25 Things To Do With 25 Dollars

Greetings from NYC. I’m here meeting with the crew from Pencils of Promise for a few days and visiting the city for the first time in over a decade before coming back to Chicago tomorrow and running the 50k ultramarathon this weekend. Things are busy!

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If you’re like me, you rarely use cash anymore. Nevertheless, I probably have about $25 on me at all times for random purchases, cash fare, or in case of emergency, etc. Here’s 25 things to do with the $25 laying around in your wallet.

1. A week’s worth of coffee.
2. 1/2 monthly gym membership
3. 2lbs of bison jerky (actually ridiculously good)
4. 70% of a Bucky Balls set.
5. 2 “new” outfits at goodwill
6. ~6, 7-11 Big Gulps
7. 1L Bacardi Oakheart
8. 157 Chinese Yuan (just in case the whole U.S. economy thing doesn’t work out).
9. A couple dvds (if you still buy them) or movies off iTunes or Amazon.
10. 25 new apps for your iPhone.
11. 1 Kiva Loan
12. 4 trips to Jamba Juice.
13. Basic monthly cell phone bill.
14. 1 Impossible Tshirt
15. 4 hours of internet in the Auckland Airport
16. 2 1/2 full albums on iTunes
17. 3 Chipotle Burritos
18. One of these lego sets.
19. 25, $1 coins at the US Mint (sorry the Frequent Flyer hack doesn’t’ work anymore).
20. About 10 pounds of Twizlers.
21. ~40% of a typical race entry fee
22. Almost enough for a new iPhone 5 lightning adapter.
23. One $25 gift card to any store you can think of
24. 3 poorly-thought-out domain names.
25. Education and a whole nes set of possibilities for a kid in Guatemala.

You can burn $25 on a lot of different things. Some of them will have more impact than others. You might not remember the couple of beers you spent $25 on, but $25 can change the trajectory of someone’s life.

I’m running an ultra marathon this Saturday to help raise $25,000 to build a school in Guatemala. Find out more about the race and donate here. Something as small as $25 can make a big difference.