Made It To £ 4.00

Originally posted 2nd May 2007 

Well I didn’t just make the 10p I needed to make it to the next stage, I actually ended up £ 1.30 in profit. I’m being disciplined though. Yes I could include £ 1.20 as part of the next stage thus giving me £ 5.20… yet this is not how the Stuart Goldsmith report says you should deal with any excess. He explicitly states that such monies be treated as separate and spent on yourself. I suppose the logic is so that when you start making the serious money, the excess tides you over whilst you are focusing on the core efforts.Anyway, how did I do this? Well, I sold all four of the books I placed on Ebay. It’s just taken me a little while to get the monies through, things sent and so on, thus the 10 days delay since the last post.Lessons learnt: be far more prudent in postage costing and allow for not just Ebay fees but also Paypal fees. If it hadn’t been for these issues I would have made over £ 4.00 in profit. I was too keen at the outset to make my sales more attractive at the expense of what I could have realistically got anyway. So, now I need to decide how to attempt to get to £ 8.00. I have a number of ideas which I explain in a later post.

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Every Little Bit Counts

Originally posted 19th April 2007 

Just a quick update. All items as mentioned in one of my previous posts have been listed on Ebay. One has a bid and another has a few people watching. This is obviously promising. Roll on Sunday.Meanwhile I found 1p in the street today. Whilst not a doubling changing amount in any real sense I felt chuffed to come across it as I wasn’t even looking. It was just there! Nice little piece of syncronicity and fate giving me a nod of acknowledgement that things are cooking.

Very promising all told and sorry for sounding like an Asda advert!

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The Grand National

Originally posted 16th April 2007 

Well perhaps not Doubling Method strictly speaking, yet money related none the less.

I placed my first ever bet on anything ever this Saturday just passed. It was only for £ 5.00 and I was watching the build up to the race and decided why not? Now I’m by no stretch of the imagination the kind of person who would feel comfortable in the environs of a betting shop, so made the bet online in about 5 minutes flat….. on Liberthine. Something about a horse named after a word implying ‘thinking for oneselves and being outside of the system’ appealed to me, as did the fact it was being rode by an ‘amatuer’ yet despite this had promising form… seemed right. It was not a favourite and I hate being sheep like; picking something just because everybody else has picked some thing is not my philosophy. Anyway, it was 33-1. I stood to win £ 170.00. Let’s just say that two thirds of the way into the race it was the leading horse. Ok, it finished 5th in the end, but I must say, my heart rate was rapid and I was so exited, especially when it was leading. It felt brilliant.

So, whilst I did not win £ 170.00, I only lost a fiver…. and considering how brilliant and exited it made me feel it was worth every god damn penny. And considering it was my first ever bet to pick the 5th place horse out of 38 starters isn’t bad. Roll on next years National when I will be placing my second ever bet.

Just wanted to share that with you.

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Ebay Here I Come

Originally posted 15th april 2007 

Well, as I said in my last post bar one, just 11p needing to reach the next step. Easy. I’ve decided to take a leaf out of my parents book and buy and sell on Ebay. They make between £ 2,000 and £ 3,000 a year selling collectables on the site and I’ve picked up some wisdom from them over the last few years. The weekend will come and invariably you’ll find them at some car boot sale or other. I’ve myself picked up a few things in the past, such as a medicinal book from the 1800’s which I picked up for no more than 50p yet sold for a fiver. The thing about car boot sales and similar is that people often sell things which they are clueless as to what they could really get for them.

Now I don’t run a car at the moment so I’m restricted to things in town, jumble sales, charity shops and so on, or car boot sales within say an hours walking distance. Yes I could catch a train or bus and likely will in later steps as the stake grows, yet at this early stage do not feel it wise to incur any travel expenses.

After a certain amount of online searching I discovered that a local church just 10 minutes walk from me has a weekly sale for their restoration appeal. Actually there is some nice syncronicity here as the church was All Saints, which is part of the Archbishop’s Palace complex (refer to earlier post; re – looking for first coin).

Any excuse for a picture to make a Blog look nicer… the Archbishop’s Palace as below (Picture pasted originally – to be rectified soon)

So there I was yesterday morning, back down the Medway, gorgeous weather, and to church. Makes a change from weddings and funerals I guess, and it felt nice to be in a building somewhere different from normal, which is something I’m expecting to increase as the steps progress. New places, new people. It can be too easy sometimes to find yourself living life and going nowhere new; ie – the same shops, same routes, same venues etc.

Now the sale was actually pretty small and behind the wooden area designated for their little cafe. I missed it at first. Anyway, there were only 2 stalls. Barely anything at all, yet I still had a feeling about it, so looked through the books for sale. I’m glad I did. For £ 1.70 I picked up 4 books which I intend to put on Ebay this afternoon, Sunday afternoon being one of the busiest times on Ebay. The books are:-

The Penguin Ronald Searle 1960 First Edition
Green Pharmacy, the History of Medicinal Plants – Barbera Griggs
AA Book of The Seaside 1972 First Edition
Voyaging Under Sail – Eric C Hiscock Second Edition

I am reasonably confident that between them I’ll make up what I spent, the cost of placing them, and the 11p I need to reach the next step. Actually I expect to have some left over which by Stuart’s Goldsmith’s strict instructions I must keep separate. The temptation will of course be to use any excess as an increased head start for the next step, but as of yet I’m determined to do things properly.

Oh, and I’ve decided not to necessarilly wait for Google to catch up; re – adsense. I can sort that as I go along. Also from reading some of your own posts in Blogs outside of my own, there are somewhat more options than just adsense. If any of you fancy placing a bid on the items once I’ve listed them (I’ll start doing so at at 2.30pm) then in Ebay Community search on ‘djvickyvwgolfs’ ‘items for sale’. You’ll find them there.

I think that was about it … peace.

Resulting Kitty: £ 2.19 cash + £ 1.70 books/goods for sale = £ 3.89

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Unexpected £ 1.89 Tax Credit Increase

Originally posted 12th April 2007 

The post title says it all. I’d not given any thought at all to the fact that a new financial year had started, meaning that when I checked my bank account the most recent payment was for £ 1.89 more than normal. Obviously I can only use this money on this one occasion as bar this first time it can’t under any stretch of the imagination be classed as unexpected.So, most excellent. I’m up to £ 3.89. Just 11p shy of the next step.

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£ 0 – 2: Steps One And Two & INTRODUCTION

Originally posted 10th April 2007 

A few weeks ago when I first returned to pursuing the doubling method I decided that the obvious first step was to just get out there and find the first one pound coin as soon as possible. I decided to actively look for one instead of waiting to come across a coin whilst dealing with other daily matters. This was my choice as I was keen to get started and see quick progress. I personally felt I would quickly loose interest and enthusiasm by finding smaller coins here and there solely as I went along. I needed a quick first hit in order to stimulate me.

So earlier this week, Monday morning to be precise, I ventured out with this in mind. I left my flat just after sunrise at 6.15am and headed towards the town centre. My plan being to check phone boxes, car park machines, and the areas around them for left over coins. I reasoned that these would be the best spots in mind of where people tend to fumble around for cash. I chose sunrise as the best time to go out as doing this with lots of people around would have made me feel poor, embarrassed, and like a tramp who perhaps might think of the same idea to get cash.

Living in Maidstone, and checking in each phone box as I passed, I first checked the machine at Maidstone West train station, then connected through to the Lockmeadow Cinema and Leisure complex for their car park machines. From there I walked into town, down the Medway footpath past the Archbishop’s Palace. It was very beautiful around there, it felt very fresh and crisp due to the time of day and the palace had an ethereal quality that made it seem, unlike the freshness of the morning, quite ancient. Above the adjoining park the starlings were moving as one mass which is always stunning to watch, like they are connected telepathically.

The town centre itself felt surreal at that time of day: no crowds, no people. Just empty, poised, energised and ready for use, kind of like that Stephen King book / film called the Langoliers; where at the end the characters return to L.A airport 3 minutes ahead of ‘time’. I made my way up to Sainsbury’s and the bus station, yet what I was increasingly finding was that no coins were turning up. The floor of the bus station was being washed and any coins that had been left would have been picked up by the cleaners. One thing I very much sensed whilst looking was a self consciousness.

The UK has apparently the most CCTV cameras per members of the population in the world and I can easily believe it. I don’t normally even notice them and know perfectly well the psychology of fear and control that lies behind many of them. Read Orwell’s’ 1984 in a allegorical sense and bingo, you have how things are. I don’t normally notice them on account of knowing this, and also knowing that as long as one outwardly appears to act ‘normally’ then you are visible yet invisible on account of the fact you blend in. This is a sense I normally enjoy, that you can be more subversive on account of how you ‘think’ and what you ‘know’, which to a CCTV camera is invisible. A CCTV camera for instance cannot pick up someone who’s discovered the law of attraction, or that knows and understands the real source of power from inside, or that knows what the truth and the lie alludes to.

I digress. My point is, that checking car park machines and phone boxes at sunrise is something that is very suspicious looking. You become visible and this made me feel uncomfortable. Therefore on account of how actively looking for coins will make you feel poor for the act itself, combined with the feeling of being suspect to CCTV cameras… well, I would not recommend actively looking for the coins. You do indeed have to come across them in the course of your normal business, which requires patience.

Walking home, feeling disappointed I then gave some thought to when I’d found the 2 x £ 1 coins in the past, on the train and in the communal car park. I never took it any further then so would it be right to put in £ 2 of my own money to get me started, £ 2 that would represent this money from the past. On the one hand I argued that it would be wrong. It was money that got absorbed into my day to day finances and that therefore the £ 2 in effect no longer existed. On the other I argued the opposite. After all, what is time but space and thought. You could justify either side in any number of ways but what settled it for me was my gut feeling, my instinct….which said yes. It is always important to go with the flow and what feels right. The £ 2 did still exist otherwise my current bank balance would still remain £ 2 less than what it is. 3 years does not change this. I double checked Stuart Goldsmith’s report and time constraints were never mentioned. Why shouldn’t coins you find 3 years ago still count? I could see no reason.

As for using the very same coins I understand that this is stated in order that you learn certain lessons in relation to the law of attraction. It also makes it feel more real, solid and concrete. Yet I feel I am past this point psychologically. I already believe in the system and the lesson has already been learnt.

The moral of the story then is that it does work up to this point, it is real, but that opportunities are sometimes not obvious. As with life generally, you have to see with your mind as well as your eyes. You also have to have the ability to see that which you have already got, rather than be blind to it.

So that’s £ 2 then.