Step Two Finito

I did not win the Lotto on Wednesday but I still have a ticket for the Euromillions draw tonight. the odds of winning significant amount are so long that I don't know why I bother. On the plus side, I was able to complete step two in half the allotted time although for step 3 there won't be all that much rolled over. I'll be getting on Yahoo Answers tonight for some suggestions and look forward to a weekend sorting my car out. I expect I'll begin step 3 on Monday.

Starting Roll: £459
Petrol: - £2
Day's Work: + £50.50
Current Roll: £507.50

And of course the Fed did make it through to Sunday's final and is looking in pretty decent form. Murray's gonna have his work cut out if he wants his first major this weekend.

Scrapyards and Ebay

That is where I'll be spending my weekend. A mechanic friend who I visited today told me that there is no way of me refitting the spare tyre so I will have to get a new one. Bummer! I didn't have a great day at work either - my computer crashed during the afternoon and when IT support fixed it I had a complete mental block and could not remember my password for the life of me. Perhaps I am going senile at 25! Still almost the end of the week and in fact it's pay day tomorrow.

Starting Roll: £410.50
Petrol: - £2
Day's Work: + £50.50
Current Roll: £459

This gives me 6 days to earn £41. Congrats to Muzza for reaching his second grand slam final - all eyes on Federer tomorrow in the semis.

The expense of having a car

Today was a better day although I was unable to take my car for an MOT as I couldn't get my spare wheel back in cradle under the car where it normally sits. I'll give it another crack tomorrow morning as time is ticking for me to get it sorted. When eventually I do, it will cost me £50 which I feel I should add to my expenditure along with the cost of road tax which is also due at the end of the month. Alas, owning a car is a bit of money dragger but in all honesty, for me also a necessity.

I bought a couple of lottery tickets today as I'm feeling pretty lucky. Also, when I pay my road tax, I notice that I will be automatically entered into a prize draw for a new Seat Ibiza. Needless to say I don't intend on getting my hopes up of winning either.

Starting Roll: £365
Petrol: - £2
Lottery Tickets: - £3
Day's Work: + £50.50
Current Roll: £410.50

Thus leaving me 7 days to make £89.50. Back to tennis and Federer managed to make it through to the semis - he always does. Murray up tomorrow against the tricky Cilic - fingers crossed for him (and on the lottery numbers!)

Miserable Day

Yes a bit of a dour day today as the post title hints. Another bad poker session has led me to decide on not playing poker on wednesdays, again simply due to the fatigue factor. I've also had problems with the car. With an MOT due, I am having a mini crisis as my spare wheel is not particularly roadworthy. I won't go into details but my plan to take the MOT tomorrow is now in serious jeopardy. And to top it all off it is bloody cold.

Starting Roll: £331.50
Petrol: - £2
Poker Session: - £15
Day's Work: + £50.50
Current Roll: £365

Leaving me 8 days to patch together £135. The only upside from today was Andy Murray getting through to the Aussie Open Semis.

Step Two

Ok round two here we go. £500 is the target and I've got 10 days to make it. My weekend was fairly unproductive - applied for another job, began preparing the car for an MOT, played a little more poker. Also finally got round to watching Slumdog Millionaire. Thought it was quite touching.

Anyway Yahoo Answers weren't much help to be honest - the number one suggestion appears to be to sell stuff on Ebay or Craigslist. This would be fine if I had much stuff to sell. Fortunately for me, I fancy my chances of working my way to the next step and it helps that I finally managed to trun around my bad streak at poker this weekend.

Starting Roll: £295
Petrol: - £2
Poker Session: - £12
Day's Work: + £50.50
Current Roll: £331.50

So that's just another £168.50 to go in 9 more days. Oh yeah, one final thing - I've decided not to play on Thursdays or Fridays as my knackereredness towards the end of the working week does seem to affect my play.

Step One (Now) Complete

Hooray, no mucking about this time - job done. And with three days left to spare. I'm thinking of starting step two on Monday which will give me the weekend to chill out and maybe get some money-making ideas together.

My mate SG has agreed to join me in this challenge - however, as his job is substantially better paid, he will join me at £2ooo on step 5 (should I get there).

Starting Roll: £246.50
Petrol: - £2
Day's Work: + £50.50
Current Roll: £295

Another way that I am breaking the original rules of the Doubling To A Million Challenge will be by allowing myself to carry some money over onto the next steps. Therefore I will trying to turn £295 into £500 in 10 days.

Day Three

Aargh, this post was meant to be titled Step One Complete! but it looks like my poker exploits have forced me to delay for at least another day. I was looking forward to blogging how pleased I was at completing the first step with more than half the allotted time remaining but hey ho - this challenge was never going to be straightforward.

A word on my poker sessions: I have been running extremely badly of late but my statistics still say that overall I am earning around £25 an hour from playing - thats more than 3 times my current salary earnings so I think it will be worthwhile continuing despite recent setbacks.

Starting Roll: £209
Petrol: - £2
Poker Session: -£11
Day's Work: + £50.50
Current Roll: £246.50

That gives me 4 days to earn £3.50. Should do that by 10am tomorrow. On a side note, the snow never came and hopefully won't come now until the end of the year.

Day Two

Although I am currently in a stable job that should see me through the first few steps, I should probably use this opportunity to look ahead to how I will complete some of the later ones as my current earnings will not achieve those targets. I have options to do overtime, I generally earn more than I lose at online poker and i suppose i could do some odd jobs at lunchtime and at the weekends. But to make a million, realistically I suspect there will need to be a certain amount of entrepreneurship involved.

For the meantime, another day at work, another jump closer to completing step one:

Starting Roll: £167.50
Petrol: - £2
Poker Session: - £7
Work: +£50.50
Current Roll: £209

So that means 5 days left to make an extra £41

If you hadn't guessed already, I live in the UK which is why I am dealing in pounds. We are expecting some proper heavy snow tomorrow which might affect work.

Day One

Well it might be an idea to start day one on the road to a million to tell a bit about myself. I am in my mid twentys and I currently work as a customer service advisor. Its a boring job and one I've been meaning to leave for a while. But whilst I am in a job, I may as well use it to breeze through the opening steps.

Now I know that I only get paid at the end of the month but I can roughly calculate the amount I earn in a day's work along with with my expenditure (in this case the petrol needed to transport me to work). I have also tried to enlist the help of the oracle-like community that is Yahoo Answers in my quest. However my opening question of how to make 125 pounds in one week received exactly zero answers. Maybe it was a silly question.

Anyway, Day one has been a bit like this:

Starting Roll: £125
Petrol: - £2
Day's Work + £50.50
Poker Session - £6
Current Roll: £167.50

So i still have six days to make £82.50. Should be achievable.

The Challenge

I - like a lot of other people out there - want to make a million. I have no idea how I'm going to do it but I thought I would make a game out of it and blog my efforts to the world on the small off-chance that I pull it off. After sifting through a number of pyramid type schemes and get rich quick systems, I came across the Double Your Way To A Million report by Stuart Goldsmith. Here is an example link:

Doubling Your Way To A Million

Although it does not tell you how to make a million, it is a system that makes this goal seem achievable - the idea being to find 1 cent and then attempt to double it 28 times. This in turn has inspired a number of like-minded optimists to take on the challenge and create blogs documenting their trials and tribulations. Here are a couple that inspired me to get started, they are well worth a look:

Doubling To A Million Plan
Doublng Challenge

Now the above bloggers have decided to stick to the rules of the original report - I, however, am only interested in making a million and I care not by which method I use. But perhaps the point about setting targets will be useful so I am setting out the following steps to aim for:

Step 1: £125 to £250 - 1 week
Step 2: £250 to £500 - 10 days
Step 3: £500 to £1000 - 2 weeks
Step 4: £1000 to £2000 - 3 weeks
Step 5: £2000 to £4000 - 1 month
Step 6: £4000 to £8000 - 2 months
Step 7: £8000 to £16000 - 3 months
Step 8: £16000 to £32000 - 4 months
Step 9: £32000 to £64000 - 5 months
Step 10: £64000 to £125000 - 6 months
Step 11: £125000 to £250000 - 8 months
Step 12: £250k to £500k - 10 months
Step 13: £500k to 1 million! - 1 year

As you can see, i am giving myself a longer timescale to complete each step as the difficulty will increase. I am also starting on £125 rather than with absolutely nothing to save a lot of time and cut down the steps.

Well, I have no idea how successful this will be but I think a challenge is a good motivator so lets see what happens. And if you come accross this blog and want to share your own experiences or give advice then please feel free!

Let the challenge begin!