Trade 7 is now official. I traded my Macbook Pro for nearly $1,300 in Cash!
Estimated Trade Value:
$1,200-$1,400 ish? ➡️ $1,295
This trade brought me the largest gap between swaps, nearly four months to the day since I traded a 4k television for the macbook pro.
At nearly four months to make this last “trade” (I’ll get to my use of quotes in a second), I found myself thinking and re-thinking some of the methods I was using, some of the “rules” I had, and some other elements I wanted to change in order to keep the excitement of the adventure.
I’d hit a wall with the macbook, not because the trades weren’t out here, but because every trade was bringing me that much more in value. If you make a bad trade or mess up with something worth $50, it’s annoying. Make the same mistake with something worth over $1,000 and yikes!
I was VERY close twice to trading the macbook pro for a peloton. But it didn’t end up happening. I found myself looking at it almost as a downgrade, especially when Peloton dropped the price of their bikes by hundreds of dollars. (Remember, it’s not just the trade you need to think about, but being able to take that item and THEN trade it to someone else).
I looked at computer equipment, drones, even cars (I decided I didn’t want the headache of manging the problems that would come with $1,000 car)
And not dissimilar from when I had the silver or the television, I’d get offers from people simply to buy it. Sometimes I’d explain what I was doing, but usually it got too convoluted:
“Hey Steve, I’d like to give you money for your item. Exactly the dollar amount in value you’re asking for!”
“Mmmmm…. yea… that would be good, but I’m trying to trade item for item… Could you instead go buy something with the money you have and trade that to me?”
“Ummm, what?!”
And thinking about it, it does scream of major inefficiency, something I pride myself on in all aspects of my life and work.
I got to thinking, we actually already have the perfect method of and medium of trade. It’s called money. It’s universally accepted and recognized and billions of people understand what it’s value is. Hmm… seems like a good thing to use to trade. So the seed was planted…
Then I stumbled across a clever video by Ryan Trahan, in which he turns one penny into one thousand dollars, in a day. For him it’s all about hustling and thinking outside the box. He starts with a penny, simply asks people to trade him more money for his penny, and off he goes. From selling people a pen, to asking for tips for telling jokes, to selling candy on the side of the road. In his instance he’s attempting to trade up, and sometimes he trades items, sometimes trades his time, and sometimes he trades/trades for money.
Now my brain was buzzing and I was excited to get my next trade in. I thought about the challenge I would enjoy trading for money and then buying water or candy bars and selling them. But would it be “okay” to sell an item? Would that still count as a “trade?”
Finally I went back and read some of my previous blog posts and watched some of the video content I’d recorded. I’d spoken at length about the “value” and value added to the project. I’d spoken about how people mistakenly get caught up only in the “value of money” but there were also things like the “value of the heart” and “value of mental freedom.”
Here I was getting stuck and in a rut because I couldn’t find the perfect trade, and yet I forgot my own advice. Value comes in different ways, and there’s no right or wrong way for me to conduct this experiment. I took a step back and realized I was getting too caught up in how other people did their trades and other means people used. But there’s no right or wrong way to do it.
The guy who started it all, “One Red Paperclip” accepted a house in a place he didn’t live. Check out his book, it’s a great read. There’s a woman on instagram who was rumored to have received sponsorships from autozone and chipotle. Good for them. They had their eyes focused on the end goal and they catered their challenge around that. My end goal was ending with a house, so how I got there was up to me. It was after all my project, and I could update or change things however I decided. (Who knows, maybe even my end goal will change?) Maybe I’ll decide I’d rather try to get a trip into space instead of a house…
So I did! I hopped back on facebook marketplace and decided to see if I could find a trade since Christmas was approaching. I listed the computer for a bit less than I had a month prior. Since I’d acquired the computer, Apple has released a brand new model, so the value of mine had dropped a bit. I could see on marketplace day after day, week after week, month after month, the dollar amount for computers like mine was slowly decreasing.
This model was selling by apple for about $1,200 but mine wasn’t “brand new” so I knew there’d be some drop in value. (I always thought it was amusing to see people sell electronics for the same price the company is selling for. “Umm, why wouldn’t I just go to apple directly?”)
But I also had nearly two and a half years of apple care that I’d offer as well. That goes for about $250. I’d previously asked for about $1,400 but I was confident if I dropped the price to about $1,300 someone would jump on the opportunity to save some money. I posted it and closed a deal the next day. I sold/traded the macbook pro for nearly $1,300 in cash! ($1,295 to be exact), to a very cool guy who loved my story and was ecstatic to find the deal.
I didn’t realize until after the trade was done, how much I’d missed the thrill of making these trades and how the last four months was void of this excitement. After every trade I get people telling me to stop and enjoy my latest item, (surely Steve you won’t be able to do any better than that!), after this one I’ve DEFINITELY got people telling me to call it a day. $1,300 isn’t a bad deal, starting from a rock from the backyard after all. While the value of the computer and apple care was, I’d suggest worth more on paper than the $1,300 in cash, Remember it’s always about considering the next trade. Any “loss” in value I may have incurred, in my mind is made by by the fact I know had an item that’s much easier to use to trade with.
I’m pushing through. In fact with a slight adjustment in my strategy, I’m now quite excited to see where I take this. Maybe I’ll buy and sell items, maybe I’ll invest in something, or maybe I’ll buy a few different things and have multiple paths for different, simultaneous trades.
The only thing I’m certain of, is that I’m now searching for trade #8.
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Thoughts so far? Did I make a good trade?
COMMENT BELOW if you have any suggestions.
FOLLOW ME to watch my journey as I trade my way from a rock to a house.
