Beermoney for Busy People! (2021)
Hi! I try to make this post each year about sites that don't have DQs and are worth your time to use even if you have a busy life! I have removed sites and apps that no longer exist and have also added a new one I am using this yea! I am a full-time student and work while in school so I don't always have time to grind out surveys for hours at a time. To qualify for this list, the sites can't DQ and have to be worth your time to use! Hope these help! Let's get into it.
CrowdTap is a great site for short polls and surveys that is available online and in a mobile app on iOS and Android! The questions are about things such as consumer goods, food products, and services. The polls pay 1.5 cents each and the short answer questions pay 10 cents each (converted from their points system). Some of these polls are combined into longer surveys, and some are single one question polls. All of them are well worth it for the time that they take and there are no DQ’s of any sort. Reward options include Amazon, Target, Walmart, Steam, Xbox, and more. You can cash out starting at $5 and I am able to cash out about once a week. Make sure to give quality answers and look out for attention checks because people have been banned for not giving quality answers. Definitely add this one to your routine if you have not yet.
This is a site with short surveys and no DQ’s. There are short surveys (10ish questions) to collect demographic data that pay $0.10. As you do these, your trait score increases. Having a high trait score makes it more likely to get high paying surveys. You have to be patient, and you might go weeks without a survey, but once you get to max trait score it is definitely worth it. I have a max trait score and I get at least one survey (if not more) per day. The real surveys that aren’t just for demographics can pay upwards of $2. You can cash out at $15 via PayPal, Amazon, or Walmart. Just as some inspiration to stick with it, after hitting max traitscore I am on track to make $150 on here this year!
Pinecone is a great survey site with surveys about consumer products and food that don’t DQ and pay $3 per 10ish minute survey. I get an average of one a week. They also sometimes send you samples of the products to review and I have gotten several of these this year! The catch is that you have to find an invite to join the panel. These can be found on offers or banner ads on GPT sites so keep an eye out for one! It is well worth your time to sign up. You can cash out for PayPal and many gift cards at a $5 minimum.
This one is great. You take academic surveys for universities and researchers and get paid in cash. I have been getting tons of surveys on here right now about Covid-19. As long as you don’t miss attention checks you won’t ever get disqualified. Some people get multiple surveys a day and others get only a few a week based on demographics. Usually it slows down in the summer because school isn’t in session, but they’ve had a lot of surveys available this summer. Many surveys pay at least minimum wage. Pro tip, if you ever have a problem with a survey or miss an attention check that you noticed, try contacting the researcher and often they can fix the problem for you. You can cash out with PayPal with no fees (for U.S. users).
Zogo iOS | Android | Invite Code: 88W6A
Zogo is an iOS and Android app that pays you to learn about personal finance. It is backed by a variety of established banks and is actually quite interesting to learn through. While in the past it required a sponsor to be able to cash out, now anyone can earn in the app. You earn by answering a set of questions once daily through the “pineapple party” (the name for their currency). You earn pineapples based on your performance. You can cash out for a wide variety of gift cards such as Amazon and Target at $5. It is fun and worth it because you are learning valuable lessons about finance as well!
YouGov is a survey site/app that pays anywhere from $0.50 to $2 per survey. You never disqualify. I get a couple surveys a week. Most of the surveys are about public policy, politics, or general opinions of companies. You get the best value for your points if you save up for the $100 cash out. They offer the $100 cash out in bank transfer and Amazon. The Amazon gift card option used to be a physical mailed card but now its an e-gift card so that makes it even better! They offer other gift cards but they are for smaller values at worse rates so I would avoid them. Available online, on android, and on iOS.
E-poll is a survey site with surveys that don’t DQ. They send you surveys via email when they are available. The surveys are often about pop culture, TV shows, and celebrities. Some of them pay better than others for the time it takes to complete them, but most are well worth your time. Make sure to complete the surveys soon after you get the email, because some fill up within a day or so. You can cash out for several gift card options including Amazon and Starbucks. You get better rates with the higher valued gift cards so I always save up for the highest ones.
Forthright is a survey site with a nice twist. You sign up and receive invitations to surveys via email. I don’t usually do their “partner surveys” because they often DQ and you can get stuck in an endless loop, which doesn’t really fit with the point of this post.. Their non-partner surveys are awesome. They pay well for the time spent but they also have one of the best disqualification bonuses I have ever seen. Every three surveys you take, regardless of whether you disqualify or not, you get a $2 bonus. That is $0.66 per survey on top of its base pay regardless of whether you qualify or not. The base pay for the surveys ranges from $1-3 depending on length, which varies from 10-30 mins. They usually take much less time than the estimated length. I get a non-partner survey about once every 1-2 weeks and made around $50 here last year with minimum time spent. They pay instantly with PayPal, Amazon, or Bitcoin with no minimum.
Perksy is an app that sends you short surveys that they call “stacks”. These surveys generally pay anywhere from $0.30 to $1.00 and I get about one a week. You can’t DQ from these and they only take a minute or two. The minimum cashout is pretty high at $25 but when you sign up you get a signup bonus that gets you pretty close to your first cashout. I am able to cash out about once a year. They offer a lot of different gift cards but the most notable ones are Amazon and Target.
This one is quite popular and most of you have probably heard of it. This app is run by Google that will send you short surveys. If you have the app on iOS you can cash out to PayPal at $2, but on Android you can only cash out to Google Play balance. People who travel a lot or use a lot of Google services may get more surveys than others. I make $10ish dollars a year on here but I’ve seen others make more.
This is one of my favorites. The app will send you “Pulses” that you can answer for cash. The surveys start out paying around $0.25 each but as you level up your account they pay more. Mine currently pay $0.34. They have non-paid pulses that can level up your account but those aren’t really worth doing. The minimum cash out is $20 via PayPal. I have made about $10 here just in the last week due to pulses about Covid-19.
This is an app that is owned by SurveyMonkey, the popular survey development company. It offers short surveys that pay anywhere from $0.25 to $0.50 depending on length. The surveys take no longer than 3-5 minutes. They technically can DQ, but this happens very rarely and only at the very beginning of a survey. The nice thing about the surveys is that they use SurveyMonkey's survey software so they are consistent and easy to complete. While they do send notifications, earnings on here depend on how often you check the app because they don't always notify you. I try to check the app at least once or twice a day. You can cash out at $5 for Amazon with instant payments.
SurveyMini is a little different. The app sends you surveys when you visit different stores to review your experience there. They ask you about your satisfaction with the store, what areas you bought from, etc. The surveys usually pay $0.10 and take about a minute, but some can randomly pay up to $0.75. The more you visit stores, the more surveys you will get. You can cash out at $10 but you get slightly better rates the more you save up. They offer e-gift cards such as iTunes, Xbox, and Visa, but sadly no Amazon. I am on pace to cash out for $25 twice this year.
This is a new one this year and has easily become the most worthwhile receipt apps out there. All you have to do is submit either 10 paper or email receipts per month to earn a $10 Amazon gift card at the end of the month. I have also received a short survey from them that paid in Amazon cards as well. While this app has a waitlist, go ahead and join. It only took me a couple weeks to get accepted. A dollar per receipt is extremely high for a receipt app!
This app has surveys with a more personal and fun spin. You get paid via PayPal for each task that you finish. There aren’t always tasks available but when there are, they often pay well. I had one for testing an app that paid $9! It’s a nice option for something a little different than traditional surveys.
Thanks for reading! Hope these beermoney sites/apps help you make better use of your beermoney earning time! Let me know if there are any sites that I didn't include that would fall into those categories. Give my profile a follow for more beermoney related posts in the future! If you want to read more of my posts, here's one of my favorites to get you started!
Have a great rest of your week :)
submitted by The Dude: It's like what Lenin said…you look for the person who will benefit, and, uh, uh... Donny: I am the walrus. The Dude: You know what I'm trying to say... Donny: I am the walrus. Walter Sobchak: Shut the fuck up, Donny! V.I. Lenin! Vladimir Illanich Uleninov! Donny:
What the fuck is he talking about, Dude? Hello again, GME Gang. What a fun day we had yesterday! Could it continue today? Only Melvin Capital (and maybe Ryan Cohen) knows!
And an extra special hello today to our newest WSB lookie-loo, Mr. Cramer (Can I call you Jim? I’m gonna call you Jim).
Now Jim, from what I’ve been able to gather, you and your Boomer stocks and your Hot Manic Takes don’t always get a lot of love around here. But that’s not
all your fault, Jim. The Paste-Eating Rocket Kids are often good for a solid meme (FYI: it’s pronounced “Mee-Mee.” Feel free to use that on air without verifying). But the Rocket Kids can be a dense bunch and they’re also often one click away from Total Financial Ruin (Quick shout out to SPCE: Pleas fly again). So you have to dig a bit in here to separate the wheat from the chaff, as someone like you actually says in real life. What the fuck even is chaff, Jim? And why do all Boomers seem to think that folksy farm-based idioms are the perfect way to conclude a thought?
Anyway. Those of us who watched your teevee clips last week where you reference your interest in WSB know that you, Jim Cramer, might be one of the Olds, but that you also Think Young(TM).
https://www.thestreet.com/jim-cramestock-market-advice-moderna-boeing-fed-ftc-dec-15. So we’re going to do our best to help your young-thinkin’ brain find the Needle In the Haystack here so you can get All Your Ducks In a Row on GME. Because we know that you’re a long way from being Put Out to Pasture, and though you may be an out-of-touch millionaire prone to facile yammering, we now
like you here, Jim—simply because you mentioned us and that made us blush a bit since we’re needy Millennials who just want our Boomer mommies and daddies to Tell Us They’re Proud of Us. So even though the Paste-Eating Rocket Kids here are often Buying A Pig in a Poke (Christ, please do not
ever say that or the kids’ Mee-Mees are gonna fuck you up), we appreciate you recognizing that, every now and then, there’s something worth paying attention to over in this weird little pocket of the Interwebs. And since you’re actually telling your loyal single-finger-typin’ viewers to check out this WSB shitshow, and “
if they’re running GME, then do some work on GME,” we assume you might actually be checking this shit out too, since all true Young Thinkers know that What’s Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander.
Now, is the GME play as solid as your recent recommendation to buy Bed Bath and Beyond? Who knows? That seems pretty stupid, and I would look it up myself this weekend but my nice little Saturday is already pretty full so I don’t know—I don’t know if I’ll have enough time. But I’ll tell you one thing: the GME play is
a lot more fucking fun. Life in a pandemic is boring, but here in this weird WSB place, these kids like fun. And for all your Boomer weirdness, you seem like you still like to have a little fun in this Mad, Mad world of ours. So consider joining us here more often. A word of warning, though: if you don’t like all the dern cuss words we use around here, Jim, well that’s just, like, your opinion man, and we’ll have you know that the Supreme Court has roundly rejected Prior Restraint.
First thing’s first: we have a bit of a bone to pick with you (now there
I go). The stuff you said last week about GME as the next Blockbuster was D-U-M dumb, Jim. You were a bit out of your fucking element with that. You even made our largest shareholder and conqueror-in-waiting, Mr. Ryan Cohen, send an emoji-only tweet in response, which if you know the super nice-guy Ryan Cohen like all of us do (we actually know nothing), that is pretty much the equivalent of him bringing his dog over to micturate on your and George Sherman’s rug.
Now, I myself have never been into the whole brevity thing, but I wanted to take this opportunity to get you up to speed on the GME movie you’ve wandered into. And I know you’re down with this because you told all your viewers that if WSB is talking about GME, then “make sure you know GME.” So before you say something Absolutely Mad again and Cohen sends a tweet with an even less ambiguous emoji, it’s high time that you start Making the Sure here, Jim. Just consider this to be CPT Hubbard delivering you some Orange Sunshine and turning you on to some of that Sweet, Delicious Non-Chaff Wheat you love so goddamn much.
Part 1: GME’s Bonkers-Ass Short Interest Now, I’m going to lead with the most crowd-pleasing part of the story here (Get ready, Rocket Kids!), and it’s the one that you did not even seem remotely familiar with in your “Stay out of GameStop, Deadbeat!” rant last week. Maybe that was by design or maybe not. We’ll return to that, Jim. But the point here is: the
short interest here is batshit insane. And not just your garden variety Boomer in Rolled Up Sleeves Ranting About Buying Estee Lauder While Hitting Buttons On The Beep-Bop-Boop Machine kind of insanity. Really and truly fucking nuts.
So to TL/DR this shit for you, Jim (to use the parlance of our times): GME is
the most shorted stock trading today—by far.
https://financhill.com/most-heavily-shorted-stocks-today How shorted? Well, the value of shares short exceeds the market cap of the company; there are currently
more shares short than the total number of shares outstanding. And when factoring in the institutional and insider ownership, the total short percentage of float is
nearly 300%.
https://www.gurufocus.com/term/FloatPercentageOfTSO/GME/Float-Percentage-Of-Total-Shares-Outstanding/GameStop-Corp Even higher, actually, now that Cohen’s interest is over 10%. Now, I’m not a numbers whiz like you, but that level of short interest and the small available float seems pretty fucked up to me. Like: “how is that even legal?” fucked up. And just for a frame of reference, the
third most shorted security right now is your beloved Bed Bath and Beyond, with a short percentage of float at a nice and tidy 69%.
Are you starting to gather why some of us in this weird little pocket of the Interwebs are a little excited about GME? You see, as
u/Jeffamazon and RodAlzmann
u/Uberkikz11 and others have explained in these here corners and on the twitter machine with their top-notch DD, and as I will translate to you in lingo you can dig, the short sellers got way over their skiis on this one expecting a bankruptcy in Spring of 2020 that never came. And yet, amazingly, the short interest has only
increased since then—there has effectively been no covering in the aggregate and, in fact, the short percentage has only
gone up. And now, on the threshold of 2021, we all sit atop a massive powder keg wondering what is going to be the thing that finally lights this shit up. And at the end of this little missive, I’m going to tell you what I think that thing might be (Spoiler: It’s Ryan Cohen! Better start getting used to seeing his name, Jim, because this dude does not fuck around and he’s not going anywhere).
https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/k4csaa/the_real_greatest_short_burn_of_the_century_part/ https://twitter.com/RodAlzmann https://thecollective.finance/2020/10/gamestop-gme-a-squeeze-to-44-from-14-can-be-justified-fundamentally-100-of-the-shares-are-short-watch-out/ Part 2: GameStop Isn’t Going Bankrupt and People Actually Want to Buy Shit There So, you foul mouthed little prick, a bonkers-ass short interest is neat and all, but why is Jim Cramer wrong when Jim Cramer compares GME to Blockbuster you might be asking yourself in the third person. First, the most obvious answer, Jim, which you should fucking know already: Blockbuster was
nearly $1 Billion in debt and missing debt payments left and right when it was delisted way back in 2010. That was also when there was a bit of a credit crunch, if you recall, right after that whole Housing Crash Unpleasantness that you saw coming from a mile away and from which you made hundreds of millions of dollars due to your contrarian foresight—I’m sorry, I’m clearly confusing you with Christian Bale starring as Dr. Michael Burry, weirdo head of Scion Asset Management, which also holds about 1.4M shares of GME (You really gotta start looking into this stuff, Jim. This story is made for TV, man—and you Boomers were raised by TV and you turned out TV!). Also, in 2010 when Netflix is ripping and when Blockbuster was about to be delisted and bankrupt, an analyst noted the obvious fact that Blockbuster had “nothing on the horizon that makes it look like Blockbuster is going to be more profitable.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-blockbusteblockbuster-wins-debt-reprieve-forced-to-delist-idUSTRE66052720100702 But Jim, if your Blockbuster comparison has any plausibility, GameStop must have a major debt problem then, right? And yet just last month GameStop
repaid $125M in debt several months ahead of time. It’s also really weird that over the past year management bought back a ton of shares, taking the OS from 102M
down to just under 70M (making a short squeeze even more likely, my Rocket Children). The weirdness continues with a soon-to-be-bankrupt company holding almost $500M in cash on hand. And according to George Sherman’s “Thine Omnichannel Shalt Be The Omni-est Channel of Them All” Conference Call following Q3, by March 2021 GME will have retired a total of $500M in debt and returned $200M to shareholders through stock buy backs. I’m no expert here, and I do not presently own a Beep-Bop-Boop Machine, but that’s all pretty weird shit to be doing if you’re about to go bankrupt.
No, no – I get it: who the fuck actually looks at balance sheets anyway before spouting off about what a stock is going to do? I sure as hell don’t. That’s why I follow my man
u/Uberkikz11, since that dude is a GME DD Encyclopedia and was born to crunch numbers. No, when Really Smart People make the Blockbuster comparison, it’s usually just Mouth Sounds for: A B&M Store That Used to Be Popular But Now Is Not Because Technology, QED. But here even the Really Smart People might be missing something as well. They’re right in the sense that GME must use this new console cycle window and cash influx to quickly pivot to a tech-first gaming company (more on that and our boy RC shortly!), but they’re wrong on the timing and relevance of this Super Smart Insight.
So fine, they’re doing ok on debt and cash. But who even goes to that 90s-Ass-Looking Cluttered Mall Geekery anymore anyways? I confess: in my darkest moments, as the short sellers manipulate the fuck out of this stock and I curse the names Bell and Sherman, I too have wondered this. But it turns out that, just like I have no idea why anyone listens to Maroon 5 or eats at Applebee’s, apparently a lot of people in America do shit that I do not. Crazy huh? So here is some pretty neat data showing us how out of touch we might be here, Jim:
First, when a pretty large sample size of people were recently asked the question:
which of the following stores or websites do you plan to buy holiday gifts from? The
#5 response from United States Americans was none other than
GameStop (Ticker, Jim: GME). Only Walmart, Amazon, Target, and Dollar Store (poor people buy gifts too, Jim) were ahead of little old GameStop. That’s higher than Nike, Macy’s, the Apple Store—and
double the response of Bed Bath and Fucking Beyond in every category they surveyed. Check it: (h/t to my man
u/snowk88)
https://stocktwits.com/snowk88/message/260983915 That’s kinda crazy huh? See Jim, when you Think Young(TM), you really can learn something new every day. And by following our man
u/snowk88 (@snowk88 over at stocktwits), I learn lots of cool shit. But guess who already knew that? The guy that wrote this bad-ass letter that identifies GME’s brand and customer data as being one of the most valuable things GME has going for it.
https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/RC_Ventures_Letter_to_GameStop.pdf So now we know that Real Life People actually buy shit at GameStop here in the year of our lord 2020. But like that analyst from 2010 said about Blockbuster, there must not be anything on the horizon for GameStop to be more profitable in 2021, right?
Now, I will admit that being a bit bearish on GME in December of 2020 would make more sense if, say, GameStop were the nation’s largest purveyor of limp and half-lit pumpkin spice-scented candles and we were exiting the apogee of Shitty Candle Season. But as it turns out, GameStop is currently selling basically the most sought-after items that exist in the marketplace right now—where demand for the Xbox and Ps5 is far outpacing supply and is projected to continue well into 2021.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-11-17-microsoft-expects-xbox-series-x-s-shortages-until-q2-2021 I don’t really need to get into the details on that here, because it’s pretty goddamn obvious, but I think 2020 GameStop at the precipice of a new console cycle might be in a bit of a better position than, say, 2010 Blockbuster relying on the latest Adam Sandler release to lift its sagging rental numbers. But I don’t know. Millions of people don’t watch
my show looking for Candid Analysis from me and
my folksy man-of-the-people-lookin’ rolled-up sleeves.
Part 3: Ryan Cohen is the Sword of Damocles Hanging Over the Short Sellers’ Dumbass Heads And now we’ve gotten to the best part. It’s my favorite part of all of this, Jim, and if you give this a little time, I think it will be yours too. You see, all that corporate bla bla bla about balance sheets and console cycles and early debt repayment and overleveraged short sellers and brand recognition is neat and all—and definitely worth a second look by itself. Maybe even a little Beep-Bop-Boop on the ol’ sound machine—I don’t know your methods. But the real thing that’s about to rip all our faces off here is the business and investment decisions of a mild-mannered wunderkind named Ryan Cohen.
Now you can revisit my prior epistle if you want to know a bit more about the involvement of Mr. Ryan Cohen in
Le Affair GameStop.
https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/kakxrm/gme_tribe_a_story_about_how_ryan_cohen_is_about/. My fly-by-night theory of his lawyer’s possible use of the consent solicitation could have probably marinated for another day, but the thrust of my argument there was that Cohen and his attorney have been laying the groundwork to come after GameStop for a while now. And that Cohen was likely emboldened by the humiliating, lame-ass CC performance by some dude with a mid-century comic-strip sounding name that we’ll all soon know only as: The Guy With the Punchable Face Who Used to Be CEO of GameStop.
But here is where things get really interesting. This is a story in the making, Jim, for fucks sake - take notes! This Monday, on December 21, Mr. Ryan Cohen filed a revised 13D showing that last week he started buying a shit-ton of shares—starting on Tuesday December 15th—which is
the day after the stock price inexplicably plunged on Monday the 14th and the very same day you were yammering on the teevee about GME being Blockbuster! Instead of listening to you, however, Cohen started buying more GME shares (super-sleuth dark pool watchers
u/rgrAi and
u/snowk88 noticed in real-time that there was some very large accumulation taking place), which culminated in the big reveal that Cohen purchased a total of 2,501,000 additional shares last week—500,000 of which were purchased on Friday December 18, 2020
at the price of $16.02 a share. Ryan Cohen is still the single largest shareholder of GME with 9,001,000 shares in total, taking his ownership of GME above the 10% threshold from 9.98% to 12.9%. And so he apparently thinks that the floor for his investment is $16.02 per share. Is he still buying? We’ll know soon. But yesterday seemed like a little taste of what it might look like if a large buyer steps in to prevent short sellers from manipulating all of my nervous little Rocket Children here and their delicate little paper hands.
There was another thing we learned from this 13D filing: Ryan Cohen has apparently hired a new attorney and law firm. Instead of the great Christopher Davis of Kline Kaplan, now Ryan Cohen is represented by Ryan P. Nebel, a partner with Olshan Frome Wolosky, LLP. Now, if you’re familiar with my prior ramblings, you might wonder if I was a bit confused, and maybe even a little sad, at this sudden change from my man C. Davis. And you might be a little right. But then the wonder of the internet allowed me to learn a bit about these new lawyers. And holy shit, things are about to get fun.
Now, I liked what I knew about Chris Davis and he seems like a genuine bad ass activist attorney. But the folks at Olshan Frome and Wolosky, LLP are Next Level Players and really seem tailor-made for this exact situation. First off, Olshan is ranked as
the top global lawfirm for Activist Attorneys.
https://www.olshanlaw.com/assets/htmldocuments/Bloomberg%20Activism%20League%20Tables%20H12020.pdf (H/t @flummoxed at stocktwits). They seem to be the go-to law firm for major proxy battles initiated by activist investors. But possibly even more important is that Olshan is the
same firm that represented Hestia and Permit in their successful proxy battle earlier this year to appoint two new directors to the GME Board. I’m not going into the fine details of that, because this is already a bit of a long-form Idiot’s New Yorker article, but GameStop just went through a proxy fight last year with Activist Investors Hestia Capital and Permit Capital, which resulted in two Board seats for our shareholder buds from Hestia and Permit. So, it’s reasonable to assume that the attorneys at Olshan might know their way around GameStop at this point and where the pressure points are here.
http://www.globallegalchronicle.com/hestia-capital-and-permit-capitals-two-new-directors-to-the-gamestop-board/ https://www.olshanlaw.com/resources-mentions-HestiaCapital-PermitCapital-GameStop-BoardofDirectors-ShareholderActivism.html And if you follow
u/snowk88 over at stocktwits (@snowk88)— you’d also find a wealth of DD on how Olshan rolls when entering these activist-investor-replaces-dumbass-boards-and-CEOs type disputes. To bottom line it:
they get it fucking done.
https://stocktwits.com/snowk88/message/266158534 https://stocktwits.com/snowk88/message/266155112 https://stocktwits.com/snowk88/message/266153175 But what else did we learn from the 13D? We learned that Ryan Cohen is definitely not going anywhere any time soon. Specifically, the filing notes that RC Ventures intends to continue to engage in discussions with GameStop’s board
“regarding means to drive stockholder value, including through changes to the composition of the board and other corporate governance enhancements." And while RC Ventures
“desires to come to an amicable resolution with [GameStop, it] will not hesitate to take any actions that it believes are necessary to protect the best interests of all stockholders.” I really like that last part, don’t you? And although I thought his November 16th letter was pretty goddamn clear, this 13D just ratcheted up the transparency level here. In sum, Ryan Cohen has all of our backs and he’s going to replace this Board and Sherman with people that are on the level and that will help implement his vision.
And now seems like a good time to return to those “Ryan Cohen: Boy Genius” articles that were definitely NOT part of a well-coordinated pre-hostile takeover media campaign initiated earlier this year. I think there might be a few things in those articles that Mr. Cohen wanted all of us shareholders (as well as the short sellers and the Board he’s about to replace) to really and truly understand. Recall also that Cohen is not one for diversification or for playing it safe. So here’s a few choice nuggets for you to ponder:
***
Bloomberg, June 2020:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-05/chewy-founder-cashes-out-bets-on-apple-wells-fargo · "It's too hard to find, at least for me, what I consider great ideas," he says. "When I find things I have a lot of conviction in, I go all-in."
· Cohen uses the word “conviction” a lot. He says it’s something he learned from his father, who ran a glassware importing business in Montreal where Cohen grew up. “He taught me how to block the noise from the masses,” says Cohen. “To have a point of view and have conviction and not waver.”
· He wouldn’t, however, recommend his [non-diversified] investment approach to everyone. “You need to have the temperament to block the noise,” he says. “Sometimes it feels like a roller coaster.”
· He likens his obsessive focus on building Chewy to his approach to stock picking. "I don't want to swing for a single," he says.
***
You hear that, Jim? Our man Cohen likes idioms too! But fuck those farm idioms, Jim – we’re upgrading to the Sportsball kind now. So what’s the takeaway here? I’d say that Cohen has his Eye On The Ball and that it’s time for all short sellers and the Board to Throw in The Towel because Ryan Goddamn Cohen likes to Take the Bull By The Horns and will ensure that he Hits a Homerun for shareholders that believe in his vision.
Here’s a few more things Mr. Cohen wants all of us to know:
***
Forbes, August 2020:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2020/08/16/entrepreneur-chewy-founder-ryan-cohen-shares-his-best-advice/?sh=41e1370e5840 · “For me, each no sounded like they just didn’t understand my vision. It was frustrating at times, but never discouraging. Those ‘no’s never made me doubt my strategy – it was the opposite. I was motivated by all the rejections and they just got me fired up.”
· “I understood that thinking big was likely going to be misunderstood along the way. I’m contrarian by nature, so being misunderstood often validates what I’m doing. It wasn’t until Chewy boxes were on doorsteps across the country that the bulk of investors started to recognize our formula.”
· “[M]y biggest risk would have been not taking risk. The risk of going head-to-head against Amazon. The risk of insourcing fulfillment. The risk of building a company in Florida rather than a popular tech hub. The risk of spending $3 million a month on TV ads, more than Home Depot HD -0.1%'s budget. The risk of hiring expensive executives even though we weren’t profitable. These decisions were some of the most controversial and required me being comfortable betting against conventional wisdom, and were often contrary to the advice of my board. Suffice it to say, I was not the most popular board member.”
· “Dad never swayed when he believed in something. I never compromised my vision, regardless how many investors turned me down I was not going to give up on building Chewy into the world’s biggest online pet retailer. I love to be challenged, and I’m flexible on details, but I’m never willing to give up.”
***
Goddamn it, Ryan. I was done having children but now you’ve forced me into getting back on that train just so I can name this future child Ryan Fucking Cohen. Thanks a lot, asshole.
But to return to my point: are those the statements of a man that seems likely to walk away at this point? Or is Cohen trying to tell us all to get ready because he is going
All In on this shit?
So where does this leave us? After a huge week where Cohen buys 2.5M more shares and then the SP skyrockets to $20 yesterday on that news? Well, this is where I want to tip my cap to my man Justin Dopierala over at Seeking Alpha and allow him to conclude this section. He, along with his pal Dmitriy Kozin have been pretty clear-eyed on all this shit for a while now and they both deserve some credit. And I know I gave my main man Justin a bit of a hard time in my last novella, but the dude is sharp as hell and helped a lot of us see the forest through the trees here. And you should also definitely invite him to join your poker nights (seriously: check out the dude’s tweet in response to our own Rod Alzmann’s introduction of the #WeWantCohen hashtag right after the Q3 call debacle).
https://twitter.com/DOMOCAPITAL/status/1336446055685230592. You have no comment on a potential takeover involving Ryan Cohen, Justin after your hour-long googly-eyed call together? Can’t believe you’re just preemptively leaving the WSJ and Bloomberg hanging like that. Justin, I love you dude, but if I’m holding pocket Kings I’m folding after that tweet because that twinkle in your eye lets me know you’re about to drop two Aces on my ass.
Anyway. Here is what our man Dopierala thinks might happen here soon (and he called this way back on November 17th- and sorry - no links here, per the mods, as apparently no Alpha must ever be Sought from these parts):
I think a very likely outcome at this point is a majority slate next shareholder meeting where Cohen takes over BOD and then makes himself CEO. A majority slate proxy battle would require all institutions to call in shares and would force a squeeze. We’re intrigued, Justin. Please continue:
If Ryan Cohen successfully negotiates a purchase price with the Board then the shareholders will have to vote on it. Unlike the proxy battle where Hestia and Permit were running a minority slate of directors, an offer to purchase GameStop would force institutions like Vanguard and Blackrock to call in their shares. By doing so, the shorts would be forced to close out their positions and GameStop would finally have the greatest short squeeze of all-time. Ironically, Cohen could use this opportunity to sell all of his shares and use the proceeds to entirely fund the acquisition of GameStop going down as the first person in history to acquire a billion dollar company... for absolutely nothing. In fact, his acquisition price would be less than zero. And now is when I get to speculate on what I think is going to happen here. But I do not necessarily think Cohen is going to put an offer to buy GME to take private. That would definitely trigger a MOASS, but I’m not sure I see it given the attorneys he’s hired and his recent buys up to $16 and the amount of cash that would take. Like Dopierala’s
first comment, though, I think Cohen is going to nominate directors to replace nearly the entire Board of Directors with a vote happening at the annual meeting and once that Board is in place, they’ll appoint Cohen as CEO. And as Justin notes, if he nominates a majority slate of directors, shares will have to be called in to vote. And this vote and proxy battle will make the prior minority slate Hesita/Permit battle, and the tiny short squeeze that took place when that happened, look tame by comparison.
Now everyone: get your calendars out. Because the date to nominate directors here is in
Mid-March, and my super-smart corporate lawyer buds inform me that it’s standard practice to file about 7-10 days prior. So, if this actually happening, we should be seeing something on this by
early March.
But even though early March is now the mark on the wall, today’s insane price action caused me to think about all of this a bit harder and speculate a bit more. And a major h/t to my buds on the stocktwits board, especially
u/rgrAi (@amarbar) for all the sharp analysis on this. But if you were Ryan Cohen and you knew this company was hugely undervalued and you had a high level of
CONVICTION here and also knew you needed shareholder votes to sweep out these dumbasses and implement your vision—then how would you play this with the short interest here as crazy as it is? I’d keep buying. Why? Well, lots of reasons, you smart alecks.
First, so I have more guaranteed votes (duh?). Second, so that when the building starts burning and short hedge funds run for the exits they find that a mild-mannered Millennial with super-good ideas has sealed off all the doors and windows. That’s gruesomely delicious, isn’t it? Why else, CPT? Well, finally, and maybe most importantly, because I would want to excite and delight all my fellow shareholders by triggering a slow-burn short squeeze, raising the SP significantly, so that I can once again make the point (as he did in the Nov 16 letter) that the incompetent management that caused a
HUGE drop in SP following that utterly incompetent Q3 call and the shelf registration, had
nothing to do with the SP increase that again happened once Cohen announced his intent and started buying. Not the console cycle, not the cost containment measures, not the buybacks and not the early debt reduction. Nope: rightly or wrongly, shareholders will see Ryan Cohen buying shares and the corresponding SP increase and everyone—especially all new buyers who are delighted at their good fortune and swept up by Ryan Cohen Fever 2021—will start getting #WeWantCohen tattoos on their ass they’ll be so happy. And all of us, newly enriched by Ryan Cohen’s Big Canadian Balls and tactical brilliance, will crawl over glass to vote for him over The Boomer Artist Formally Known As GameStop’s CEO. I could be very wrong on this last point in particular, but if we start seeing 13Ds drop here shortly, things should get very fun very quickly.
Part 4: A Return to Our Short-Squeeze-to-Da-Moon Discussion: Who’s Side Are You Fucking On, Jim? Now, Jim, given the fast friendship we’re creating here, and all we’ve been through over the past 5000 words, I hesitate in bringing this up. But we’ve all seen the video, Jim. You know the one I’m talking about. Yes, the one where you actually tell the truth about how short selling hedge funds manipulate the market to knock down the price of perfectly good securities that many hard-working people
invest in—many normal-ass people all assuming they wont ever have to Point Where On The Dolly The Invisible Hand of the Economy Touched Them. But that’s not life now is it Jim? And fuck those poor-ass rubes for not knowing how to play the game with you sophisticated Masters of the Universe,
amirite?
https://www.reddit.com/dashpay/comments/93evx4/jim_cramer_reveals_dirty_tricks_short_sellers_use/ https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/cramer-market-manipulato So where are
you in this whole GME/Cohen story, Jim? You candidly (gleefully?) acknowledge that a prime strategy that shorts deploy is to spread negative rumors that are then amplified by Big Smart Trustworthy Financial Media Titans like yourself to shake out unsophisticated retail players like my Rocket Kids here—who because of their tiny paper hands and you mean short selling brutes often subsist on paste and paste alone.
So for this particular security, are you the one helping with the manipulation and actively creating the “new truth” or are you just one of the Useful Idiots that these short sellers use to manipulate with an anodyne, TV media-ready comparison like:
GameStop Is The Next Blockbuster? And how in the fuck does this fit into your Think Young(TM) project, Jim? Because if there is one thing that we over at WSB fucking hate, it’s a bunch of Manipulative Short Selling Boomer Fuckwads. Why on earth would a hip Young Thinker like you want to be included in that crew, Jim?
And I know we’re all friends here now, Jim, but I need to push back a bit on some of what you said in that video in such a cavalier whatareyagonnado manner. So if I understand you, short and distort and fomenting negative reactions from retail players based on deliberately false narratives is
illegal, but still easy as fuck to do "because the SEC doesn't understand it." But you fucking do understand it, Jim! So why are you helping those short and distorters break the law here? Why are you being such an obtuse dumbshit? Just check out what happens to the borrow rate and short selling every time there is any good news for GME:
https://stocktwits.com/Slantedangles/message/264519950 (h/t @slantedangles). This manipulation isn't just happening with GME; it is happening
everywhere. It’s baked into the cake. And that is pretty fucked up that we all just accept it because
whatareyagonnado.
I think that one thing that those of us who truly do Think Young(TM) have a hard time understanding is at what point in your lives do you Boomers all finally come to realize that it’s maybe time to stop playing the game like you have been? What point do you finally have enough where doing the right thing matters more than getting paid? Maybe start by telling the truth more often—and maybe don’t go out of your way to help those corrupt-ass hedge fund managers who continually fuck over average people
merely because they were stupid enough to believe you all. What contempt you Masters of the Universe have for all of them—for all of
us. There is a bigger story here on GME and this out-of-control short interest (naked shorting, counterfeit shares)
http://counterfeitingstock.com/CS2.0/CounterfeitingStock.html than even Ryan Cohen and the inevitable short squeeze we’re about to witness here. And it begins and ends with people like you and Melvin Capital and Bank of America not giving a fuck about the rules while thinking you’re smarter than the rest of us who do—but who lack power to do anything about it. And you know what? Maybe you
are smarter than us. You certainly know how to play this game pretty well, as that video shows. But if I know my old school 1980s movies like I think I do, this is usually the part of the story where the rag-tag kids from across the tracks come over to show you hubristic rich fuckheads what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass.
Now I myself have never dabbled in pacifism, Jim, so this isn’t too much of a stretch for me, but seeing that video of yours and seeing the insane short interest and all the manipulation here makes me want to burn the whole corrupt system to the ground—while barricading the doors to trap in those arrogant-ass short sellers who lie and cheat and distort to profit off average people. And though I’m certain that this larger battle is not driving him, maybe that result is one that Ryan Cohen wouldn’t mind too. Though he’s a polite Canadian and would probably just let everyone know that he’s not really mad, just disappointed. But me? I’m an Angry American and I say: Block the fucking doors and windows and light that shit up.
So maybe this epistle will be useful for your Think Young(TM) project and cause you to reflect a bit more on what’s really going on out there with this whole GME thing and the likely illegal shorting that has driven the short percentage of float to these insane levels, drawing in new retail shorts too stupid to know what’s even happening. Or maybe it wont cause you to reflect in the slightest (count me as one of those cynical types that see your overtures to WSB as a transparent play for greater market share from the Young Crowd since your old-ass audience is dying and/or switching to bonds). But in a few months when all the Billy Ray Valentines and Louis Winthorpes assembled here are toasting each other in stupid shirts on a white-sand beach somewhere, we do not want you to look back on your knee-jerk boomer-ass dismissal of GME and your Useful Idiot blathering with that same tinge of regret and longing you feel when you look at a pre-Client 9 picture of you and your old roomie: warm-toes-and-hosiery-enthusiast E. Spitzer, Esq.
In conclusion: GME = Blockbuster comparisons are for Simps and Corrupt Short-and-Distorters. Don’t be like them, Jim. And to my Rocket Children: the only weapon we wield in this stupid game is Diamond Hands with a float like this. Toughen the fuck up.
And Happy Holidays everyone.
--CPT Hubbard
TL/DR: Jim Cramer likes farm-based idioms and apparently being a useful idiot to scummy short selling hedge funds. DD on the GME turnaround is solid and overleveraged short sellers should be shitting themselves. Ryan Cohen, our polite, hard-working Canadian benefactor is about to rip all our fucking faces off and trigger a MOASS. Probably even by early March, if that time is good for you (he’ll text before he comes). And fuck infinite regress: It’s rockets all the way down here.
🚀🚀🚀 Now: diamond hands, motherfuckers.
**This is a shitpost and is only to be used as investment and life advice for Mr. Jim Cramer, Esq.
submitted by Section One: Assets and Debt Ever since I started working in 2016, I've received my company's full 401k match, which is this year is $9750 employer contribution to match $19,500 employee contribution. I've done the backdoor Roth since 2017 and the mega backdoor Roth since 2018. Every year I speak with a retirement advisor for free through my 401k, and we draw up a plan together to invest my money in passive index funds that I implement and rebalance myself to avoid advisor fees.
Account | Balance | Comments |
401k | 360k | Pre-tax, employer match, megaback door Roth (after-tax convert into Roth 401k) |
Roth IRA | 36k | backdoor Roth |
HSA | 23k | Used for some reimbursement, do not plan to do that going forward |
Stocks | 182k | Compensation in vested company stock |
Down payment | 250k | Parked in HYSA, planning to buy house in 2021 |
Savings Account | 5k | Emergency fund |
Checking Account | 10k | Planning to open taxable brokerage account, usually I keep <1k in here |
Credit card debt | 0k | I pay this off multiple times a month |
Student loan debt | 0k | Parents paid for my education |
Total Net Worth | $866K | |
Section Two: Income I’ll describe my income in terms of how much I made pre-tax, not in terms of offer letters. Bonus numbers reflect yearly bonuses as well as unanticipated bonuses from launches and oncall, and equity reflects price at grant time. I’ve been at the same company since graduating from college.
Year | Comments | Salary | Bonus | Equity | Total |
2021 | Equity is projected due to market fluctuations | 168k | 31k | 105k | 304k |
2020 | Changed teams within company | 161k | 35k | 96k | 292k |
2019 | Lots of oncall | 144k | 41k | 69k | 254k |
2018 | Got promoted | 125k | 16k | 67k | 208k |
2017 | Got promoted | 101k | 30k | 0 | 131k |
2016 | Started working mid year | 42k | 8k | 0 | 50k |
Main Job Monthly Take Home: I front load my 401k and HSA contributions with my bonus and paycheck, so I don’t get a paycheck for the first few months of the year. But when I do, my monthly take home pay is $8600/mo.
Section Three: Expenses I have 2 housemates so rent and utilities are split 3 ways. All expenses are monthly except for ones marked with *, which denotes an annual expense. Some things I do to keep my expenses low include borrowing books from the library, growing some food myself, and getting things for free from online forums.
Expense | Cost | Comments |
Rent | $1156 | |
Utilities | $64 | Includes water, gas, electric, trash |
Cell phone | $60 | I pay for family’s plan |
Fitness app | $4 | Usually paid with survey credits |
Groceries | $100 | I only buy groceries that are < $1/lb, and I grow some food |
Gas | $30 | I drive to see my parents, otherwise I usually walk to grocery stores |
Renter’s insurance | $0 | Come at me, natural disaster |
Dining out | $0 | I visit my parents once a week to break the food monotony |
Streaming service | $0 | I use Peacock and YouTube |
Dental insurance | $8 | Before tax |
Vision insurance | $4 | Before tax |
Medical insurance | $0 | Work covers |
Short term disability insurance | $0 | Work covers |
Long term disability insurance | $0 | Work covers |
Life insurance | $0 | Work covers |
Car Insurance* | $444 | Never got into an accident |
Car Registration* | $138 | |
Credit Card fee* | $450 | Between the $150 retention credit, $300 grocery credit, and $60 DoorDash credit, I make money off the Chase Sapphire Reserve |
Section Four: Background Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it? My parents are Asian immigrants who stressed the importance of education even though they themselves never finished high school. As a first-generation college student, I got my bachelors degree at an Ivy-League university my parents paid for b/c we didn’t qualify for financial aid.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances? Growing up, my parents didn’t talk to me about money but it was understood we were frugal. They taught me how to balance a checkbook, helped me get my first credit card, and how to beeline to the back of the store for the clearance rack.
What was your first job and why did you get it? My first job was being a math tutor in high school b/c I was very good at math. My teacher recommended I tutor my classmate, and I charged his parents $20 per hour session.
Did you worry about money growing up? I didn’t worry about money even though we were lower-middle class for our area b/c we could afford things like my extracurricular fees. Both my parents had stable jobs throughout my childhood.
Do you worry about money now? I worry if I am doing the “right” things with my money, which manifests itself when I’m investing or spending money. I also worry if the golden handcuffs of my job are preventing me from pursuing more fulfilling or lucrative opportunities.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net? I became financially responsible for myself when I got my current job, but my parents helped me financially as I lived with them (paying subsidized rent) for the first 3 years of my working life. My safety net is my parents but I would greatly prefer not to move back home as we do not make good housemates.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain. I have never received inherited income as my grandparents’ assets transferred to their kids (my parents, aunts, and uncles) upon their deaths. My parents paid for all my expenses in high school and college.
Section Five: The Diary Day 1 - Total: $0 8:00AM - I wake up after 8 hours of rest and spend 10 mins enjoying my warm covers before getting out of bed. I grab my phone that’s been charging in the living room to prevent me from scrolling late at night and bring it back to my bed for a 5 minute guided meditation. I brush my teeth, eat a breakfast of French bread soaked in milk, then get dressed for the day. My bedroom has served as my office since work from home started in March 2020, so I settle into my chair to catch up on emails. I currently have 2 high-level system designs I’m working on, so I dive into writing and researching one of those, since I only have 2 meetings this morning!
12:30PM - 30 minutes before my next meeting, I microwave leftover soy sauce chicken fried rice and miso tofu for lunch. During the meeting and with my video on but audio off, I nibble on 2 honeycrisp apple slices, a banana, and a date. I speak up a good amount in the meeting and come out of it with action items. I review written feedback my manager gave me and am a little unhappy; he doesn’t think I’m ready for promotion, which is true, but part of the problem is he doesn’t know my work well enough. I spend the rest of the day distracting myself from my unhappiness by reviewing and commenting on other people’s documents.
5:30PM - With the work day over, I immediately change into workout gear to do the workout my fitness app prescribes. Today is Abs & Arms, but I’m not sore at all. After the workout, I get dressed to go for a walk, only to realize it’s raining outside! Instead, I heat up soy sauce chicken fried rice for dinner and top it off with an orange slice, half a baked yam, and strawberry yogurt. I shower and apply a basic lotion to my face; I unfortunately have retinization from using too much retinol on my face too fast, so it’s back to basics until my face recovers.
8:00PM - Rain has given way to a storm, so I spend my evening getting my steps inside my house. I check the grocery circulars and am very excited to find $.97/lb chicken breast, $.99/lb pork chops, and $.99/lb whole chicken in the papers; I’ve never seen pork chops for <$1/lb. I ask a friend who’s offering to drop off baked goods if she’d like fresh-picked fruit from my backyard, since her place doesn’t have a yard. I find a knitting pattern for a hand towel and start it on my needles. Watching a YouTube video about COVID and the economy makes me sad, so I chat with friends online until 1AM.
Day 2 - Total: $0 8:45AM - I wake up naturally because I don’t have any meetings -- that is, until I check my phone! Without changing, eating, or brushing my teeth, I hurriedly turn on my work computer after realizing I’m 15 minutes late to an important meeting with senior engineers on my broader team, making sure to mute the video so they don’t see my messy hair. Thankfully, I didn’t miss much out of the hour-long meeting, I was able to hold my own during the discussion, and in between talking I sneak off to the kitchen to bring my breakfast of bread and apple slices to my room. After the meeting, I chat with 1 person from the meeting to gripe about the project timeline before he needs to go to their next meeting. Finally alone, I brush my teeth, get changed, check my email, and submit 3 code changes.
11:30AM - After a very short meeting with a colleague, I’m done with meetings for the day! I heat up the last of my soy sauce chicken fried rice and finish the meal with 2 dates, peach yogurt and a baked yam. The rest of the day I’m on a roll! I’m buildcop for my team this week, which means if any of our automated tests are flaky (fail sporadically when they are supposed to consistently pass), I’m on the hook to fix them. I deal with 3 buildcop issues then spend the rest of the day working on my design for the project discussed during the morning meeting.
6:00PM - With the work day over, I turn off my computer and exercise with my fitness app. I take a quick shower since I have a 6:30PM video call with a friend. We’re taking a virtual self-paced course together and meet weekly for a 1 hour discussion. It’s a great excuse to get together to grip about work and talk about life. This week we talk about the course, but also about work, dating, and religion.
8:30PM - After an enjoyable discussion, it’s time to sign off and make food. I make a lot since my refrigerator is looking empty: rice, tomato and onion stir fry, roasted potatoes, and overnight oats (for breakfast tomorrow). I eat some of the first 3 for dinner with plenty left over. After dinner, I call a friend while pacing around the house as it is raining outside again. I spend the rest of the night knitting the hand towel and go to bed around 1AM again.
Day 3 - Total: $1.68 8:00AM - I wake up after 7 hours of sleep, and it’s feeling like a slow day. I meditate in bed, brush my teeth, put on some basic lotion, then have overnight oats, 2 dates, and 2 fresh pancakes for breakfast. I spend the rest of the morning clearing my email and resolving buildcop bugs. I journal too; the rain and lack of sleep is putting me in a sad funk. On the bright side, the rain means I don’t need to water my plants!
12:00PM - For lunch, I eat rice and tomato and onion stir fry, roasted potatoes with ketchup, and a pancake. After lunch I have 2 meetings, a 1:1 with my tech lead and a sync for a project I’m part of. In the 1:1, I give my tech lead a status update in my projects, then he gives me much-appreciated advice on how to lead a project confidently. In the sync, I provide clear and helpful updates on my part of the project, which is wrapping up. For the rest of the day I address comments on my design, then for the last hour of the work day I tune into a team social video call where we gossip about the Gamestop and Robinhood debacle.
5:00PM - With the workday over and sun still out, I take advantage of the small break from rain to walk to Grocery N. I’m so happy; this is the first time in 2 days I’ve left my house! Grocery N advertised the $.97/lb chicken breast, but they are sold out! I’m devastated, but the worker I ask says they might have more Saturday. I buy a bunch of bananas for $.58/lb and quickly walk back home, since the sky is full of grey clouds again.
$1.68 6:00PM - I’m very fortunate that I left the store when I did, as the skies opened up and poured 5 minutes after I made it home. My housemate is cooking dinner, so to avoid kitchen traffic I work out in my room. After an hour workout, I take a shower then make spicy green beans and tofu for dinner. The tofu goes well with my rice and tomato and onion stir fry. I spend the evening knitting and watching Bachelor Nation YouTube clips, and finally sleep at 1AM.
Day 4 - Total: $17.25 8:00AM - I wake up after 7 hours of sleep, but it’s sunny all day so my mood is positive. I brush my teeth and eat a pancake, milk, and a date for breakfast while checking my email. I have no meetings, so I spend 2 hours closing obsolete buildcop issues and addressing comments on my design docs. After getting to a natural starting point, I take a 30 minute break to clean up my room, the kitchen, and make rice for lunch.
11:30AM - For lunch, I have tomato and onion stir fry and spicy green beans and tofu with rice. I end the meal with a Fuji apple. In the afternoon I have 1 meeting for each of the 2 projects I’m working on. The meeting I lead goes very well; we do updates, discuss controversial points of the design, and end with clear action items. The other meeting went overtime and involved a lot of unnecessary bikeshedding. I work more on my design docs and make sure to send them to reviewers before the day is over; they are still drafts, but better to get feedback early.
5:00PM - With the workday over, I finally check my phone and see that my parents invited me to venture to shop with them! I quickly decide to go since I have some things I need to give them anyways. I load up the car and drive 20 minutes to their place. We pile into a single car and drive to Store D, where I get beauty face masks, disposable heat packs, tapestry needles, petroleum jelly, a fly swatter, a bottle opener (for my parents), and a kitchen oil dispenser for $11.47. From there, we walk across the plaza to Grocery M to buy 2 5-packs of udon noodles for $5.78, 1 for me and 1 for my parents.
$17.25 9:00PM - We finally get back to my parents’ places, and I’m famished. I stay for dinner, and we have leftovers since we want something quick: noodle soup, curry with rice, and food I brought over to give them (tomato and onion stir fry and spicy green beans and tofu). I drive home after dinner, stopping by Grocery S to see if they have the $.99/lb pork chops and $.99/lb whole chicken, but they are out. I get home, shower, and spend my evening writing a card to a friend who is feeling lonely from the pandemic lockdown. The card takes way longer than expected, and I sleep at 3AM.
Day 5 - Total: $26.55 10:00AM - It’s the weekend, yet I still wake up after only 7 hours of sleep. I meditate, brush my teeth, eat a small breakfast of pancakes and milk in bed, and knit while watching
Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone. Halfway through, I get a call from my parents to pick up food from their house. They’re part of a church that is a distribution site for the Farmers to Families Food Box Program, and they took 2 boxes home. I struggle a bit since I know the program is for those in need and most people would not consider me in need, but as a taxpayer and to help alleviate my parents’ refrigerator, I head out to go pick it up.
12:30PM - On the way there, I stop by Grocery S to see if they have the $.99/lb pork chops and $.99/lb whole chicken in stock. I luckily arrive in time to buy the last 2 packs of pork chops! I also get 2 whole chickens so the total comes out to $20.45. I give 1 pack of pork chops and 1 whole chicken to my parents, and they give me a Farmers to Families Food Box. We chat for a little about recipes and vaccines while I nibble on a corn on the cob for lunch.
$20.45 3:00PM - On the drive home, I stop by Grocery N, which has the $.97/lb chicken breast in stock, so I buy a pack for $6.10. Back at home, I portion out the pork chops and chicken breast before storing them in the freezer. I unpack the Farmers to Families Food Box; in it are 1 gallon of low-fat milk, 1 tub of vanilla yogurt, 2 containers of sour cream, 1 pound of Monterey Jack cheese, a bag of potatoes, a bag of oranges, and a pack of 15 pre-cooked frozen drumsticks. I start making chicken and spaghetti squash soup and while it simmers for 1.5 hours, I do a TON. I put laundry in the wash, make waffle batter, toast the squash seeds, sprinkling bird feed on the lawn, pick fruit from my backyard for my friend who is coming to give me homemade baked goods, clean my room, clean the restroom, clean the kitchen, and take a shower.
$6.10 5:00PM - Turns out my friend is not coming since the baked goods were a bust. While finishing
Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone, I eat a dinner of rice with chicken and spaghetti squash soup and have a date and half an orange for dessert. I make a ton of waffles and nibble on them as I watch
Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets by signing up for Peacock’s free 7-day trial (they have every
Harry Potter) that I have plan to cancel in 6 days. Once full, I knit while finishing the movie until I’m out of yarn. I brush my teeth and turn in at 1AM.
Day 6 - Total: $9.09 8:00AM - I wake up after 7 hours of sleep and am happy that it’s sunny today! I eat a breakfast of waffles, milk, and a date. I brush my teeth, get dressed, and walk to Store T while chatting on the phone with a friend. At Store T, I get many dried spices (basil leaves, chives, oregano, sage), kitchen gloves, white vinegar, apple cider vinegar, vegetable oil, and a can of smoked oysters for $9.09. I walk home and start another pot of soup to dilute yesterday’s soup: 3 cups of the broth from yesterday’s soup, 3 cups of water, half a cup of lentils, a potato, a chayote, half an onion, half a head of cabbage, and one bok choy. I put everything in but the last two ingredients to boil for an hour while I put the things I bought away and scan all my receipts from the week to get credits I’ll use to pay for my fitness app subscription.
$9.09 12:30PM - I put the leafy vegetables into the soup and once it’s ready, I have it for lunch while watching
Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban. This soup tastes so much better than the one I made yesterday! After watching
Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban, I vacuum my room and take a shower. I start a new scarf knitting project and work on that while watching last night’s SNL episode and videos for the virtual self-paced course. Throughout this, I drink water and snack on waffles, apple slices, and orange slices.
6:30PM - It’s dinner time, so I heat up another bowl of soup from lunch, adding in rice for more heartiness. After dinner, I meditate, fill in my Jan budget tracker, reflect on the past month, and set some February goals. I call Chase to follow up on an unauthorized charge claim on my credit card statement and the new credit card they're supposed to send me, but the claim is still processing. I coordinate with people to pick up free yarn from them next weekend. I spent the rest of the evening knitting and chatting with a friend, finally brushing my teeth and going to bed at a reasonable hour of 11:30PM.
Day 7 - Total: $0 7:30AM - I wake up after 8 hours of rest and have time to meditate, exercise, make my bed, brush my teeth, water my plants, and eat a breakfast of 2 waffles, 1 date, 1 banana, overnight oats, and milk before my first meeting. I have a whopping 4 meetings this morning! For 2, I’m a spectator, and for the 2 others, I’m an active participant. I actually was supposed to have a 5th meeting, but it overlapped with another meeting so I asked the person leading the 5th meeting to give my update for me. In the meetings I’m spectating, I listen while checking my email, checking the news, drinking water, journaling, and knitting. I find knitting helps me focus the best.
12:00PM - Today I have a lunch meeting with my mentor during which I eat the last of the soup that I made yesterday and a banana. We talk about the culture, decision-making process, and knowledge-sharing channels of the organization we’re in, and it’s clear there is room for improvement. After lunch, I have 2 more meetings, 1 that is uneventful and 1 that is me teaching a more junior engineer what I know. After my meetings are over, I submit 2 code changes and watch a recording of a design review that I missed. I end the workday with reviewing a design doc, reviewing a deck, replying to an important email thread, and referring a friend to the company.
4:30PM - After the workday is over, I call my parents to catch up while harvesting tomatoes from my backyard. I pick, wash, and eat 2 cherry tomatoes off my plant; they tastes great! I check my mail and an organization has asked me to give a virtual talk on being a software engineer. I did the same talk for the same organization last year, so I agree to do it again this year. They also want speakers from other industries, so I send some messages to people in my network.
5:30PM - I work out hard with my housemate, stretch, then wash my hair. I make a stew of chicken, spaghetti squash, potatoes, chayote, rice, and bok choy. While it simmers, I call a friend and pace around the house to get steps. When the soup is ready, I serve myself 2 bowls while watching
Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire. I stop halfway to brush my teeth and go to sleep at 1AM.
Category | Cost |
Food + Drink | $43.10 |
Fun / Entertainment | $0 |
Home + Health | $11.47 |
Clothes + Beauty | $0 |
Transport | $0 |
Other | $0 |
Total | $54.57 |
Lastly, reflect on your diary! How do you feel about your spending? Was this a normal week for you? Has this inspired you to make changes or has it given you a “wow I’m doing pretty good” confidence boost? Is there anything you’re actively working on? No need to answer any or all these questions but just use this space to write any thoughts you have! While visiting my parents twice in a week and watching 3.5 movies is not standard, the spending was standard. I save wherever I can, and I don’t spend much b/c buying things sometimes stresses me out. My relationship with money has improved, but I’m still trying to figure out the line between frugal and self-destructive. Looking back, the thing I really want to change is my investment asset allocation. My 401k, Roth IRA, and HSA are all appropriately diversified, but my stock is not diversified, I should make progress on buying a house, and I should open a taxable brokerage account.
submitted by Finding real survey sites that pay cash was one of the first things I looked for when I had initially started the process of trying to earn money online.. Participating in online marketing research studies was really exciting to me, not to mention it being very rewarding. The usual rate of pay offered by most free and legit survey websites is around $5-$30 for every survey completed. Survey Junkie is one of the best survey panels out there. They offer a variety of surveys, and they pay you for your time. Even if you find out you aren’t qualified for a survey you started, you will still earn something with Survey Junkie. They also pay super quickly – generally, you will receive your money the same day you request to be paid! Let’s find out what are some survey sites that actually pay its members for sharing their valuable opinions. 1. Swagbucks. Swagbucks offers a lot of survey opportunities to the users every day. To earn money from Gold surveys, you need to answer a couple of pre-qualifier questions. However, you can easily earn up to 5 SB (100 SB = $1) per day even if you are not qualified to take the survey ... It has been around for a while and is a well-known survey site with a great reputation. Survey Savvy is one of the best paying survey sites on the internet. Toluna: is a site that only offers paid surveys. This is another well-trusted site around the web and is a great site to join to get high quality paid surveys. Best Online Survey Sites that Actually Pay You Money. Robin Rose. Robin is a full-time business professional who has worked in the insurance industry for over 20 years. She is also a personal finance blogger who shares her first hand experience with the struggles of money and debt. On Mastering the Side Jam, she focuses on ways to maximize efficiencies to make & save money, pay off debt, and ... Survey may take 5-40 min to complete depends on requirement of the survey. Either they will pay you cash straight away of give you some points which you can later redeem by gift voucher. There are lot of scam survey sites are also available on internet. So I suggest doing a proper research before joining any site. Surveys are of different category and age group. Keep I mind that you will not ... Since you’re taking time to answer these questions, the survey site will pay you. The site gets paid by the company looking for answers. Most survey sites pay in points that you can redeem for gift cards, but the ones above also offer cash, which makes them somewhat special. With that in mind, here are more legitimate survey sites you can use to make money online: InstaGC; ClickPerks; Opinion Bureau; iSurveyWorld; MyPoints; OpinionWorld; Grab Points; SurveyRewards; Resonance Research; SpiderMetrix; Hagen Sinclair; Darwin’s Data; Quest Mindshare; Tellwut; Palm Research; Knowledge Panel; MediaInsiders; Center for the Decision Sciences; CVS Advisor Survey Junkie is one of the survey sites that pay you to sign up – they will give you $10 just for signing up. The first thing that we noticed about Survey Junkie is that they are refreshingly transparent. This helped us to have confidence that they are a legitimate paid survey site. With genuine sites you are sure to make money, but bear in mind you cannot make a living taking up surveys and no site would pay you XXX money for just filling out surveys. But of course, you can make handsome supplementary income of 1$ to 10$ in an hour time. So to make your work easier in locating legitimate site, I have taken a comprehensive list of Top 10 Online Survey that actually pay ...