A California woman now owns an $80,000 home after trading items for increasingly more expensive items, starting with just a hairpin.
Demi Skipper, 30, announced on TikTok in May 2020 her plan to trade up items until she ended up with a house. She succeeded in her mission just one day after Thanksgiving.
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"I'm trading a bobby pin up until I get a house," Skipper said in the TikTok announcement of her "Trade Me Project." "If you think I'm crazy, in 2006 someone traded a red paperclip up until they got a house. So let's do it."
Skipper said she had her new house appraised at $80,000, adding, “It has two bedrooms and one bathroom, as well as a giant backyard.”
Some of the items Skipper traded included a diamond necklace, an Apple TV, and a Peloton bike. It only took her 28 trades to get the house, according to Skipper's TikTok.
Skipper said she used eBay, Craigslist, and Facebook to market and conduct her trades. She said she first traded the pin for some cheap earrings, then four margarita glasses, then a vacuum cleaner. She finally traded a trailer equipped with a Tesla Powerwall 2 for the house.
“For this first trade, I went to several Facebook groups and posted that I was hoping to find a trade for a single bobby pin until I got a house,” Skipper told the New York Post. “After many rejections, I finally found Abbie, who offered me a pair of earrings she got for her birthday as long as I invited her to the house in the end.”
Skipper gained more than 5 million TikTok followers as news of the Trade Me Project spread far and wide.
“I can’t believe this,” she said on TikTok upon seeing her new home. “A year and a half of trading a single bobby pin until I get a house, and I’ve done it. And look at it — this just shows you it’s possible!”
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“I will be renovating the house and trading the house to someone who really needs it for a bobby pin," Skipper explained. "From there, I will start again.”