Ever wished you could shop without using your own money or using up benefits you need to budget? Follow me over the next three weeks and learn to do just that.
The challenge:
Beauty routines today have grown so large and expensive, even people who cover the topic for their YouTube channels and other pages are alarmed. Skincare routines take ten to fourteen products. Everyday makeup seems to be twelve to fifteen products. Even bathing isn’t just soap or body wash, shampoo, and some deodorant as you’re drying off anymore. If you believe what you see online, you need four or five more products in there after you’re clean. People are reportedly going into serious debt over fragrance collections. And that’s just what gets done at home. We still have nails, hair extensions, colors and texture treatments, eyebrow microblading, lash extension, and all those skincare treatments people get done at the salon.
The cost of all this runs into the thousands of dollars. Even those who do skincare alone and skip makeup can rack up more than a $1,000 price tag for one set of products.
Not following trends is of course the first step to cutting costs. Mascara, black, brown, or gray eyeliner, and lipstick is all that ever looks good on me. More products and I start looking like a cartoon of myself. The only thing I ever get done at a salon is a trim and hair color. Nails and doing more than sampling any bath products beyond the ones you need to keep clean can be skipped. If I do skincare, my skin only tends to tolerate one or two products at a time. But with today’s prices, cutting your list of items down is only step one.
If we look at everyday, middle of the road brands such as Maybelline, Avon, Revlon, and Covergirl, even that small makeup collection can cost around $80. I’ve got seven to nine products total listed there, and drugstore makeup runs about $10 to $12 dollars per item. Should I decide to toss in a moisturizer, try one skincare product, that could add another $20 or $30. Getting your hair trimmed and colored, according to my helpful AI summary on Google, can cost anywhere from $100-$200 once you factor in the tip. We’re already at $180 minimum. If I want a nice new fragrance from Bath and Bodyworks, that goes up to $200.
I am willing to spend a penny. That’s right...a penny. Welcome to the first penny challenge of 2025.
The penny challenge was invented by Christian YouTuber Ryan Trahan. Throughout numerous penny challenges, Trahan has worked to demonstrate to people in need ways they can raise cash quickly. Most of his penny challenges were also fundraisers, generating millions for organizations that provide food and water for people who are fighting to survive, not conducting a social experiment when they try to subsist on change.
Future penny challenges will be conducted here at Artist Cafe 315 for things that are truly important, such as raising money for local arts projects and nonprofits. But for the first one, I’m going as unimportant as possible in case I fail. And I might. I tried a penny challenge last year that wound up canceled because it crashed down on the hair portion of the project. The stylist I chose messed up my hair, and I had no funds left to fix it. That still might have counted as a successful challenge, but this was also intended to be my bridal hair, so the challenge was quickly abandoned in favor of scrambling to change my wedding day look in time. In the end, I had the wedding of my dreams to the man of my dreams, the wedding photos are beautiful, and I am looking forward to one year happily married on May 4, 2025. Plus, I got a great lesson in why we start out with low stakes goals for these things. This year, the original penny challenge had to be cancelled when a series of mishaps made it stressful instead of fun to finish. We'll fight to the end when a meal, shelter, decent clothing, school or job preparation, or access to the arts for someone else is at stake. This was what we used to call a mini-makeover, and is now referred to as a glow-up. For me...not for someone who needs this to keep a job or anything.
The challenge (take two) begins on January 27, 2025. I have three weeks to turn a penny into a mascara, three eyeliners, three or four lipsticks, a nice new fragrance, and the funds to get my hair cut and colored.
The rules:
1. All money spent must either stem from the penny, or from doing something that generates cash without spending the penny.
2. I can use any existing points I may have on programs such as swagbucks, mypoints, and fetch rewards, and any cash back or rewards bonuses at stores.
3.Any purchases made to earn more points or rewards must come from either the penny, or from household groceries or medicines purchased at that store rather than another store. (I can have the rewards from paying for my blood pressure and thyroid meds and buying our paper towels and shampoo at a drug store. I can’t run in and buy myself a present just to get points.)
4. Selling anything I get as a free gift with purchase or a free gift from a corporation is fine. I cannot sell or swap anything I get from a nonprofit or charity.
5. Breaking the law and any form of deception is forbidden.
6. No using gift cards I already have.
7. I cannot ask people to buy me things, only to sell me something for a penny, and then buy things from me.
Day 1: Monday, January 27, 2025
Before the launch, I switched my prescriptions from Rite Aid to Walgreens. I take a medication for Graves disease (a condition that makes your thyroid overactive), allergies, and high blood pressure. My primary reason is that there is a Walgreens much closer to my house, but the move was timed for the challenge, as I have fifty cents in rewards credit there, and can earn more when I refill my medications and purchase small grocery items there.
I then found someone (my husband) who had an item (a gift card that was found and passed on to him that nobody we know would be likely to use). He was willing to sell it to me for a penny. The value of it will be determined once I find a place to sell it for cash.
While I would never advocate selling a gift card someone who loves you chose and purchased for you, if you get a card in a business gift, or one is found and people aren’t even sure where it came from, swapping it for a portion of the face value is always an option to raise a little spare cash from nothing.
End of day one balance: $0.01 and a $25 gift card
Day 2: January 28, 2025
The gift card I bought for a penny sold for $17.25.
Another method of turning a penny...actually thin air...into money...that I have tried is the FreeCash app. So far, it doesn’t seem like a feasible way to get anything without spending a ton of money first. At best, I will be able to get $5 free out of this.
Day 3: January 29, 2025:
The freecash app has $5.85 pending, so I might be able to get a few more dollars out of that, but if I do, that will be it for the app. That took up far too much time, though I am only playing games or doing other tasks while I’m watching tv.
Day 4: January 30, 2025:
At the end of day 4, the penny sits at 17.25. Once that freecash app reward drops, it will be redeemed and added. There are stories about people funding things with those apps, but what they leave out is the amount of money you have to spend to earn the money. If you have to pay for $100 worth of credits in a game to win $125, you didn’t win $125. you won $25. And if you wind up with $75 to play that game instead, you didn’t win anything, you just got a discount.
Realistically, never expect to get more than $5-$20 completely for free by playing with apps that offer points for games and surveys.
Day 5: January 31, 2025
Today’s total sits at $17.25 plus $5.85 pending. This is off to a slow start, but considering that I didn’t work for it, and didn’t actually devote any real time to it, it’s going pretty well. This is literally free money, with all time spent being time that was already being spent online or sitting there watching tv.
Day 6: February 1, 2025
There was a bit of a break in the challenge today, as I continue to wait for the points from FreeCash to redeem. I did do a bit of research today, and some coupons may be available to take advantage of.
Day 7: February 2, 2025
Instacart offered me $20 off my order of $20 more, plus a $2 discount on top of that for scheduling my order for later today. I logged into Walgreens through Instacart and chose a black, a brown, and a gray eyeliner from Revlon that cost $9.99 each. Once the fees and tip and taxes were added on, but the $20 was taken off, my total came to $15.89 for that $30 worth of products.
The penny had grown to $17.25, so I used that to secure three items from my shopping list. This only leaves me $1.36 to grow the penny again, but at the same time, it means I partially accomplished my goal. The penny has indeed turned into three free to me cosmetic items.
I only spent a penny of my own money to get the three $10 eyeliners from my list. I still need to get one mascara, three lipsticks, and the funds to get my hair trimmed and colored.
Will I do it? Check back here next Monday to check my progress
Inspiration: The YouTube videos enjoyed by both me and the fictional characters in my novels.
By: Jess Santacroce, Writer/Editor: The 315
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