A Long Overdue Update

OK so I've been a little slack with my posts recently. In fact I see my last one was almost a year ago! I haven't given up my goal but I have been very busy this past year and as you may've noticed from the most recent posts, the timescales were getting increasingly difficult to achieve. Here is the original schedule I drew up:


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 see, before I left off I was on step 5. But i admit I haven't achieved the targets as originally planned above (if i had I would have been on around £32k by now). So what have I been up to? Well a month after my last post, I actually got a promotion at work. This was both welcome and unexpected and has helped my finances a fair bit although it has resulted me being a lot more tired at the end of every day. I have also put an offer in for a house that was accepted and then fell through at the last minute due to a higher bid. Meanwhile, the business plan that I had mentioned before has yet to take off but there have been steps of progress.

For the final 9 steps, I think it would be wise to increase the timescales a tad and I hope to draw up a new plan shortly. In the meantime, let's have a rough indication of my challenge progress over the last year:

Starting Roll: £2046.23
Return on Shares: + £890
Couple of Months Work: + £2550
Petrol + Car Maintenance: - £1100
House Offer Falling Through: - £140
Finishing Roll: £4246.23

Work coupled with overtime is the main driving force but I have had success with investing in shares recently which I hope to continue.

Finally, despite the falling away of both my and other doublers' blogs, it's great to see that the DTAMP blog is still growing strong. Perhaps the best and most interesting to read of all the doubling challenges, it is well worth a visit.

End Of Week Madness

I am writing my post now before a gauntlet of a run-in to the end of the week. The last couple of days have been relatively hectic too. For the first time in a while, my head is a little bit all over the place and I seem to have lost my drive and focus. I think when embarking on a challenge such as this one, being focussed is perhaps one of the most important assets. It could be that I am beginning to get fed up of the cold weather and or the busyness at work. It has got progressively worse and in fact for tomorrow, we will be roping in people from other teams to help out with our workload.

Talking of which, I am doing overtime tomorrow - working until 7-30pm which will be knackering. Then Friday is a night out with mates. There's a birthday bash on Saturday and finally Mother's Day on Sunday. Perhaps all I need is a little break! Apart from that, there is not much to report other than that I've finally got around to buying a sat nav and congrats to Arsenal on last night's thrashing of Porto!

A Long British Winter

Greetings from a library computer during my lunch break. This is where I must retreat to for internet access as my workplace does not allow us to use the computers during lunch. A little bit silly if you ask me. On a positive note though, I am preferring these lunchtime posts as I am a little bit more awake. Awake despite the double glass measure of sherry I had last night for ... absolutely no good reason that I can think of other than it seeming like a good idea at the time.

Yesterday I actually got my head down and did some serious work on my business website. I am very nearly in a position to buy the domain but there is still one nagging problem that I must overcome - I'll keep this particular problem to myself. Other than that, the weekend was not particularly productive - I have not yet informed my mate that we are about to embark on step 5 of the millionaire challenge and I have still not yet decided whether ot not to transfer my poker account to Perpetuum as yet.

For the time being I am content to worry about two things - my workload which is very busy and quite frankly something I am not looking forward to returning to in 15 minutes time; and also the weather which is even worse. This might very well be the coldest day of the year so far and it is March - we are meant to be in Spring. It is very sunny though - I may start wearing sunglasses if it stays like this.

Finally, congrats to The Hurt Locker which managed to overcome the Avatar juggernaut along with indie favourite Tarantino at last night's Oscars. Although I haven't seen any of the nominated films as yet, the one I've heard the best reviews for was Up. Here's hoping that one day an animated feature will take down the big prize.

Job Done

After my musings of previous posts, I decided to post a bit earlier in the day, when my brain is a little more kosha and I am not struggling to remember what I did 5 minutes ago.

Starting Roll: £1960.73
Petrol - £2
Work Colleague's Birthday: - £3
Day's Work: + £50.50
Finishing Roll: £2046.23

That was the action on Friday. And that conculdes the tricky step four. I think I'll have a short break before attempting the climb up what appears to be the insurmountable step five. One of my mates previously said he would join me on this step - I'll have to see if he's still up for it. For the time being I'll reduce my postings from 4 to 3-a-week, basically every alternating day.

Today has not been productive so far. I've spent the morning wondering whether Perpetuum Poker has enough action for me to migrate to. Still undecided. Perhaps I'll also make an outing to pick up a sat nav later today. most of my weekend though, I do hope to spend working on designing a website for the business. By my next post, I hope I'll have got this done!

Almost there

And surprisingly with a couple of days to spare. Work has been busy of late, the weather's still not picked up and I've still got a few dermatological issues but I've got a busy period ahead. I suppose the major thing I have to look forward to is a trip to Japan at the beginning of April. Before then, we have a couple of nights out with work colleagues, including an evening ice skating (!) - better get practicing. Also, there's a couple of night outs with mates this month.

Amongst all that I hope to take my business to the next level - in all honesty this weekend looks like being one of my few free ones and so would be the perfect opportunity to get my head down and working on it. I am also gonna have to turn down an offer of a trip to France with friends because I really cannot afford it time or cashwise. That's not forgetting too that I need to find a spare wheel from somewhere for my car.

Starting Roll: £1868.73
Petrol: - £4
Colleague's Retirement Gift: - £5
2 x Day's Work: + £101
Current Roll: £1960.73

But of course, let's take it one step at a time. Let's finish off the business in hand and get to £2000 before Sunday. It looks as though I've been let back in to the overtime circle at work - ironic really, now that I probably won't need it!

Poker Saves The Day

I was thinking today about how I should write my posts in the morning rather than after work in the evening. I woke up this morning and everything in my head was clear regarding what I had done the past few days and my plans for the rest of the week. After 8+ hours at work, the brain starts to clam up a little. Anyway I'll try my best.

On Sunday, I found a poker site called Perpetuum Poker that might be suitable for moving to - I will monitor it to see if there is enough action. However, as if by fate, this prompted a remarkable turnaround in my poker fortunes that very well may have saved step 4 just as it was facing oblivion. It was really needed - going through my emails at work, I realised that we haven't been told about overtime for over a month even though I know full well they are going on. This added to the fact that the workload is beginning to get on top of the team at the moment even with an extra staff member returning from annual leave.

I also need to be more careful with my burgeoning business - a couple of occasions now, I have left some written plans at work overnight. Not very wise. Talking of it, i am very nearly at stage 2 of the plans or perhaps stage 1b which will involve a bit of home studying. Anyway onto the stats:

Starting Roll: £1619.73
Petrol - £4
2 x Day's Work + £101
2 x Poker Sessions + £152
Current Roll: £1868.73

And all of a sudden, with 5 days still remaining, it looks as though I may very well be there. Tomorrow will be a bit of a shopping day for me - I'm looking for new shoes, trousers, some DVDs and a sat nav - I'll try and keep the spending under £80 if possible.

Onto The Final Week

Not a lot to report today. I went to the local supermarket today bacause I had read they has a special offer on the sat nav I wanted. When I got there I found the offer had expired so I cam back home. I'll have a look at another supermarket tomorrow. As for searching for alternative poker sites - I'll probably have a browse later this evening.

As for step 4 of the millionaire challenge - I am currently on £1619.73. This leaves me one week to get to 2k which is looking increasingly unlikely at this juncture. I will look to do some overtime if possible during the week and also have my usual poker sessions on Monday and Tuesday evenings and we will just have to see how it goes. My business plan is still a long way from taking off and I have some website designing to do before I can even start contacting clients or suppliers.

Here's hoping that the weather picks up a bit too - a change in weather is said to spark a change in fortunes.