Thursday, July 03, 2008

A profitable day, indeed!

Well, today has been an unusually profitable day!

First, we received our paychecks today, due to the fact that tomorrow (our regular payday) is a holiday. Not only did we get out paychecks today, we got them early in the day! That NEVER happens!

Second, I found a $1 bill laying loosely atop a blanket of leaves in a corner behind my building! You can tell this is a place where the leaves and other debris gather and get trapped by the wind due to the encircled nature of the design of our building. There it lay, just waiting for someone (me!) to come along!


Third, I took my little bags of aluminum cans to the recycling station. I haven't been can "hunting" in a long time, so these are mostly cans that I/we have used. It has taken me a very long time to accumulate what I *hope* will be enough to take in.

The going rate here is $.70/lb. for 10 lbs. or more. If you have any weight under 10 lbs. the price is only $.25/lb. When I arrived to the station and backed in, there was 1 man unloading a large number of very big bags full of cans. As I waited on his transaction, I began to unload my tiny bags and set them to the side. Something to note, the recycling guys like to keep things moving along, they don't have time for you to take your time. That being said, I was standing, waiting patiently and beginning to get nervous at the thought of not having enough to be at least 10 lbs. As the employee was emptying the large flat bed scale, I began to load my bags on. 3.00 lbs., 4.5 lbs., 6.50 lbs., 8.50 lbs. By this time, another gentleman had driven up and unloaded his 2 very large black plastic bags of cans. When I went to grab the last 2 bags, he said, "You might get there, you're really close!" I said, "I hope so!!" I threw on the last 2 bags and it came to.....wait for it.....9.5 lbs. This happened one other time, I was 'just' under 10 lbs. and the employee took off his gloves and threw them on the scale to bump me up! Well, that was a long time ago and I must have had a disappointed look or something because as I was waiting for the employee to come back to check the scale, the gentleman behind me said, "Here, you can take these!" and then pushed the bags towards me!

What?!? I said, "No!! You don't have to do that!!" He said, "No really, it's no big deal, you take them!" He just had this look of pride in his eye, so I said again, "Are you sure?! You don't have to do that!" He was like, it's no biggie and walked away!

After putting his 2 big bags on top of my mound of small bags, the total weight went from 9.50 lbs. to 26 lbs.! I couldn't believe it! I went from 9.50 lbs @ $.25/lb. for a total of $2.38 to 26 lbs. @ $.70/lb. for a total of $18.90! (Granted, if the employee wouldn't have given me mercy and bumped me up to 10 lbs., I would have just taken my bags back and returned later when I had more.) So the kind man basically gave me $11.90 in free recycling cans! Woo hoo!

I plan to give the $1 found earlier and the $11.90 to the Lord this week as an offering above my tithe. If you aren't doing this, try it, it's very rewarding!

3 comments:

Forgetfulone said...

That's about the best thing I've read today. The dollar you found reminds me of a book I just read that you might like. It's called The Penny by Joyce Meyer (sp?) and Deborah Bedford. I love that you are giving your profit to God. You can look it up on Barnes and Noble if you have a chance.

BeccA's Buzz said...

Well, I don't agree with many things Joyce Meyer 'preaches' so I won't be reading her book. But I love that you suggested a book for me! I am not one to browse the book section of a store so many books I read are suggested by someone else. I've had good ones from that. Thanks for commenting! I'm glad you could find my post positive :)

ShannonW said...

What a wonderful day indeed! Very blessed.