A website in the making

I have decided to make a website for this blog. I have no idea how long it will take, nor what it will exactly entail. Of course the blog will be part of it. Unfortunately, ThinAirMillionaire.com is taken so I may have to look for a different name. ThinAirMillionaire.net and all other variations are still available, however. Who knows, its just a thought process in the works.

I want to have book reviews, the blog, ideas section, product reviews, site reviews, forums, and more. It is more a repository of information for myself than anything else, but if I can parlay it into some cash for my stake, then so be it.

The light! go to the light!

I may be premature in posting this, but I believe I am seeing a light at the end of the tunnel for my financial dip. The new job, while not great pay, is steady and doing well. School is still going strong, and my graduation date is still in the first quarter of next year. It is then I hope to get a job making at least twice what I am now so I can return to my former payrate.

More recently, I have been able to pay some of these weird, sudden bills and they are now getting smaller. I have myself to pay back from the doubling fund as well, THAT is what I am excited about. Once I pay back my loans to myself I will have successfully liquidated and consolidated my funds. It is then I will be able to make larger strides once again towards the next step. Currently, I sit at $1600 in a vehicle, and roughly $200 in cash, meaning I owe myself almost $2000 in loans. It was indeed a rough year but I must say that without the doubling project, it would have been much much worse.

Onward and upward! I will celebrate the day by looking for a deal. Small or large, it matters not, the idea is to stay in the hunt!

The Doubling Bank Account

As your doubling account grows from tiny to small to slightly-larger-than-small, you may take a look at the money lying on the nightstand or in the shoebox and be tempted to spend it. What should you do with this guarded treasure? Should you open a bank account to put your money in? The answer is 'it depends.'

While stashing it away in a bank account may seem like a good idea to keep you from diving into it during a moment of weakness, you may be spending more than you are making by placing it into a bank account too early.

Banks pay interest, that is true. But at the current rate of interest at less than 1% here in the States, that is not too tantalizing. In fact, my personal bank pays a whopping .2%!!! So for every $100 I place in the bank, I will make 20 CENTS a year! WTF?!?! And they expect me to keep my money in there?

Not to mention I have to keep $5 minimum in the bank to have the account open. That is 25 YEARS worth of interest for $100 at that rate. Or the equivalent of one years interest if I place $2500 in the account for a year. Um... ok...

THEN! Lets not forget FEES! The bread and butter of the banking industry. If your account is less than $500 in my bank, they charge you a $6 monthly 'low balance' fee.
Theres another 25 years of interest per MONTH I'll be spending. Of course, once I go over $500 I do not get the fee.

As you can see, finding a place to keep your stake while it lays dormant looking for a new trade is not so simple. My advice, give it to someone to hold or just bite the bullet and discipline yourself. If you break down and spend $5 on a Subway sandwich at least you got something for yout $25 years of interest you just spent instead of buying the privilege of your money staying in a bank so they can make 25 TIMES that in interest on a new car loan.

I can't wait until I have enough to start my own bank...

My first attempt at a tutorial

Last night, I burned the midnight oil as I began creating a tutorial for how to get to at least step 20. It was actually quite fun. Once I got started, I just kept going. I posted the majority of it on my favorite doubling forum, The Doublers Den. Even though it is the only steady forum I have come across for doubling, it would still be my favorite as the group there is awesome.

So far the tutorial only gets you to $4000. That is where I am at the moment, technically speaking. As I think and create the next step, it will be a guide for me to follow. I find it very easy to see how to traverse each step looking backwards, but remember that each step felt as daunting as this one as I reached it. Maybe that is the point. Maybe not. I just know that it is fun and I enjoy doing it.

Once I tweak the tutorial enough I may attempt to make it a product. Or give it away. I am torn about that. I am abhorred by the lack of REAL, LEGITIMATE information out there on how to make money, but also understand that selling information is a great way to make money and would like to get a share of that.

I hope in the future, all information is free and true. Fat chance I know, but it is nice to hope for.

The 10% Rule

During my time playing the doubling game, I have run my ups and downs. Most of my success was due to a few big hitters, while I spent most of my time down, looking for ways to find my next $1 or more. While I truly enjoy my big hitters, I would love to see a nice steady stream of consistency in my trades that work towards my goals.

After much thought, I discovered that the big hitters are not rare, but common! My readiness, or motivation unfortunately is neither consistent, nor common. I found my big hitters came when I was ready and ripe for it. Usually after I had a long bout of kicking myself for being lazy. One day, I would just get sick of the feeling of stagnation and make a move, I would actually put forth the effort and LOOK for a deal.
That is when I would find one. Odd how that works, huh?

There is a quote made from Samuel Goldwyn that states 'The harder I work, the luckier I get.' My goal is to decide to get lucky a little more often. That is why the 10% rule was invented for my game. My goal is to focus on 10% at a time, until I have that licked. How is that different from my current goal of turning $2500 into $5000?
It is yet another division of the goal put forth by the originator of the doubling plan, Stuart Goldsmith.

Each step is to take the beginning amount and double it, that is, increase it 100%. By taking the 100% and subdividing it into 10 steps of 10%, that gives a nice clear goal. Plus, making a 10% goal within a specific timeline will also make things more reasonable.

Action: The rare ingredient.

No matter what you are interested in, do a Google search on your favorite subject and see how many unfinished sites there are. Now, do one on making money, or some type of money making blog. Heck, take any type of goal reaching blog. People just do not keep on moving towards their goals very often.

Its not that 98 percent of people are not smart enough to become millionaires, but that 98 percent of the people do not have the discipline to take action. It is the 2 percent that take action that make it.

Look at how many blogs there are on this subject alone. There are more than a handful. Now see how many people are past step 10, 15, or even 20. Not many. In fact, there are only two other bloggers that I know of that have made it to step 20.

So as you think about starting your doubling or moving forward with your doubling just remember that staying in action, moving forward, even slowly, is how the race is won.

Business has no emotion

I took my silver and gold in to the dealer to liquidate it today. An odd thing happened. I was really kind of sad to sell them, even more so than selling the car I have yet to do. How can I get attached to some shiny little coins? I did eventually train myself to look at most things as business when I purchase them, in reference to initial price, expected profit, max loss potential, etc.

The point is this, if it is a deal to make you money, it is just that. No emotion, no like or dislike, just the question of 'Can it make me money?' If the answer is yes then buy the deal and get it done.

New changes, good and bad.

I tend to have a hard time figuring out the value of my silver and gold coins on the fly, so I decided to add these kitco charts to my sidebar. It is an up to the minute value, whereas I originally thought it was from the close of the last trading day. This does come at an odd time as I am liquidating my coins for my newest goal of returning everything to cash to ensure my current step and totals are current.

I am also currently liquidating the car a little earlier than I had anticipated. Whether this will bring me the same or less money is yet to be seen. I had an exorbitant $1000 emergency vet bill for my dog this week. Surprise!

Logic tells me to get rid of the dog, but there are times when even I have emotional attachments. I purchased her and by doing so I implied a promise to take care of her. Plus I like her, which is surprising since I typically do NOT like animals. I bought her for my fiancee originally, but I took a severe liking to the little runt. What do you do, huh? She is now fine, and as happy as ever.

Increase your stake with savings...

I know I have gone way off the original rules of the original doubling plan, so I thought of a little bit more wacky ways to go off the plan.

From now on, whenever I save money on something, the savings goes towards the stake. So if I go shopping and find an item I NORMALLY BUY and normally pay $5 for $2.50, then $2.50 goes towards the stake. Remember, it has to be something I was going to buy anyway.

Frugal Frugal Frugal!

To be politically incorrect, my friends say I am the most Jewish person they know. That means they think I am cheap. Cheap? Since when is it bad to only replace something if it is broken and then try and find the best deal? I wear the badge of 'jewishness' as a medal of honor. Although I'm not Jewish, I am of Greek descent, and let me tell you, most of the Greeks I know put the Jewish sterotype to shame. By the way, the correct term is frugal.

After looking around on the net, I discovered I have no idea what frugal is compared to some people. One of the ways I spend my limited free time is to look and see what I'm not doing that other people are in the ways of frugal. Is it possible to be frugal and still live well? To use that cash to build a million dollar income? I say YES, most definitely.

Oh money, how I save thee, let me count the ways... Onward to frugalness!!!

Losing an income source

It happens to us all at some point. I am becoming accustomed to losing jobs, it seems to be the trend nowadays, but sadly I have lost one of my major income flows in the game. I had a vending machine at one of my locations that made an enormous amount of money for the time involved. So much so that the owner of the business that hosted the machine decided he wanted it all for himself. I have lost that portion of the location. I am thinking about liquidating the rest of the location and moving that money to the account as part of my liquidation plan. I really should as I finally got a new job and it looks as though it will interfere with the time slots I had to go and deal with that location anyway.

I will let you know how that goes.

A trip back to liquidity - and reality.

After working at this game off and on for almost two and a half years, I have discovered I have strayed from my original plan. At this point, I should have $3800 or so dollars in cash. I do not. I do have a few assets such as some gold and silver, a car, and a few vending machines. But they are not cumulatively worth $3800. I believe if I could liquidate them all I may come up with is around $2200. Where did the other $1600 go? Loans. I had to loan myself some cash to get through a major tough time. And it is still not over... Gotta love the economy, huh?

The good news is this project has taught me how to be frugal and take practically make money from nothing in small amounts. So what to do, what to do? While I make my way through this time, I will freeze my step at 20. I am going to liquidate my assets to pull myself from this mess and begin again on this awesome journey.

Hang tight and I will blog my personal BAILOUT and recovery since it seems the hip thing to do.

In this continuation of the journey I plan on attempting to tackle some of those money making ventures I have drafted out. I want to blog my frugal methods and attempt to calculate the savings towards the stake. All in all I expect to see this grow at a speed much faster than before.
Til next!

Quick Deal for 70%

I found a great deal in a local used DVD/game shop. My girlfriend found a TV series on DVD for $17. We bought it and placed it on half.com. After about a week, it sold for $38. Not a bad deal for relatively no effort. After commissions it was about a $14 profit.