Stepseven's Personal Finance Blog

One of the things that this challenge was to inspire was new ways for people to make or save money. Well I just received $337.50 for something that I haven't seen posted here before (or if it was, I missed it).
I'm a guinea pig. Since I live pretty close to a University ( ie, research) Hospital, I sign up for research studies concerning asthma. I get free medical checkups and free medicines (sometimes samples on the meds I regularly take). Sometimes just a few visits are required, sometimes weekly over several months. Unfortunately, I had to stop this research series halfway through because I got sick, or it would have been about $700.
I talk to my doctor concerning the trials. They have always been for drugs that are already approved for other uses and the drug company is investigating other uses for the drugs, therefore I know they are safe.
Best of all, I know I am helping to find better ways of managing this disease or even hopefully, a cure. I couldn't do anything to prevent passing this disease on to 3 of my 4 kids (it's hereditary), but maybe, just maybe my grandkids won't have it...
I've also heard of some hospitals that use "professional patients" to train the med students. You get paid to go in and present with various ailments so they can practice. Then you evaluate them on their bedside manner, whether they asked you certain followup questions, asked about family history, etc.

Last year I intended to do this, but... Well "tabula rasa" - here's to a clean slate, a new year. I'm really looking forward to reading other comments on ideas for the $20 challenge. This should be fun...
My goal for this year is $4000 to fund a Roth. That comes to about $333/mo. I assume at this point much of it will come from ebay. This is new to me as I have never used ebay. I won't be including "coupon money". I am going to try to blog regularly (weekly?) and use you guys as my "accountability partners". Thanks for all the encouraging comments so far.

Tabula Rasa is latin for "clean slate". On the website newsletter for 48 Days.com, Dan Miller has an excellent article encouraging us to look forward to what 2007 can hold, even if 2006 was less than spectacular. He quotes Thomas Edison commenting on a fire that destroyed his lab..."All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God, we can start anew."
Here's to all of us - continueing with our successes and starting anew with a fresh start on last year(s) on the "less than successful" parts.

There are a lot of things I've never done, and blogging is one of them. However, one of my 2006 New Year resolutions was to try one new thing each month. Guess this is it for March. I have decided to hop on the bandwagon of the $20 Chanllenge to remind me to keep this money thing fun - serious, but fun. As of now I have $20 ready to go. No great ideas yet, but I'm hoping inspiration will strike!