update

More nickels

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My mother-in-law gave me $20 in nickels for my birthday (that’s 400 nickels if you’re counting with me at home), along with a jar that counts coins as you drop them in through a slot in the top. If the jar is accurate, I have 490 nickels in there currently. Add to that the 21 nickels I have in my PayPal account, and I’m up to 511. Only 31,489 nickels to go. Sweet!

If you’re paying attention, the number of nickels in my PayPal account hasn’t changed at all since my last update. Is a nickel too much to ask? Come on all you PayPal users out there! Click the button. I dare you! End mark




What’s all this about, you ask? Check out the original post for details.

A nickel update

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Aaron asks:

And what’s the head count (no pun intended) so far? How many nickels?

Well, it’s rather depressing, actually. I really need to start spreading the word a bit further than just my little circle of influence. I’ve got some ideas for making this little project go viral, but it’s all a matter of working up the time and energy required to put those ideas into action.

The grand total right now is 59 actual physical nickels in a cup in my desk drawer and 21 virtual nickels in my PayPal account. That’s 80 nickels all together, making the grand total $4.00 even—one four-hundredth or 0.25% of my goal. Another 31,920 nickels to go, and I’ll have my MacBook. Things are looking up! End mark

What’s all this about, you ask? Check out the original post for details.

Car-free

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It’s been a while since I mentioned my car accident, so here’s a little update about how all the loose ends got tied up. My car was declared totalled about a week and a half after the accident (there are pictures). I’d been driving a cute little 2007 Volkswagen Jetta rental in the meantime, but of course they made me give that back.

We got a nice-sized check for the value of my car, but I’ve decided to rough it for a while rather than buy another vehicle. Janene didn’t have much left to go on her car loan, so we put some of the money toward finally owning her car, which is nice. The rest went into savings. When the weather gets a little warmer I plan to use some of it to overhaul my bike—new tires, fenders, headlight, taillight, etc.

I did end up buying the book I mentioned in my previous post, How to Live Well Without Owning a Car, and may give a full book review when I finish reading it. I’ve done pretty well so far and this is the coldest month of the year. I’ve got a deal with Janene that I get to buy me a truck when I finish school, so that’s the light at the end of the tunnel. But who knows, I may decide I like being car-free. It’s already saving us a ton of money (our insurance, gas, and auto maintenance budgets have been halved!) and I think it will be good for me to ride my bike more.