Fundraiser Ideas (or, Financial Planning, Ninja Mom Style.)

So The Hub lost his job. He's been out of work for a month now. There was a glimmer of hope that he might be called back, but with GM about to announce bankruptcy, it's now highly unlikely. (I still have my fingers crossed though.)

I'm good at budgeting, and we can survive on unemployment benefits until another job is found. What I can't seem to find money for, though, is the midwife. I owe the hospital $3000 from The Babe's birth, so I can't get an OBGYN either, even if I wanted to. I need to raise $2200 to pay the midwife for prenatal care and delivery of the baby. I need it by October.


So I'm thinking of fundraising ideas. Here's what I've come up with, if you have more ideas, let me know! I'm open to anything!



Garage Sale

I'll sort through all my crap - because believe me, I have a lot of crap - and have a big garage sale in the next month or so. I am thinking of having it at my brother's house, because he has a nice garage and more importantly, he lives in the suburbs, so we'll have a lot more people come. I want everything to be very clean and well laid out, and priced very reasonably so people will actually buy the stuff. I still need to ask my brother to use his garage but I'm almost certain he'll say yes. He's cool like that. I am also going to ask my friends and family if they have anything they want to donate to the sale.



Alto Harvest Fest


This is a festival held every September in a town nearby. We have hundreds of local festivals each year, but Alto has the cheapest booths. I might be able to get into a few others around the same time, if they're reasonable enough.
I'm going to sell handmade soap, ribbon flowers, and stuffies, and possibly some little handmade cat toys. These are all things I'm very good at making, and I can make lots of them with things I already have on hand. I won't need to buy any supplies at all, and best of all, all of them are easy enough that I can make lots and lots of them in a fairly short period of time.

Etsy

I have an etsy shop all set up, but I don't have anything in it. Etsy only charges 20 cents for a listing, so if I put things in the shop and they don't sell, I'm not out a large amount of money. This would be an opportunity for all of you to buy some cool stuff that I made, if you wanted to, but of course if you don't want to I won't feel bad. If I do go ahead and put stuff in the etsy shop, I'll give you all a coupon code so you can save money. I'll probably be selling mostly sewing projects in the etsy shop since the soap isn't made yet and needs at least a month to cure (but preferably more.)


I know there's no way I'm going to raise all $2200 with these things, but I think I can make a big dent in the total that way. I've also got a very small monthly income from advertisers on the blog, so instead of having that put into my bank account, I'll put it in my paypal account, so all the midwife money is in one place.

Now at the same time I'm doing all of this, I'm making diapers for Beastie, The Babe, and the new baby. I'm also working on opening a Dar a Luz chapter here in West Michigan. I think that my main focus right now is to raise money for the midwife and to make diapers at least for the new baby. Beastie and The Babe are accustomed to disposable diapers so a few more months aren't going to hurt them (my wallet, on the other hand, winces at the very mention of Luvs...)

I think I can accomplish this though. After all, I did everything on the previous list, and it only took me a week.