Tips like these helped us pay off $127K in debt. You can read our story in Slaying the Debt Dragon: How One Family Conquered Their Money Monster and Found an Inspired Happily Ever After.
Welcome to 31 Debt Free Missions! This year on Queen of Free, during each day in January, we will provide 31 concrete debt free missions or challenges for you to take on to #SlayDebt and take charge of your finances this year. Each mission will take you less than an hour (some will only require 15 minutes). Whereas, 31 Ways to Kick Debt in the Teeth (which I’m reworking this year and reposting in January, too) focused on some of the philosophical changes you need to make in order to be successful with money, 31 Debt Free Missions are action steps to put into place after you have your thinking straight. Even better, during the month of January, we’re revisiting each of these challenges in order to sharpen our money saving and debt slaying skills.
Are you ready? Your mission is as follows:
Day #19: Reorganize the Game Closet
I’m not going to paint an unrealistic picture for you. There are times when paying off debt can feel boring. Womp womp. Sorry to let you down. I promise there is an upswing to this post, too. When your entertainment budget is just about $0 (that’s what we spent), there can be days that seem long and a little yawny (I mean of the sleepy variety not the Yanni musical variety).
However, more than likely you have more than one source of entertainment buried in your closet. Board games, video games, card games, puzzles – if you’re anything like us, you don’t play with these items as a family nearly as often as you should. Today your mission is to sort through what you do have and make a plan.
WHAT’S IN AND WHAT’S OUT
It could be that you’ve forgotten about what games you own. Potentially, take an hour and tackle a closet. Determine what games you’ll keep and if there are any you could sell or give away. There might be another family stretched to the max who could use a good game and you could use a clutter free environment. So sort with an eye to what you will be keeping and what you’ll pass along. If you do decide to sell an item, certainly you could use Facebook but you might need to batch the games together in a group to get someone to bite and buy (Video games typically are snapped up quickly). Just don’t forget to put whatever you do sell toward paying off debt. Don’t spend it on something else. You could donate the games to a local homeless shelter or retirement home, too.
RANK ‘EM
When you place the games back into the area where you keep them, rank them in the order you’ll play them. That way you don’t get stuck in a rut. You could even allow your family to schedule a game of the week or set up a tournament. Just today I saw a Wii Game that was a gift years ago and I had SO much playing. I think it’s time to bust that badboy back into the rotation.
PLAN A GAME NIGHT WITH FRIENDS
Just because you’re staying in instead of going out doesn’t mean you have to become a hermit. Plan a game night with your friends. Have everyone bring a snack to share and have fun together. Whether you bust out the old Rock Band set or you play Trivial Pursuit, you can have a great time with one another without spending a ton of coin.
Get busy friend! Organize and plan away.
Did you see the previous Debt Free Missions? Knock them all out this month!
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Take the Restaurant Challenge
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Run Your Credit Report
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Set Up a Tax Box
- 31 Debt Free Missions: 5 Memberships to Ditch
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Adjust Your Withholdings
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Quit Using Credit Cards
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Go to the Library
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Eliminate Cable
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Pantry Prep
- 31 Debt Free Missions: 3 Phone Calls to Pay Off Debt
- 31 Debt Free Missions: The Bank Field Trip
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Make Your Own Laundry Detergent
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Hit Unsubscribe
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Stop Money Leaks
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Maintain Your Car
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Save Money on Prescriptions
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Kill the Fees
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Change Car Insurance
Do you have other organizational money saving tips? Leave them in the comments!
My book is now available: Slaying the Debt Dragon: How One Family Conquered Their Money Monster and Found an Inspired Happily Ever After. You can also check out Inspiration to Pay Off Debt: 30 Days of Encouragement from the Queen of Free
This post contains an affiliate link. That means when you get a great deal or maybe even something for free, you also help our family pay off our mortgage early. And for that, we royally thank you!
We’re doing this right now! We love games, but our collection has gotten a bit out of control. I know there are games stashed away that we either don’t love like we used to/thought we would or that the kids have aged out of. So one of our family New Year’s resolutions was to go through and play every game we own. We’ll either donate or sell on the Facebook Marketplace the games that don’t make the cut and use the money for spending money on our next family vacation.
I love how fabulous you are! It’s a smart move to both minimize so there’s less to manage and use the funds you make to invest in your family further. <3