[Tom found $20 and is thinking of *investing* it](http://tom.mcallister.ws/away/archives/2005/08/24/3096/). That reminds me of the $5000 challenge. Some dude is trying to turn an initial investment of $20 into $5000 in 6 months. I think he is a bit behind, but he has made about $500 in around 2 months now (I think he only has 300 liquid but the rest is working for him in inventory) Here's his blog: [$5000 challenge](http://5000challenge.blogspot.com/)
Anyway I am trying to do something similar but my goals are a lot less aggressive, $2500 by May 1, 2006, from nothing I will miss, so I can go to Mexico for my brother-in-law's wedding.
I haven't been able to get much yet, I listed a bunch of stuff on half.com and amazon.com, but haven't gotten any hits yet, and I have some plans to sell some stuff on ebay to get the process going. I am going to take an initial $20 which is my cash back bonus from my Discover card and apply that to the fund.
This also reminds me of some story from 1st grade about some eels that were given a pearl by their teacher for a summer project. Some of the more industrious eel's invested theirs and created underwater lemonade stands or casino's or some other glamorous cartoony venture. One eel buried his in the sand somewhere, and then dug it up for the next year, and not only was he the only jerk who didn't make a ton of dough, he probably failed the project too. I think it was based on some biblical parable, but I can't remember what one.
Here's hoping some hidden marketable talent emerges from no-where so I don' t have to be the dumb eel.
**Update**: I found the parable. [Mathew 25:14-30](http://www.gospelcom.net/bible?version=NIV&passage=matt+25:14-30)