Hey everybody. Yesterday as I was carefully pumping just enough gas into my car to equal $20.00 (because that's the only cash I had), I began to wonder just what kind of crazy and convoluted things any of you money-trackers have done just to make sure that stamped/printed notes get out there into the world. So, what have you done?
I've been known to carry my stamp with me, take money out of the bank, stamp it, spend it and then speed home to enter it in before someone beats me to it. I've also stamped all of the fives out of one of the tills at a Roger's Video my cousin was working at. I'm sure some of you have better stories than that!!!
Yes, I am sure that everybody has some kind of a story.
I usually take money out from a bank machine before I go shopping on Saturdays. In the car I write down the numbers and (now) stamp them. A while ago I marked them by hand and it took me a while until I could go shopping. While out shopping I try to get change for my $20 notes, hoping to get lots of $5's which I mark on my list and stamp again. As soon as I am home, I enter the bills. Until now nobody beat me to it, before I could enter enter them on CMT. So I am not really worried about it.
One day I got lots of cash (37 bills) at work to deposit at the bank and I didn't have a stamp then. I handmarked them all before going to the bank. That was some work! Am I glad that I have a stamp now. It speeds things up a lot.
Pay cash all (most) the time. Avoid debit card. Ask for small bills as change. Spend a $20 for an under $5 item, ask for three 5's back as change. Use my mobile stamp on the road, hoping to get back home to enter the bill before someone else does.
Also see<A HREF="http://ca.msnusers.com/preciousfriday/shoebox.msnw target="_blank"> bill printing </A>. These are some of the messages that I print on my bills.
What I think is funny is some of the looks you get when the people taking the money give you when you tell them why the bills are marked, or trying to convince them the yes the money is still good even though it now has a little ink on them.
I recently paid my property taxes in CASH ($20's), crazy eh? Every bill was stamped.
LOL, we did that too last year. for 3 properties in 3 different towns.
I work at a local pizza place that is part of the Pizzarama franchise here in Kitimat as a delivery driver. Sometimes I'll go see as much as $500 to $600 go through my hands while I work. Problem is that I have no time to mark or take down the seriel numbers while I'm working. So what I do is mark the previous nights take home tip before work, and prioritize the marked bills as the ones I give away as change first. If I don't manage to get rid of my marked bills (surprizingly it even happens with $5's sometimes) I'll give them to my boss first when I get cashed out at the end of the night. If I'm lucky they let me take home a lot of $10's and $5's as tip, but they usually like to hoard the smaller bills and are far more eager to give me $20's.
In January this was working really well, but since the begining of February I haven't been able to build up even a $100 dollar stash of cash.
I often avoid using my debit card of course, but sometimes I find myself using debit so I don't have to spend un-marked and un-logged bills. I haven't decided to get a stamp yet, but I'm thinking about it.
Ginnsu, if you get a stamp, you might be able to at least stamp and write down the numbers of a few bills here and there. it saves a LOT of time instead of writing on them by hand.
Actually, I don't write out the web site address to mark my bills any more. I print them instead. The only unfotunate thing about this is it does, as you mentioned, require time as well as going home to my computer just so I can mark them. :-/ So yes, I do plan to get a stamp. :-)
Ginnsu, you wouldn't believe how easier it is with a stamp, especially if you come across as much cash as you do. You really will enjoy it when you have a stamp. I advise you to go for it very soon. Once you have the stamp, you will say to yourself "why didn't I get one earlier?" :)
Red Rider, that is something I wanted to mentioned today. I have marked some bills the first time on the front (besides the stamp on the back) and spend them today at Superstore. The cashiers looked at the bills and turned them. They looked sort of puzzled, maybe thinking something is wrong with them. The only thing was that they didn't ask me about it. Who knows, maybe they wrote down the website and will check it out?
Once you get a stamp you will find it time consuming to write down all the serials. What I do when I stamp a lot of bills and I am in a hurry is take a picture of the bills with a digital camera (if you have one). I lay them out so just the serials are exposed. I can snap 40+ serials with one picture and I just look at them in review on the display and enter the serials when I get to a computer. If you don't have a dig. camera then I don't know a faster way.
I don't have a digital camera yet, but I was wondering if that would work and if others had tried it. Thank you very much for mentioning it. I'll have to add that onto my CMT shopping list right after stamps. :-D
gouche92 messaged me early this morning, out of the blue. What a great marketer. Recognize a want or need, and be the first to offer a solution. :-)
I have a copyier / scanner .. all in one printer.
I have photo copied "in black only.." with only the serial numbers showing as you said.. I overlap them.
That also works good & is quite fist.
I will have to remember the digital camera trick.. that soulds like it would work well.
I will have to remember the digital camera trick.. that soulds like it would work well. - Lord_Comedy
I have used this method as well. Works great when you have a lot of bills and little time….
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