Step 14 - Part 1

Step: Turn $80 into $160

January 28, 2008: Carryover of $4.65 from the sale of two gift cards.

Amount: $84.65

Step 13 - $40 to $80 - Complete

January 28, 2008: The carryover from the sale of the two gift cards makes this step complete with additional carryover.
Amount: $80.00

Carryover to next step: $4.65

Step 12 - Turn $20 into $40

January 28, 2008: Sold a couple of $40 circuit city gift cards for $60 total.$40.00


Carryover to the next step = $44.65

Article - Why Don't People Finish?

This was a previous 'thought' in one of my Step 12 posts, but I feel the need to expand on this. Mr Goldsmith created a nice little frenzy with his report. People still find it every day and get on the bandwagon. They start blogs, much like this one, and excitedly climb the first few steps. The excitement build when they quickly blow through the first 4 or 5 steps. "This is easy" they think. True enough at the beginning levels. Something starts to happen around step 10 or 11, however. Simply finding a penny on the street no longer moves them significantly towards their goal. The goal at step 10 is to turn $5 into $10. Seemingly an easy enough task. But while finding a penny at step 1 moves you instantly to step 2. you would need to find some 500 pennies to move you from step 10 to 11. 500 times the effort. So that particular way of adding to the pot is no longer efficient. From there, it is up to the doubler to discover or create a new way to double their cash. From here, its sign up to read emails, or pay to click on ads or something of that nature. While this may get you to the next step or so, it quickly runs out of efficiency. Most people give up around this point. Is it any harder to turn $20 into $40 than it is to turn a nickel into a dime? Sure it is. But then again it isn't. The complexity comes not from doubling the money, but from the effort and energy involved in doing it.

People do not mind doing something if it means not changing routine or putting any serious effort into it. It takes brain power and some time to turn $20 into $40. When it comes to putting effort into the project, people begin to question the effort/payoff ratio. If I spend 20 hours turning $20 into $40, I made a dollar an hour. Given they had to take time out of their normal routine and spend 20 of their precious freetime hours doing something that only returned a dollar per hour, most people say 'screw it' and drop the project.

Keep in mind as you work on your project, that what seems inefficient now is still helping you. The middle steps deal with a small amount of money, and its hard to find good real investments that will help you. You are also already past the step where you can panhandle a significant amount of a step too. Stick with it and you will find money all over.

Step 12 - Turn $20 into $40

January 27, 2008: Added another 1.67 I had of pocket change.
Amount: $24.65

Step 12 - Turn $20 into $40

January 8, 2008: The last $1 carried over from the last step is now added to the pot, this will bring my new total to $21.
Amount: $21.00


January 9, 2008: Added .84 to the pot. .12 found money and .72 pocket change.
Amount: $21.84


January 11, 2008: Found .55 on the apt floor after guests left. Maybe I should invite them over more often.
Amount: $22.39

January 12, 2008: Added .49 pocket change.
Amount: $22.88

January 13, 2008: Found .10 on the ground.
Amount: $22.98


Thoughts:
Now, in addition to adding pocket change and found money, it is time to start figuring out how to invest the money and let it double.

Lets look at our options. We can invest it, loan it out for interest, purchase something and resell it.

Option 1: Invest - probably the safest way, but then not the most efficient at doubling as it takes a while. Unless we can find some great investment. My goal is to double this in a week or two.

Option 2: Loan it out - possibly a faster doubling than investing, but higher risk. Without collateral, you need a lot of trust in the person.

Option 3: Purchase and resell. The most likely way to double efficiently. I'll look into that.


How to do it: still grabbing loose change and adding pocket change.

Step 11 Turn $10 into $20

January 5, 2008:
The rest of the coin jar I found is now added to the stake, giving me $16.63 total.

Amount: $16.63


January 8, 2008:
The rest of my pocket change translates to another $4.37

I will add the $3.37 to complete the step and carryover the last $1 to the next step.

Amount: $20.00

How to do it: add pocket change periodically.

Step 9 - Step 10

January 4, 2008: Found a quarter at work.

Amount: $3.06

January 5, 2008: During a hefty apartment cleaning discovered a jar of coins. The amount in the jar will send me into step 11. Inside was $13.57. Nice find. I will first scale the stake down to the max for step 10 for the blog's sake and readd the rest in the next step.

Amount: $10.00






How to do it: Still keeping an eye out for change wherever it may be.