10 Things to do when you are broke and waiting to pay sales transactions

Since the last week in December, I've been falling behind in ThereBucks sales. The sales requests keep coming in faster than the buy requests. After a while, it has gotten a bit old, especially when I thought I was making headway paying people and then received a large number of large-ish chargebacks from PayPal that put me even further behind and basically wiped out any actual profit I might be making on ThereBucks...it's like I'm putting in the time and assuming the risks and all I get is annoyed ThereBucks sellers worried about getting paid. Still, I do find some perverse pleasure in the challenges of being broke for weeks on end.

So, here is a list of ten things to do when you are broke and waiting to pay sales transactions...

1. Realize you shouldn't delay washing dishes any longer just because you are out of dishwasher detergent, so fill the dishwasher detergent cups with expensive geranium scented regular dish soap.

Have a very Brady moment when soap suds and water start pouring out of the cracks in the dishwasher.

Decide that although your whole apartment smells like geraniums, although you didn't even know geraniums had a smell, and the dishes did get clean, it is probably better to wash the rest of the dishes by hand.

2. Wake up sleeping kitty to put him outside so you can use your Flip video camera to film him using his cat door and post it on YouTube.


3. Realize there are much cuter videos of cats using pet doors on YouTube.


4. Run out of toilet paper and debate using the quarters you were saving to do your laundry to buy toilet paper. Clean clothes or clean....


5. Scrounge around your apartment for some travel tissues and remember that your BF is bringing you the five dollars he owes you to the gym tonight, for winning that bet about whether Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman were ever married. Realize maybe you don't have to make the above choice.



6. Avoid showering/washing hair for as long as possible, because you are out of your deep moisturizing conditioner and would rather have hair that is dirty but supple than hair that is clean but a rat's nest.

7. Dig around under the bathroom sink until you find some old haircolor boxes containing some decent conditioner. At least a weeks worth of conditioning...score!


8. Daydream about eating some fresh fruits and vegetables. Anything that isn't beige! Or frozen! Or some kind of soy protein or wheat gluten product!

9. Read the book "The Box; How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger" while obsessively glancing at your Gmail inbox each time you turn the page. Each time a sale actually does come in, obsessively check PayPal balance, even if the transaction was only for $1.63.

10. Answer customer emails that say things like "It's not fair that IMVU closed my account because of you when I saw my mom use her debit card and PayPal to send you money" with emails that say things like...

Look, Kiddo...first of all, life aint fair. Second of all, don't try to pin this one on me! Those transactions were reversed and PayPal snatched the money back from me. Now, I don't know if your mom was using someone else's PayPal account or bank account (I've had people using their estranged husband's account, their cousin's account, etc), if she didn't actually have enough money in the bank, if she had buyers remorse, if she forgot what the charges were for or if you're just lying to me, but what isn't fair is that YOU got to spend those credits and I didn't get paid from them! All you need to do to get your IMVU account reinstated is send me about $15 bucks, the amount you owe me for those credits. THEN we can be all fair and square.*

*That isn't actually what I said in response to the email, but it's what I was thinking.