step 12

So it’s been an age since I last checked in and that’s bad of me…I apologise.

Anyhow, through sponsored reviews I made it to the end of step 12 and now have £20 – yipppeeee!

In these tough economic times I imagine it will be hard to get through step 13 to make £40 but I will persevere.

I’ve been painting in my spare time and have opened a shop at Cafepress, which I’ll advertise on my main blog, so I hope to make some money from that.  Materials for painting have cost me nothing so far since I’ve been using up old materials.  Income so far has also been nothing.

I’m also still doing sponsored reviews for a few pounds here and there.

I’ll try to keep you posted.

so near yet so far

Step 11 is taking a bit longer than step 10 which I suppose is the point of the thing.  I’m doing ok though.

I’ve sold two books via Amazon Marketplace which, when the postage and packaging costs have been taken away, earned me £3.07; not bad for a couple of old books that were just taking up space and making the place look untidy.

Running Total: £8.07

I’ve also done another review for sponsoredreviews.com which has earned me $3.25.  I can’t add this to my total though since I don’t know what exchange rate will be applied until the money is deposited into my Paypal account early next month.

This is frustrating for me.  I need £1.93 to get to stage 12 where I can utilise the £10 offer from Egg to quickly get to stage 13.  The offer from Egg runs out at the end of the month – in 5 days time and I only need £1.93 to be able to get to the stage where it will be most profitable to take up Egg’s offer.  Still, not to worry, I will of course take advantage of Egg’s offer and put the money into something else and I’m sure another way to get to step 13 will come up.

I’ve placed a load more books and DVDs on Amazon Marketplace, which I am expecting will make me quite a bit of money if they sell.  They’re IT books which are quite expensive in the first place so can sell second hand for a lot more than a novel.  I’ve also applied for a load more reviews via sponsoredreviews.com…this is a really good way to make money during the first steps of the Double Your Way to a Million challenge.

navtejkohli.com

I’ve written about SponsoredReviews.com in the past and how you can make money from taking up opportunities therein.  Last time I visited I came across an opportunity for NavtejKohli.com and was intrigued to find out that this isn’t a company who is willing to pay for a review, but a person with many websites and presences in the world of social networking.  This post is sponsored by this person, Navtej Kohli, who is an entrepreneur and philanthropist.

It struck me that while my knowledge of English is fairly good I had no idea what a philanthropist was, perhaps it’s some way to make a load of money…something I should be interested in maybe?

No, quite the opposite, a philanthropist, according to Wikipedia is:

someone who devotes his or her time, money, or effort towards helping others. The label is most often applied to someone who gives large amounts to charity.

If you want to learn more about this person and his charitable works you can check him out at the various sites below:

http://navtejkohli.wordpress.com/

http://digg.com/users/navtejkohli/profile

http://www.facebook.com/p/Navtej_Kohli/640127326

http://www.linkedin.com/in/navtejkohli

http://www.laflash.org/forum/member.php?u=1840

http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile?show=o80G0oVYaa

http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=bE18R7IzQlkX-l71TsS2fg

http://www.facebook.com/p/Navtej_Kohli/640127326

http://rollyo.com/navtej_kohli/

http://www.seomoz.org/users/view/28165

step 10 completed – cooking with gas now

So, today I completed step 10 with another under-priced packet of mints and under-priced chocolate bar from the vending machine.

I have £5.04 and have decided to start playing by the rules now so will take the 4p and ‘get myself something nice with it!’ and start step 11 with £5.

Now I need to utilise that £5 to make £10…that exact £5 that I have sitting in my drawer…hmmm what to do with it I wonder.

correction

Yesterday my maths were a bit off and I really only had £4.74 rather than £4.84.  The good news is that the canteen price of a packet of mints still hasn’t be fixed and I got an extra 5p change from the vending machine again so I’m up 15p on that £4.74, making a grand total of £4.89.

Things are starting to take off now.  I have yet to take advantage of the generous offer from Egg and need to spend some time thinking about a few other projects I have had ideas about…I’ve still got all those books to sell, which I think might be candidates for 1p sales in Amazon Marketplace, and I have had an idea about selling photography…I’m not great at taking pictures but with a bit of practice I’m sure our camera is up to the job and we live in a beautiful area with loads to photograph.  I’ve also had a look around the web to see what sort of photos are commanding a price and they really are very basic…whether people buy them or not is another matter although I read somewhere (can’t remember where…sorry) that people will buy fresh air if it’s up for sale!

undecided

So, as promised here is the breakdown of how I came to be at the middle of step 10…

The canteen at work has a new lackie who doesn’t seem to have clocked that a packet of softmints should cost more than 25p so I’m up by 20p for two packets of softmints…which I would have bought anyway.

The rest of the money came from sponsoredreviews.com which you might recall I applied to a few days ago.  I was accepted as a reviewer and set about browsing the list of opportunities.  There were 11 pages of opportunities, most of them SEO or money making sites, but I found a few that I thought wouldn’t be too far out of keeping with my chosen blog.  I ended up applying to 8 advertisers and was accepted by 2 of them…Littermaid Litter Trays and MyFitnessPal.com (just to give them a bit of extra free linkage).

Writing the reviews took me an age and, on reflection I should have asked for more money than the $5 each they paid me….because I like to write a quality post and not just have a post full of links to satisfy their requirements.  Anyhow, lesson learned and I have now upped my charge to $10 per post which I think is more reasonable.  I have £3.19 in my paypal account from the 2 reviews though so quite successful in terms of what I’m trying to achieve…I’ll definitely be returning to this one.

So, at the end of all that I have £4.84 (I think my maths are correct).  Here’s the possibly contentious part…I’m not going to follow the rule in the early stages that says I should take the profit out and spend it because it’s been hard to get to this point.  Instead I’m going to keep the money as part of my doubling funds.  Lambast me if you want!

I called my post ‘undecided’ and by that I refer to the fact that I’ve had an email this morning from Egg, with whom I have an Egg Money credit card.  They are offering me £10 to my account if I add a non-egg account to my Egg Money Manager.  No question about whether I will take them up on the opportunity…I just don’t know if this could qualify as doubling money since I took out this card a long time ago to make money for a different purpose.  I may have to battle with myself here because the extra £10 would help take me to the middle of step 12, with a bit more money to get started on the things that would really help fulfil my goal.

onwards and upwards – step 9 completed

Following a rather successful day yesterday I’ve managed to complete step 9.  I don’t have the exact figures yet but I know that I’m definately past the £2.56 stage…I’ll post more when I have the exact figure.

tuppence for me!

My husband brought me back 2p from his trip to the shops on Saturday…he found it on the pavement…that makes £1.35.

another 5p

Well, it seems today is a good doubling day…I went to the vending maching to get a chocolate bar and the machine gave me more change than I should have got so I’m up 5p.

Total to date: £1.33

step 8 completed

I’ve reached the end of step 8 now.  I found some money in the bottom of my drawer at work that had long been forgotten so I added that to my total and now have exactly £1.28 in my tub.

It’s tempting the spend the money when I run out of spare change for a bag of crisps.  I’ll need to find some other place to keep it.

Step 9 is to double that money to £2.56…I think I may have a way to leap frog quite a few steps.  Years ago I bought a warehouse lot of books from eBay and didn’t try very hard to sell them on…going to get working on that this week.  I paid £50 for them and they are apparently worth ten times that much – yes I’m a sucker – so I need to find an atractive way to sell them to maximise the returns.