Save Karyn

by Karyn Bosnak

  Cheers

  Oh, I’m so sorry, Alex! I know how you feel. But I again moved on to the next one from Wookoo…

  Don’t bother to tell the IRS anything. You’ve done no work and you’ve sold nothing. So any monies you receive, up to $10,000 from a single donor, are gifts and not reportable or taxable as income.

  Of course this information is useful to you only if someone is enough of an idiot to pull you out of the pig wallow you’ve managed to make for yourself.

  Don’t have to report it? Good to know! I then clicked on one from Naomi…

  Sorry you’re in debt, but at least you look good.

  Oh, it was Naomi, my friend! That was nice of her. Then I clicked on one from Hardy…

  Unusual that the exact amount of your debt is such an even number…Consider me skeptical.

  Not unusual, just correct. Then there was another from Scout…

  Go bankrupt—it’s easier and even less degrading than begging. But anyway, good luck. I hope things work out. Peace.

  I don’t want to go bankrupt, because I felt like that was just like giving up. I then opened another from someone named A…

  Get a life!

  You get one, loser! I clicked off that one fast, and opened up one from Crummy…

  Work for a living.

  I do work for a living! I opened up three more e-mails from people just asking me if I have received any money, and then clicked on the last one from a girl named Nikki…

  Hi: Today for you tomorrow for me. Don’t forget to help someone else as soon as you are able to. Where do you want the $5 I am going to send you mailed?

  Good luck and be careful with your credit card :)

  Oh my gosh! She wanted to send me money! This actually could work! I mean the letter had been up for only like six hours or so. This could work. But I needed to think it through. Where would I have her send the money? Just then another e-mail popped up in my inbox. It was from Craigslist…

  We have removed your posting as we found it to be inappropriate for our site.

  Inappropriate? Huh? Maybe it couldn’t work. No—it could! I knew it could! I just needed to think some things through. I didn’t e-mail anyone back because I didn’t know what to say, so I logged off and got ready for work.

  By the time I got to work, I decided that the best thing for me to do was to set up a website. Because no one could tell me that my letter was inappropriate for my own website except me. And I didn’t think it was inappropriate. I thought it was kind of funny. And besides, a website would give people a central place to go. It could be like “Save Karyn” central. Yes, a website. I was going to create a website and call it “savekaryn.com.”

  SETTING UP THE BASICS

  The more I thought about it, the more it seemed appropriate. The whole idea actually seemed appropriate. Because of two reasons: (1) It could actually work and I could pay off my debt; and (2) Even if it didn’t work, the few e-mails that I received so far were kind of funny, and I could take my whole “getting out of debt experience,” chronicle it, and write a funny “How I tried to get out of debt” kind of book. Then I’d sell the book and that’s how I’d pay off my debt. Yep. I could include my plea letter to ask for help, I could volunteer for some funny medical studies that I saw being advertised on Craigslist—stuff like that. And a website would be a great central place to organize everything. So I decided to do it.

  As soon as I arrived at work, I did a few Internet searches to figure out how to make a website, because I didn’t have a clue. I found out that the first thing I needed to do was register my desired domain name, which was savekaryn.com. There were a lot of domain name registration websites to choose from, and I decided to go with one called Register.com. It seemed like the biggest one out there, and it was only $35 to register it for a whole year. So after going through all the motions, I used my banking card to pay. I didn’t really have the extra money, but I felt like if I wanted it to work, then I needed to do this.

  Now that I had that done, I needed to create my website. Another reason that I chose to use Register.com was because they offered a step-by-step website-building wizard. All I had to do was enter the information that I wanted online into a template, and with one click of a button, it would be published to the World Wide Web. And it was cheap—only $14.95 a month for a twenty-page site. The only drawback was that the templates they had to choose from were pretty basic and looked low-budget, to say the least. But obviously I didn’t have the money to put together a fancier site. And I thought a low-budget website was kind of funny anyway.

  Since I was at work, I couldn’t exactly start building it, so I moved on to the next step. I needed to figure out a way for people to give me their money. I didn’t want to give people my home address, so I decided that I’d get a PO box over the weekend. But since I wasn’t so sure people would remember to mail a buck to me after they read my website, I decided that I also needed to provide an instant online payment option.

  Through using eBay, I was familiar with PayPal, which is a website that allows people to send money to anyone who has an e-mail address. All you have to do is sign up for an account, and fund it by using a credit card or checking account. I already had a PayPal account associated with my normal e-mail address, but I didn’t want to use that one. I wanted one just for my Save Karyn project. So I set up a new account associated with the e-mail address savekaryn@hotmail.com. When it asked me for my first and last name, I entered “Save Karyn.” To test it, I used my real PayPal account to send a dollar to my Save Karyn PayPal account, and it worked.

  Since I had been successful at selling my stuff on eBay, I decided to link my website to my eBay auctions and vice versa. So I set up a separate eBay user name, aside from my normal one, because again I wanted the whole Save Karyn effort to be separate. By linking to my auctions it would show people that I was in fact serious about eliminating my debt.

  After getting that all out of the way, I decided to get back to work. I had to clean up my desk and get ready to move into an edit suite on Monday, and I only had today and Friday to tie up any loose ends.

  ON SATURDAY, I went in search of a PO box. The first place I decided to go to was a local shipping place right down the street from where I lived. It was privately owned and I had used them to ship my rug and my chandelier, and I saw that there were mailboxes inside that I could rent. It was called Pack-Man Boxes, and the guy who owned it was Pack-Man. I didn’t know his real name, and I didn’t want to find out, because to me he was Pack-Man.

  I walked in and up to the desk.

  “Hi, how much is a PO box?” I asked.

  “They aren’t post office boxes,” he snipped back. “They are personal mailboxes—PMBs.” Huh. Someone’s grumpy.

  “Okay, how much are the personal mailboxes?” I asked again.

  “They are twenty-five dollars a month,” he said.

  “Really?” I asked. I expected them to be like $10. “If I get one, how long does it take before I can start receiving mail?”

  “Immediately. You’d just pay, fill out some paperwork and you’d be all set,” he said.

  “How much are the ones at the post office. Do you know?” I asked.

  “They’re much cheaper, like five or ten dollars a month, but there’s always a waiting list,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said.

  I decided to explore the cheaper option just to make sure he was indeed correct. So I left Pack-Man Boxes and walked all the way to the post office, which was kind of far. Once I arrived, I waited in line for forty-five minutes, was told that I had to fill out an application and then wait, because there was in fact a waiting list. But I couldn’t wait, so I went back to Pack-Man.

  “Hello again,” he said.

  “Hello,” I said. “I’m back and I’d like to get a PMB box please.”

  “Okay,” he said. Pack-Man proceeded to have me fill out a bunch of paperwork, and then asked me what the box was for.

  “What’s it for?” I
replied. “Mail.”

  “Yeah, but what is it for?” he asked. “A business?”

  “Not really,” I said. “More like a project.”

  “Who or what is the mail going to be addressed to?” he asked.

  “Save Karyn,” I answered.

  “Okay,” he said, looking at me funny, as if to say, “Why do you need to be saved?”

  After ringing it up, he told me that I had to pay for three months at a time, and my total came to $75. I paid with my banking card.

  LAUNCHING THE WEBSITE

  Later that night, I went home and started to set up my website. I decided that if I expected other people to give me money, then I needed to put forth a huge effort as well. On the top of each page I created, it said, “Save Karyn—Help her pay off her credit card debt!” It sounded fun! I decided that the front page needed to get to the point and grab people’s attention! It said:

  WANTED: $20,000

  CREDIT CARDS ARE BAD!

  Hello!

  My name is Karyn, I’m really nice, and I’m asking for your help!

  You see, I have this huge credit card debt and I need $20,000 to pay it off.

  So if you have an extra buck or two, please send it my way!

  All I need is $1 from 20,000 people, or

  $2 from 10,000 people, or

  $5 from 4,000 people…

  You get the picture!

  Together, we can banish credit card debt from my life!

  I liked the “Together we can banish credit card debt from my life!” It sounded like a bad infomercial to me. On the next page, I posted the initial letter that I had created, but I changed a couple of details. I decided to change my age from twenty-nine to twenty-six, and to take out the “I moved from Chicago” part. What if for some reason my parents saw it? I didn’t want them to know that I owed $20,000. I was embarrassed about it. Not the website, but the debt.

  In addition to that I also created a page called the Grand Debt Tally that I planned on updating on a weekly basis so people could watch my debt shrink. It showed that I had a goal, and I thought that if people could actually watch my debt go down on a tally, they they’d be more likely to want to help. After adding up all of my bills, I figured out that I owed just over $20,000. It said:

  GRAND DEBT TALLY….

  Keep track of my progress!

  WATCH MY DEBT SHRINK WITH EVERY DONATION!

  (updated weekly)

  $20,221.40 TOTAL DEBT June 23, 2002

  I planned on subtracting the amount of money I received from eBay sales and people’s donations, as well as the money that I paid myself. After that I created the all-important “Give Karyn Money” page, which instructed people on how to send me money if they wanted to. It said:

  GIVE KARYN MONEY…

  Together we can make a difference!

  If you feel my pain—feel free to give me a dollar!

  If you don’t feel my pain, think I’m a moron, but get a kick out of my low-budget website—you too should feel free to give me a dollar!

  NOTE: I AM NOT A CHARITY. I REPEAT: YOU ARE NOT GIVING YOUR MONEY TO A CHARITY, BUT RATHER A CHICK WHO SPENT TOO MUCH MONEY.

  So this is where you can make miracles happen. It is this lovely page that will help you, help me. There are two ways to send me money. You can pay via PayPal or send me cold hard cash or a money order or cashier’s check to my PO Box.

  Now realize when you pay via PayPal that I am only getting about 70 cents to the dollar because of fees. But it’s still a fine choice for those of you who don’t want to go through the hassle of mailing a letter.

  If you choose to send me cash or a cashier’s check/money order through the mail, then you’ve made a fine choice as well. Make the checks payable to “Karyn,” and send it to my PO Box.

  Thanks!

  At the bottom of the page, I added a link to PayPal and listed my new PMB address. For everyone that indeed gave me money, I created a page called Karyn Thanks, where I planned on listing everyone’s name.

  I then created a “Buy Karyn’s Stuff” page. After thinking about it, I decided to auction off one “Big Ticket Item” each week, which would be a purse or a pair of shoes—something big. In addition to that one big item, I’d list a “bunch of crap” as well.

  That was my plan. Each week, I’d part with one of the frivolous items I had bought. Yes, I had parted with some of my stuff, like my rug and my chandelier, but I hadn’t yet sold anything like my sunglasses or shoes or anything like that. At this point all I wanted was to be debt-free. I didn’t care if at the end I was sitting naked in an empty bedroom. I just didn’t want to owe any more money. So, in addition to the frivolous item, I’d sell some more of the crap that I’d accumulated.

  To further show people that I was serious, I created another page called the “Daily Buck,” which would contain daily anecdotes about what I did to make a buck or save a buck. And of course I would keep my website visitors up-to-date with the happenings at SaveKaryn on a page called the “Weekly Update.”

  So people could get ahold of me, I created a “Contact Karyn” page with a link to my e-mail. I liked the initial twelve e-mails I received and wanted to hear what people had to say. It said:

  CONTACT KARYN…

  Let me know what you really think!

  So before I started this website, I put a posting up on Craigslist.org and I got 12 e-mails in the first few hours that the posting was up. For some reason, the folks at Craigslist didn’t think my posting was worthy of their site and took it down. (I posted it under the “Wanted” section and the heading was “Wanted: $20,000.” It seemed okay to me.)

  But anyway, I got 12 e-mails. Some dude told me that I don’t have to report what I make as income. He said you only have to report monetary gifts if they are over $10,000 from one single person. Good to know. So if you are feeling generous, please make the check out for no more than $9,999.99 to be on the safe side.

  Some other dude told me that I do have to report it, because it IS considered income. So I’m gonna check with an accountant to be on the safe side. Don’t want to end up in jail…Some other dude sent me his photo and wants to meet over dinner to discuss the issue…Um, I think I’m gonna pass on that one…And, guys, there’s not much of an issue to discuss here. I need the cash. End of story.

  Seriously, I would like to hear from you. Drop me a line. Write me a letter, send me an e-mail. Tell me a story. I’m sure you’ve been in some sort of mess like this before. Share.

  After I was done, I didn’t push the button to publish my site on the Internet. I wanted to wait until I chose and listed my first weekly Big Ticket Item on eBay, and had something to put down for the Daily Buck. So, I saved my changes and went to sleep.

  On Sunday, I woke up and instead of going directly back to the computer, I decided to have another sidewalk sale because I needed some material for the Daily Buck. And I needed to make some money. So I hauled some of my boxes out from the front closet and put them on a table outside and waited for people to show up. But unlike last time, no one did. So after a few hours, I hauled all of it back inside and went back to my computer.

  In addition to writing my first Daily Buck, I also listed my first Big Ticket Item on eBay. It was a pair of rubber Prada ducky boots, which I said were perfect for rain or snow! I also wrote my first Daily Buck.

  Sunday, June 23, 2002

  Today I had a sidewalk sale. I only made $4. I sold mostly crap. I seem to have a lot of crap. It’s the kind of crap that I had to have when I saw it in the store. Anyway, at the last minute some guy swooped in and bought a planter I had for $10. So I really made $14.

  I decided to keep them simple. But the website was still missing something. Pictures. My website needed pictures. I didn’t have a digital camera, but Scott did. It took kind of fuzzy pictures, but it had worked just fine for my eBay auctions so far. So I decided it would be good enough for my website too! Scott was lying on the couch watching TV, so I asked him to help me take the
m.

  “Scott,” I asked, “will you take pictures of me for my website.”

  “Huh?” he said. He didn’t sound too excited.

  “My website,” I said. “Will you take pictures?”

  “I’m tired,” he said.

  “Please wake up. I’m almost done,” I pleaded. “You have to!”

  “All right,” he finally said, pulling himself off the couch. I handed him his camera.

  “Do you want your face to show?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t want wackos there to know what I look like.”

  “I agree,” he replied. “How about your hide behind your computer and I just get like the top of your head.”

  “Yeah!” I said. “It’ll be kind of like the guy on Home Improvement—the neighbor that you see only half his face.”

  “And we can make some fake bills and scatter them all around you,” Scott said.

  “Yes!” I agreed. With that I pulled out a stack of blank envelopes and wrote things on the top of them like “To: Bloomies” and “To: Saks” in big red letters, and scattered them all around my computer.

  Scott directed me where to sit and how low to duck my head, and proceeded to take a few pictures. When he was done we looked at them and both burst into laughter.

  “Oh my gosh!” I said. “They’re so funny! You can only see from my eyebrows and up!”

  I then asked him to take one more picture, but this time I pulled out my checkbook and pretended to write a check to pay a bill. After scattering the bills all around me again, Scott stood on a chair and took the photo behind me, so all you could see was the back of my head. They again turned out hilarious!