$1,631.88

So what's been added to my savings account lately?
First there was $35.00 from selling off my arcade machine and I put some of the money in savings. Second my monthly $30.00 in savings. Third I earned $50.00 from another birth control study and fourthly I got $100 from a "focus group" on craig's list. Fifthly I got $35.36 from selling a $50 gift card I won minus shipping and eBay/paypal fees. Finally I earned $1.24 in interest for June.

The "focus group" is a story. So I responded to an ad on Craig's List looking for people for a focus group on an electronic device weeks ago. I kept seeing the ad although no one ever called me. Bah a scammer looking to collect e-mails and phone numbers thought I.

Well three weeks ago, I got a call about it asking what time I wanted to come in. After setting up the appointment for the next day, the woman on the phone started asking me all these weird questions. Did I have any heart problems, did I have any mood or mental problems, etc? She stressed that I would have to go through several security screenings in order to get to the focus group. Oh and by the way the people putting on the focus group are a branch of the government, you don't want to mess with.

At this point, you can imagine I was freaking out. Why would this government agency need a focus group? Why would they be worried about heart and mental health? What the heck was I getting myself into? My husband and I started joking about it being like in a movie, I would go in and they would brainwash me. I knew one thing for sure if the security screenings involved any anal probes, I was out of there.

Well it was good money for just a couple hours work. I decided to go in and check it out. So I enter where they told me to go and it's bland office with one woman and desk. No other people at all. The woman gave me a manila envelope containing some instructions and directed me into another room with a metal desk surrounded by doors that contained only a People and a Newsweek.

Well the instructions made me feel better about the whole thing since the instructions were all about the security screening and said nothing at all about the focus group and I had seen no other people come into this office, it was pretty obvious that the study was about the security screening and not a focus group at all. I signed my paperwork and gave it back to the woman and she had me wait back in the little room reading about Kate Gosslin in People. Sitting there, I was tempted to write "The Cake is a Lie" over the crossword to mess with other people.

After a few minutes, I was sent up to the security screening room. I can't go into the details due the agreement I signed. But no anal probes or brain washings occurred, thankfully. In fact I've had much worse security screenings at airports. Also I guessed right in that there was no focus group. A little more than hour later, I got $100 from my efforts and a little closer to my goal.