How is that penny I started with three weeks ago doing?
Day 15: February 10, 2025
Previously, I noted that I pared things down as much as possible. I didn’t. I had three lipsticks picked out. Two of them were red, and I am not sure they were even different enough to need both of them. I deleted one, bringing the total amount I need to secure the rest of the makeup down just a bit. Again, not a fascinating bit of information in and of itself, but if this were something someone truly needed to gather, say kitchen items for their new home on a penny, or items for a baby (please start this one at least a year before the baby is born or adopted) or pet, this would be meaningful.
I am also extending this first penny challenge to one full month, four weeks instead of three. My go-to, everyday makeup look is grey eyeliner and mascara. I have grey, and the means to get the mascara. When I want to look extra made-up, I add a few dabs of peach or red lipstick. When I get bored with that, I might change the eyeliner to black or brown, and wear the lipstick a little heavier if I wear brown eyeliner. There’s a lipstick shade I want to try, but I don’t think I’ll get it in this challenge unless I end with a ton of extra cash. I’m not sure I’d wear it. Penny challenges with the goal of getting something you need are not the times to add in the “try it” items. But I still can’t decide exactly what to do with my hair or what fragrance I want. It is also more in keeping with the original penny challenge.They seem to be either a week or thirty days. Ryan Trahan’s thirty day penny challenges are much larger than this, and involve cross country or even international travel and major fundraisers, but of course everyone cannot take them that far.
Ryan Trahan has the means to do this full-time. When he did a penny challenge, that’s all he did, with breaks only to sleep, shower, and eat. Mine is squeezed in between my teaching job, my other writing, and all my chores and errands. I’d end the challenge fired from my job in an apartment with the electricity turned off, no food in the kitchen, no hygiene products in the bathroom, and weeks worth of dirt and dust all over the place if I copied the original penny challenge to the detail.
Day 16: February 11, 2025
In a surprise twist, Amazon awarded me that $15 discount on products shipped from them just for trying their photo storage app. As of this morning, the penny had grown to $17.84. Putting that together with the $15 discount on $30 or more on products sold and shipped by Amazon, I managed to secure the mascara, three lipsticks, and a pack of pens (nothing to do with anybody’s beauty routine, but useful for a writer) absolutely free to me.
By the end of the morning today, I only have $0.81 left in the penny fund, but I have secured all the makeup I would ever wear. It turns out I did get the “just to try” lipstick shade, but that and the pens were what made the whole order completely free. I was wrong yesterday. While a penny challenge may not be the time to fill up the cart with impulse buys, if there is something you’re not sure of, but it makes the order free, absolutely add it. Even if you never use it, everything else you got was also free. If the item is not consumable, or you know you’re not going to use it while it’s still sealed, you can always use it to bless someone else.
In other major penny challenge developments today, the tutoring app is working! It was indeed my browser that was the issue all this time. Since the company who owns the app did NOT give me permission to use their name or logo in this article, and none of my writing is sponsored or approved by them, I will use a pseudonym for them going forward. I am supposed to be learning Italian, Greek, and Russian while I’m spending all my time on my writing, doing this penny challenge. In Greek, tutor is “paidagogos.” In Italian, it is “tutore/tutrice”. In Russian, it is “repetitor.” So I am going to call the company TPR tutoring. Their real name has nothing to do with languages or any of those cultures.
All I can say is that TPR tutoring functions exactly like Uber, DoorDash, UberEats, Instacart, and GrubHub. The only difference is that instead of offering rides and deliveries of takeout and shopped items, you offer live tutoring sessions and feedback on essays.
It goes without saying that details about students will not be included, just how much money I generated from this app that costs me nothing to use.
And at the end of the day, the penny is $43.09….with all makeup items secured.
Day 17: February 12, 2025
This morning highlights the main reason for extending this penny challenge from three weeks to a full month. That is, I have no idea what I want to do or where I want to go when it comes to getting my hair done. As soon as I started looking, I learned that my estimate at the beginning of the challenge is likely not accurate at all. Prices can swing wildly, depending on which salon you go to, what you want done, and the condition of your hair.
Mine should be pretty simple. My haircut is, according to my mother who went to beauty school, the first thing you learn to do in beauty school, a blunt, or zero degree, cut. I don’t even want a lot off, just a trim to even it up and make it look a bit thicker. I have a lot of hair, but each strand is so fine that it’s prone to breakage, and when it breaks, it looks like my hair is much thinner than it is. If I decide to change the color, I will just pick a different shade of my natural color (red). I currently have no color or other chemical treatment on my hair, and I do not use any products or tools on it, just brush it and shampoo it when I take my shower in the morning, brush it when I’m getting ready for bed, and brush it as needed throughout the day. I’d cut it myself, but the one time I mentioned that idea to my mother, she panicked and said, “Don’t do that. It’s almost impossible to cut your own hair. We didn’t even do that in beauty school. We cut each other’s.”
Picking out a salon became my after work project for the penny challenge today, though I grew overwhelmed with all of the information and started playing around with on TPR tutoring, just to see what I could do on there. I wound up taking the test to see if I can tutor in psychology in addition to writing skills. By the end of the day, the penny is $56.19, with all the makeup I would ever use secured.
Day 18: February 13, 2025
I didn’t get approved to tutor in psychology. There was no reason listed, though I am thinking they have mostly upper-level students for that subject, and I don’t have the background for it. I honestly don’t. I know a lot about psychology for someone who never really studied psychology, but all I have in it that’s official is an undergraduate minor. I did bring the total for tutoring in writing up to $57.79 though.
Tutoring through TPR tutoring is the only real effort I’ve had to put in so far, and I have been doing that in the time I have to spare after teaching work and doing my writing. The tutoring opportunities they offer are nowhere nearsteady enough to keep it as a regular side hustle, but it’s a good quick cash resource.
Gig work for tutoring sites takes too long to make as much as people can make with other gig work sites and apps. An UberEats driver can accept a $4.00 pickup and delivery order, stack it with two other $4.00 deliveries on the way, and make $12.00 in the twenty minutes it takes them to get to you. They may also get tips. Evaluating an essay for $4.00 is going to take the whole twenty minutes by itself, and the live tutoring sessions are individual and on a timer. They can only pay $16 per hour, as there is no way to group students as you would group deliveries. Tipping is not allowed. This makes tutoring gig work a bit less lucrative than other forms.
I can pop in and do some tutoring if I’m out of spending money but need a gift for someone, want to take an Uber into town and run some errands, can’t stand the thought of cooking dinner but can’t really afford takeout, or need to replenish some of my new cosmetic items. I can tutor for a day or two if I need to fund little treats for myself and others, or just make an extra donation at church or someplace else around the community. And of course, there’s the future of penny challenges in Utica. I’d be happy to donate a day on the tutoring site to help meet a need.
As of the late afternoon today, a salon has been located. There is a salon in town whose maximum price for a color, cut, and style is $60. My hair doesn’t style, but $60 for a cut and color is fine. That means I need to turn the penny into at least $75. If you can’t afford to tip, you can’t afford to go to whatever salon or restaurant or other business where tipping is expected.
Day 19: February 14, 2025
Callie (my Chorkie) woke me up forty-five minutes early. For some odd reason, I woke up, but postponed actually getting up. My work for today consisted of all tasks I could do quickly on my phone, since the bulk of my actual teaching for the week was done over Wednesday and Thursday, so I worked on my phone before actually getting up.
Once I was up and oddly done with work, I checked in to the TPR site just to remind myself where the penny stood, only to be greeted by a screen full of available essays to evaluate for students. I was able to do one before I even got in the shower, go and take my shower, and then do another one, bringing the penny total up to $84.72 before the challenge even started for the day.
That means I can check “hair cut and color” off the list. If they want more than $60 to cut and color my hair, I will cancel the color service, just get the cut, and do my own color at home for about $30. This means that either way, I will be paying about $80 for my hair.
I am also thankful that this all happened early this morning. This afternoon the area to evaluate essays disappeared from my screen. I was told that I would need to take yet another orientation to be able to continue to evaluate them, and would have to only do live sessions until I passed it. That is unfortunately pretty typical of gig work apps and websites. I have watched multiple videos on YouTube in which people on delivery apps are given contract violations for little to no reason. That’s just the way these companies operate.
This might be something to get upset about if this were something I could do for a steady income. But I’m coming back one to three more times to finish raising the cash for a new fragrance for the penny challenge, and maybe seven to ten times per year after that. Getting upset over something that’s going to impact me less than once per month is ridiculous. I can go in and take the orientation when and if I feel like it.
At the end of Day 19, I have secured the $80 for my haircut and color and have $10.64 I can use to get a new fragrance. The penny is $90.64 total plus $$70.99 (without tax) worth of cosmetics. The penny has turned into $161.6
Day 20: February 15, 2025
Today wound up being another research day. I did manage to find the hair color I want. I will either take a picture of it to a salon or order a box of it (Madison Reed Sardinia Red). Sometimes, I purposely wear my natural color, a medium brownish auburn. When I color my hair, I want this color Madison Reed apparently sells. Burgundy or bright natural red is nice too, but this shade of red is my favorite.
Finding a fragrance is another thing I didn’t do before I started. The amount of money I need for one is going to determine when the penny challenge ends at this point. And just like with hair color and cuts, the cost varies greatly. When I was selling Avon, I loved Rare Pearls, which is weird because I absolutely hate the smell of magnolias, and that was a primary note in there. I have also liked Bath and Body Works’ “Beautiful Day,” and used to wear it exclusively until they apparently changed the formula to make it a bit too sharp and tangy for me.
The exploration continues.
Day 21: February 16, 2025
Had I not realized I needed to do more research and wanted to stick to the tradition of the original penny challenge and do either one week or one month, this would have been the final day. It is looking pretty close. I started out wanting to turn the penny into:
1 mascara
3 eyeliners (gray, black, brown)
3 lipsticks (peach, red, rose pink)
Money set aside for a cut and color ($80)
A new fragrance
The first four out of those five items are either here, or owed to me, though I need to wait for some of it. TPR tutoring isn’t quite as lucrative as a side hustle as some of the more well-known gig work apps because of the wait. Delivery and rideshare apps offer the ability to cash out after a certain amount of time. I have $89.83 sitting there waiting for me, but I can’t cash it out. They’ll cash it out for me at midnight tonight and send it to me on Thursday or Friday of this week. I will have to just wait for that and anything I earn this afternoon and evening. Should I come back and tutor for the last leg of the challenge, I have to wait another week for the payout.
Right now, as day 21 rolls on, I am just waiting for the essay evaluating section to return as an option for me. Church and my evening plans were both canceled due to icy roads today. This allowed me to go to work early, get done early, and then sit here bored most of the afternoon. I went through the essay evaluation orientation and quiz just to pass the time. I needed a 90% go be allowed to evaluate essays again. I scored a 95%. This may mean nothing for this penny challenge, but it will come in handy for future ones, as I can raise funds slightly faster with that than live tutoring sessions much of the time.
At the end of day 21, the penny is $97.96 owed to me and $0.81 in the account, for a total of $98.77. I do not think that is quite enough to set aside $80 for my hair and get a new fragrance. Research was done on fragrance, and a nice body spray from Victoria’s Secret or Bath and Body Works is just under $25, meaning the penny...minus the value of the items shown resting on the orange basket in the photo...should reach at least $105 ($80 to set aside for my hair and $25 for the body spray).
The penny at the end of day 21 sits at $97.96 (owed from the tutoring gig) $0.81 sitting in the penny challenge account, plus the makeup in the photo. I am $6.23 away from successful completion of the penny challenge.
In keeping with established penny challenge tradition, the penny challenge will be extended to 30 days. My prediction is that it will wind up somewhere in between my original 21 day finale and the full 30 days.
By Jess Santacroce, Writer/Editor: The 315
Photo: Jess Santacroce
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