're in a service business, most people buying gift certificates are paying for a particular service they want their friend to have. In this case, it's really nice to write that on the certificate itself, for example, "Good for a 60-minute Reiki session." But what if you raise your prices later or the recipient wants something different? It's smart to put the dollar value on the certificate, in a very small discreet way.

On free certificates, you might want to show the dollar value so people understand its worth, but write "no cash value" very small so that there's no confusion about it being refundable for money.

To present or not to present?

Businesses often stipulate that the certificate "must be presented at time of service." That policy does help prevent fraud, but you can't enforce it without getting the customer really upset. This is where your tracking system is truly necessary. Don't be surprised when 98% of gift certificate holders come in without the paperwork. Trust me on this one. It's better to be elegantly prepared.

Expiration dates

In most states, it is illegal to put an expiration date on gift certificates that were sold for money. If you feel anxious having unused certificates floating around without expiry, you may put a "must be redeemed by" date on them, but here's the rule: when the expiry date passes, you must refund the purchaser in full. Only after you're refunded the purchaser in full can you void the certificate.

The no-expiration rule does NOT apply to free certificates. Since no money has changed hands, the expiration date is up to you.

Refunds

You can pretty much create whatever policy you want, as long as you have one. You can offer cash refunds, "store credit only" refunds, or a combination. For example, if you sold an hour massage certificate for $100, but the redeemer only wants a $65 pedicure, your policy will determine whether they get cash back, credit towards future services, or if they can use the difference to buy products or put it towards the tip.

Do keep in mind that if you should happen to go out of business, you are required by law to issue cash refunds to the purchasers of all unused gift certificates. That's why you need to keep records.

You will need to check with your particular state for any area specific laws that may govern your area. A good place to begin this search is with your state's Department of Consumer Affairs.

How to design your gift certificates

There are 3 basic ways you can create your certificates. I'll start with the least expensive ones first.

Do-it-yourself gift certificates from your computer The most affordable way is to use a program like Microsoft Word or Publisher. If you aren't sure how to start from scratch, there are free templates you can download and customize at the Microsoft Template Gallery.

Alternatively, most office supply stores have pre-printed gift certificate stationery for sale. You can format them with your computer, or even hand write them if you've got nice writing.

Pre-printed gift certificates

Just like ordering pre-printed checks, you can order pre-printed gift certificates. These cost a little more, but they can look really nice with your logo or embossing done on nice paper. A company called Gift Central even sells tracking forms you need, if you're not sure how to do it yourself.

Credit-card style gift certificates

If you've got a bigger business with a POS checkout system, these are pretty cool. It used to be that only huge retail stores had this type of certificate, but now anyone can sell them. Because they look like a credit card, people understand that they must present the card to use it, and it makes "store credit only" refunds really easy to manage.

Make it special

Whatever kind of certificate you use, make it look as attractive as you can. It should fit the style of your business, and its perceived value should match the gift. So if you've got a $200 gift certificate for example, it 상품권 현금화  should be on nice paper, in a nice envelope, or maybe even a gift box.

[homerenovationvancouver-blog]

The Kitchen Renovation Doesn't Have to Be As Painful As You Might Think

You've reached your own personal tipping point: the toaster won't work when the coffeemaker's on, you're down to one working burner on your stove, only one person can be in the kitchen at a time so your family eats in shifts, and finally the microwave blew on the morning of your big presentation at work, and you decided, "Enough is enough. We need a new, functional kitchen!"

You're not alone. Usually everyone has a particular tipping point; that one last thing that sends them into the renovation pool. You try to hold on for as long as you can because you're dreading the noise, the dust, the inconvenience and the disruption to your daily life. When your space becomes unusable, it's time to do something. But you can't just jump into a renovation, particularly one as costly, time consuming and inconvenient as a kitchen renovation, you need a well thought out plan of attack if you're going to pull it off in the quickest amount of time with the least amount of inconvenience and expense.

Start by developing a Design Plan: A renovation will only be as successful as the research and planning that's put into it. Like any business proposal you develop for work, you need to have a clear goal of what you want to achieve with the renovation. Do you yearn for updated electrical wiring, maximizing storage space, adding an eating area, appliances that work?

You can start by popping into kitchen renovation stores to look at the latest available features in kitchen design. Speak to the staff, tell them you're at the beginning of your journey and see if they have any ideas for you.

Cut out photos of kitchens you love from magazines and put them in a folder. Identify why you like the kitchens you've chosen - is it the space? The lighting? The colour? The style of cabinetry or countertops? It is even helpful to give your designer images of things you definitely do not like. That way they won't propose those very things in your dream kitchen. When you determine what you really want, it will help your kitchen designer draw up the plans that suit you.

If you have a friend who's recently renovated her kitchen, take pictures and identify what you like about it as well and stick it in the folder with your other pictures.

Toronto architect Jacqueline Rhee says that when she sits down with potential clients and they say to her, "Design us something gorgeous," she has to explain that they aren't giving her enough information. She says, "What their idea of 'gorgeous' is and what I might have in mind could very well be two different things. Maybe they want French Country, but I have an idea that they might prefer a sleek contemporary kitchen." The more direction clients can give their designer about their likes, dislikes and what their goals for the space are, the better the design can live up to their expectations.

Budget: The good news regarding a kitchen renovation is that it tends to be a good investment. The Appraisal Institute of Canada estimates that a kitchen renovation will return 75-100% of your investment if you were to turn around and sell your home. However, the sky is never the limit, even for Donald Trump. Just as you would plan your company's annual marketing budget, you need to develop a budget for your kitchen renovation. A general rule of thumb for how much to spend on a kitchen renovation is up to 10-15% of the value of your home. But don't feel like you have to spend that much; if you can do more with less, do it. For example, if your cabinets are in the right location and sturdy but just tired and outdated, consider refacing them. Refacing comes in at about 50-75% of the cost of new custom cabinetry.

Hiring a Kitchen Company and/or Contractor: Most people hire a contractor or kitchen designer through word of mouth. If you've been to a friend's recently renovated house and you like what you see, start asking questions: Who did the work? Did you work well together? Was he on time and on budget? Is the end result what you expected? Was he well-organized or did you scramble to get finishes at the last minute? Were there any major problems during construction, and if so, how did he handle them? If you liked the answers your friend gave you - assuming your friend isn't shell-shocked from the direct grilling she's just received - get his card. Now, find at least two other contractors and/or kitchen companies so you can compare quotes.

Meeting with the Designer and Contractor: If, while you're meeting with a designer or contractor, your gut tells you that no matter how great the work is you couldn't stand being in the same room with him for more than a minute, cross him off your list of candidates. You may have to meet with this person every day. If your personalities don't mix, you'll never be able to solve problems together. Likely, however, if you're getting that vibe, the contractor or designer is too; it's best to part ways before a relationship has begun.

If, on the other hand, your first meeting is fantastic and you're bowled over with his enthusiasm and ideas and you get along as if you'd known each other your entire lives, you still need to do your research. Ask him how many jobs he can handle at once and how many he has going currently and make sure he is bonded and insured.

Further necessary research - the internet is your new best friend: Researching kitchen companies and contractors has become a whole lot easier with the age of the internet. Now there are websites which are specifically focused on capturing word-of-mouth reviews from consumers online. If the companies you're interested in using don't have any reviews, you may want to look at other companies that do and compare their services. Also check out the company's website. If they don't have one, you have to wonder how professional they are.

Another tip you can try is entering the company's name in search engines like Google and Yahoo!. You may find some feedback people have posted on them on various forums. You can also post a question asking if anyone has ever used this company. Finally, check the references he or she gives you as well, talk to a few of his past clients and go see the work he or she did for them.

Once you've chosen your designer, contractor and/or kitchen company, get ready: Ask yourself if you can live through the renovation by setting up a second kitchen in the garage or basement. Do you have toddlers who would be better off away from the construction site? Make arrangements to be out of the house for a specific amount of time and make sure that you and your project team have discussed the most reasonable move-out and move-in dates.

Did you have to factor furniture storage into your budget or can it be wrapped and stored on site? Again, your contractor will tell you which is the best option depending on the size of the job and your storage space availability on site.

During the renovation: Assumptions: One of the breakdowns in communication between homeowner and contractor is in assumptions made by one party or the other. For instance, one woman had purchased bathroom sinks and fixtures for a brand new home. The contractor saw that the powder room fixture would be outfitted with separate taps and a faucet and so drilled three holes in all the sinks because he assumed that all the fixtures were the same. Unfortunately, they weren't and the homeowner had to replace the other fixtures to match the holes.

But incorrect assumptions can just as easily be made by the homeowner. A homeowner handed a water filter kit to the contractor and asked him to install it. The homeowner had read on the box that the water filter was good for the whole house and could be fitted on the main water supply. When she returned at the end of the day, the contractor had installed it under the kitchen sink. She'd never told him where it was to go, she had just assumed that he knew it was meant for the entire house.

Problem solving: In any renovation, no matter how minor, there always seem to be unforeseen problems. It's not as surprising as you might think. What happens behind the walls stays behind them until they're ripped apart. Up until then, you might not know that the insulation used was actually newspaper, or that the plumbing went through the wall that needs to be demolished. How your contractor and you handle these problems depends on how proactive your contractor is.

During Sue and Leon's main floor renovation, the designer had called for the laundry room backsplash to consist of stainless steel tiles; beautiful, but at a cost of approximately $5,000. Sue balked. The contractor suggested instead a row of the tiles, two feet high, just behind the washer and dryer at a cost of $500. Sue was grateful that contractor made her aware of the costs and had an alternative suggestion for her.

The end result -- your dream space: Living through the dust, noise and strangers in your house for weeks to months on end can be tiring. Even though you get along well with the crew and your contractor, you can find your temper becoming short, particularly if there are delays during the project leading to prolonged construction. Recognize that delays are often unavoidable and that one day, you will be back in your home, the workers will be gone and your new beautiful kitchen will be all yours.

On-line Resources: This Old House: This website is a DIYer's dream. There are videos and tips on probably every aspect of renovating a kitchen. Kitchens.com: A wealth of information on everything you ever wanted to know about kitchens, including information on "greening your kitchen." Better Homes and Gardens has an extensive section on renovating your kitchen including an "inspiration gallery" to give you some ideas. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation: CMHC has an excellent website for any renovation or home purchase. The kitchen renovation area has downloadable charts you can use for reference guides as you go about your renovation planning. Appraisal Institute www.homerenovationvancouver.ca  of Canada: The Renova section of this website allows you to input the cost of your renovation and it will calculate how much of a return you would receive if you sold your home.

[tothewaterhq]

ACCEPTED // HOLIDAY TRUEHART

capitol → stylist (in training) →  Dianna Agron fc

positive traits: creative, considerate, charismatic negative traits: sheltered, distrustful, spoilt

tw: exploitation, sexulisation

what made your character decide to become a stylist? As a child, she was always fascinated by makeup. Now that she’s older, experimenting with it is when she feels most like herself.

describe their style. what are their designs like? any particular colours/fabrics/ideas they’re drawn to? Old Hollywood. Red lipstick. Bold black eyeliner. Sequins. Long trains on dresses. Soft wavy hair.

bio:

Born to leading Capitol actress Lorelai Lovelace and her award-winning director of a husband Claudius Truehart, one could say that Holiday had no choice but to be in the spotlight. She was given her first role when she was less than a year old, playing the newborn daughter of a rival politician in the President’s official biopic Vote Snow.

Her childhood was a busy one. Mommy or Daddy or both were always working, and when Holiday wasn’t on a job she was still on set; sitting on her father’s lap as he yelled orders over her head, or trying on wigs in her mother’s dressing room. When Holiday experimented with make-up, it was professional product that was quickly snatched out of her fingers by disapproving stylists and make-up artists.

She continued to borrow it and experiment anyway.

After years of roles in movies such as Safe and Sound for Candlenights and Babysitting an Angel, in which Holiday always played the adorable little sister or the charming daughter of the leading character, the Capitol’s favourite child actress hit puberty.

Her parents panicked. An army of stylists were hired to keep her looking youthful for as long as possible. Her wardrobe was switched out with a new one comprising entirely of polka dots and tutus and other garments deemed too funky or cute to be sexualised, all modestly cut and youthful in style.

It only worked for a year or two. After a speculative article in a tabloid about her role as Revel Revlon’s kid sister in her father’s latest family movie (Can Claudius Truehart’s little princess really pass for ten years old these days?), Holiday was plucked out of the spotlight at the age of fourteen. She was forbidden from leaving the family mansion, forbidden to talk to anyone besides her parents and their household staff.

She was unused to the quiet.

Her parents bought her an easel and she took up painting. And when her pictures grew good enough to hang on the wall in the entrance to their mansion, they agreed to buy her some makeup to play with.

They also made her learn to play the violin. Because a lady never knew when that might come in useful.

Holiday’s style gravitated towards the looks she’d grown up watching stylists create on her mother; red lips, bold black eyeliner, hair in soft gentle waves.

Sitting in the dining room one night for dinner, Lorelai and Claudius realised they’d been coddling their daughter for too long. Across the table from them, with bold red lips and curled blonde hair; she had her mother’s looks, that much was plain.

She could be the next movie bombshell.

Holiday Truehart was given a whole new image and brought out of exile. Her first role as a new woman was the love interest in a sweet little rom-com called Plenty of Fish in Four. Holiday spoke to her make-up artists more than she ever had as a child, eager to learn any tips and tricks they could teach her.

Her first role in an R-rated film came two years later. My Night With a Victor featured Holiday’s very first nude scene, and it quickly became a selling point for the movie. Aged twenty, Holiday found her scantily-clad image on billboards and in magazines. It was a far cry from the adorable little photoshoots she’d been asked to do as a child.

Her head was spinning with the shock of it all, and to add to the confusion she caught wind of a rumour; My Night With a Victor was based on a true story. Of course, it had been romanticised, and any traces of unhappiness on the part of her handsome co-star’s character had been removed. But people were spending nights with victors.

She wondered if, maybe, they were being exploited too.

Her name was down for a second role with nude scenes, at her parents’ request, when her father unexpectedly dropped down dead. The coroner came to the conclusion that a lavish lifestyle full of rich food had finally caught up with him. The film industry mourned.

Holiday mourned, too- she’d loved her father dearly. But she mourned whilst hiring a lawyer to get her out of her latest project, and using her inheritance to buy an apartment as far away from the family mansion as possible.

She spent months trying to fade back into obscurity, but the public didn’t want to lose her a second time. Someone leaked her new address, and Holiday found herself the recipient of unwanted fan-mail. She realised quickly that her father had been sifting through it all her life, only passing on the less explicit messages to her in recent years.

Her life and her body no longer felt like her own. Holiday wondered if they ever truly had been. But how could she reclaim something that might never have been her own to begin with?

Remembering how happy she’d always been whilst playing with makeup, she signed up for a role training to be a stylist for the hunger games. It was public enough to keep her fans satisfied, but maybe it would help sway her reputation back into a more tasteful area. Maybe she’d be surrounded by people who got it.

PLAYED BY // DAISY

[fishinggearshop]

Best Gifts for Fishermen (And Women)

Buying gifts is always fun. There comes a time when we have to buy gifts for people on occasions like birthdays or anniversaries. In our professional life, the gift giving culture somehow has changed a bit and we have to buy gifts that somehow complement their profession. Such a difficult profession is fishing.

It is sometimes challenging to come up with gift ideas for fishermen and women. Nevertheless, if you know someone who enjoys fishing, you've already done half the work. The most important thing to remember when giving fishing presents is to avoid purchasing equipment. It's possible that your present will go unused if you don't understand what you're getting. They can be innovative and can also be very enjoyable. To help you in this regard, we have created a list of some of the best Performance Fishing Gear that will make your life easy.

Want to buy high-quality fishing equipments to gift your love ones — Fishermen’s Source is your stop. A  national online & in-store fishing tackle retailer in NJ. They selling premium saltwater & freshwater fishing gear shop and equipment at competitive prices.

Fishing shirts or kitting

It can be more difficult to be comfy and covered from being directly exposed to the harmful sun rays than it is to capture the big fish. For fishing, an ultralight shirt a must. They're made to absorb extra water and dry rapidly, which is important when you're out on the water for long periods of time. Fishing shirts protect the sun's damaging UV radiation to the greatest extent possible. Long-sleeve shirts provide additional protection, whereas short-sleeve shirts are popular because they allow for more airflow.

Baits for fishing

Combinations of fishing baits are the ideal present for the fisherman who has everything. Fishermen are constantly stocking up on new baits, whether that was a dry fly or a curly tail grub. They must not only replace lost hard and soft baits snagged on a tree branch or submerged debris, but they must also experiment with new shades and designs. Giving a winner with a variety of fishing baits boosts your chances.

Sunglasses

Sunglasses have always been at the pinnacle of every fishing equipment list. Sunglasses come in a variety of forms and styles, making them the ideal present for everyone. Sunglasses, on the other hand, aren't all the same. A fisherman's sunglasses would have to provide guaranteed safety from damaging Ultraviolet radiation.

Game of Fish Monopoly

Monopoly is a popular game that everyone enjoys, and this variation of the game is centered on fishing. Since the avatars and locations are all fish-themed, it's the ideal game for anyone who enjoys fishing. This might be an enjoyable thing to play with them or with their fishing mates.

Customized Fishing Decoration

Fishing decorations may be personalized with the year you gave it to them and their name. The ornament depicts a fisherman capturing a fish from a boat. Their favorite activity is represented by the ornament. There isn't a more exquisite decoration than this. It's a straightforward and vintage present that you won't have any problems with for the fisherman.

Gloves with an LED flashlight

This fishing gift option is for individuals who would like to be able to fish even when it's dark outdoors. The index finger and thumb of these LED flashlight gloves have lights. They illuminate the region in which the lights are aimed.

The gloves are constructed of elastic material and contain elastic bands that have been stretched to suit various hands. The gloves have a button on the back that allows them to switch on and off as desired.

Conclusion:

It can be tough to select a gift for someone who appreciates fishing if you do not enjoy fishing yourself. You might not know where to start or what kinds of gifts a fisherman might like.

Fortunately, this list of fishing gift ideas has sent you on the correct path. You can choose from a variety of goods, and at least one of them should attract the fishing enthusiast in your life. Therefore, even if you're looking for a basic fishing present, a personalized gift, or a hilarious gift, this guide can help you out.

[cashnowforteststrip]

Sell Your Diabetic Test Strips in Tampa!

If you have diabetes, you know that getting the supplies you need can be costly—and that includes the test strips for checking your blood sugar multiple times every day. Private insurance or Medicare can help defray the cost. But if you don’t have insurance, or if your insurance doesn’t cover all the strips you need, buying them at retail prices can be prohibitively expensive. And that makes it harder to manage your diabetes and stay healthy.

When you sell your diabetic test strips and supplies, you’ll be helping to get them to the people who need them the most—and you’ll make some cash in the process!

📷

Why Sell Your Test Strips?

Even though people with diabetes often test their glucose levels multiple times every day, they might still end up with test strips they no longer need.

Glucose meters are designed to work with specific types of strips, so if you switch to a new meter that requires a different brand of strip, you could have strips left over from your previous meter. In some situations, you might need to monitor glucose only for a short time, such as during pregnancy. Strips might also be left over after a patient’s death. In those situations, these unused strips might be left to gather dust in a medicine cabinet, or be tossed into the trash.

But for people with diabetes who are uninsured or underinsured, or anyone who can’t afford to pay high retail prices, those unwanted test strips could be a lifeline.

Paying for strips out of pocket, or buying extra strips beyond what insurance provides, can add up to thousands of dollars each year—that’s about a quarter of the total cost of care for insulin-dependent diabetes. We’re here to serve the diabetic community, so when you sell us your test strips, we can make them available to the people who need them, at prices they can afford.

We Buy Test Strips in the Tampa Bay Area!

If you live in the Tampa Bay area, and you have unused, unopened boxes of diabetic test strips to sell, we’ll buy them! And we’ll put them in the hands of those who need them. We’ll even pick them up from your location. We’re safe and reliable for meeting people in all kinds of environments.

We pay top dollar cash for test strips and insulin supplies throughout the Tampa Bay Area, including ALL of Pasco, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Citrus and Hernando Counties.

It’s easy to sell us your test strips. Just call or text us at (727) 204-0478 and we’ll get you a quote and set up a time to pick up your strips.

How to Sell Your Strips and SuppliesGet a Quote

Call us at 727-204-0478 or use our contact form and get a quick quote for the test strips you’d like to sell.

Set Up a Local Pickup in the Tampa Area

If you live in the Tampa area, we can pick up your test strips and diabetic supplies at your preferred location—completely free! We can often pick up the same day. Contact us to set up a time and place for your pickup.

Ship to Us–National Coverage

Cash Now for Test Strips can purchase your test strips anywhere in the United States. Regardless of where you’re located, you can ship your unused strips to us.

To ship your strips, simply visit our Ship Your Strips page and follow the instructions. Once we receive your shipment, we’ll process it right away. If there’s any issue with the order, we’ll let you know immediately.

Get Paid!

When we pick up your diabetic test strips and other supplies, we pay cash right on the spot. If you mailed us your strips, we’ll send your payment within two business days via PayPal, CashApp, Zelle or check.

Diabetic Supplies We Buy

We buy most major retail and mail order brands of diabetic test strips throughout the Tampa area, such as Accu-Check Aviva Plus, Freestyle and One Touch Verio.

See the complete list of test strips we buy here. Don’t see your brand? Contact us to find out if it’s one we buy.

The test strips you send must have a minimum expiration date of at least eight months from now, and the boxes must be perfect—no tears, no dents, no broken seals. If your boxes have pharmacy labels, we ask you not to remove them, since that could damage the boxes. We’ll remove all labels to protect your privacy. If we receive damaged boxes or boxes with broken seals, we’ll dispose of them.

The test strips you send must have a minimum expiration date of at least eight months from now, and the boxes must be perfect—no tears, no dents, no broken seals. If your boxes have pharmacy labels, we ask you not to remove them, since that could damage the boxes. We’ll remove all labels to protect your privacy. If we receive damaged boxes or boxes with broken seals, we’ll dispose of them.

Have More Questions?

We hope to have answers! Check out our FAQs for general information—and if you don’t find what you’re looking for, use our contact form or give us a call.

We’ve been in the test strip buying business in Tampa for many years, and we’ve developed a reputation for reliability, integrity and consistency. We’re dedicated to providing efficient, personal service, and it’s easy to speak to an actual person and straighten out any misunderstandings. When you sell us your test strips, you’ll get quick quotes, fast, friendly service and speedy payment.

Selling your diabetic test strips reduces waste, pays you cash, and helps other diabetics get the supplies they need to stay healthy. We were founded to help diabetics. Our true dedication is to the diabetic community — and our clients always come first.

Source By : https://cashnowforteststrips.com/2022/01/19/sell-diabetic-test-strips-for-cash/