Tuesday, November 13, 2007

The Goal

So what is this crazy thing I'm going to do? Like I have said, I'm going to take $20,000 and try and make it $40,000. I'm going to do this all in the span of one year. For the sake of total accuracy, I plan on doing this over 400 days. Why 400 days and not exactly one year? I'm doing this for two reasons. First, I need about a month to set some stuff up anyway and collect my thoughts. Also 400 days means I have to average a nice round $50 a day to meet my goal.

That gives me a deadline of December 18, 2008.

At this point, I'm not sure how I'm going to go about this. That is part of the fun of writing this blog. My initial idea is to venture into something I know about, and that's the stock market. Getting a double in the market in only one year is hard, very hard. It means I'm probably going to have to take some risk that I normally wouldn't. Then again, I haven't been doing so great in the market lately so maybe having a completely different strategy will do me some good. Hopefully, if this blog ever becomes popular enough, I'll be able to monetize it somehow. So if you want to help me, make sure you come back and read often.

Now to lay down some ground rules.

  1. Everything I do must be legal - kind of a no-brainer, but worth calling out explicitly

  2. If it's legal and ethical, it's fair game - No matter how crazy or stupid something might sound, if it will get me closer to my goal, I'll look into it

  3. To count toward the goal, it must be the money doing the work, not me directly - That is, I can't count anything I do at my day job toward my goal. It wouldn't be any fun if I went out and "earned" the money.

  4. I have to count any and all expenses I incur along the way against my goal - For example, I had to pay for my domain name and web space for this site. That means I'm already almost $100 in the hole.

  5. My living expenses don't count - If I had to count paying my rent against my goal, I'm not sure I would ever make it out of the hole. So for this experiment, living expenses are not deducted.


If anyone has a brilliant idea, I'm all ears.  At this point, I'm prepared to lose the entire $20,000, so if you have any idea, no matter how crazy, feel free to suggest it.

14 comments:

  1. TL ~

    Love the idea/concept!

    I know all to well the frustration about trying to find that one great idea.

    As for any suggestions...my first immediate thought was to drive to Vegas, put the 20 large on black and get this thing done.

    Otherwise, I'm going to have to scratch my head a bit to come up with something less risky.

    Regardless, I'll be thinking of some ideas.

    Cheers,

    Williams

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  2. Actually, I plan on doing some form of gambling at some point. I'm not sure I'm ready to put all 20K on black, but we are going to do something fun along the way.

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  3. Are you going to create a google gadget "Terrence's DJ status"? :-)

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  4. So when you say that the money is going to do the work and not you, I think that you need to put more parameters around that. I suppose that this means that you are not looking to start a business, correct? It seems to me that this is going to be fairly limiting. Essentially you are going to invest and/or gamble. Anything else?

    Something else you said struck me as interesting - $50 per day. Does that mean you are looking to do a lot of little (daily) deals? If over the course of the next month we come up with a brilliant idea, would you be willing to sink all $20K into it?

    Have you thought about how you will use the profits?

    Anyway, you know I think you're brilliant, so I'll be following this with great interest.

    Good Luck!
    Ivy

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  5. One more thing: where is the money now? You might as well get that $20K into a interest checking or online savings account to start with. I use HSBC and generally think that they have good rates.

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  6. That's not a bad idea Greg. I just might. I'm already trying to work on a wordpress plugin so that I can update it more easily on this website.

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  7. Ivy, I'm up to starting a business. What I meant by I can't "earn" it is much more that I can't go to an employer and get a W2 rather than start something up on my own. I'm actually very open to starting my own business, if I find something that interest me.

    As for what the money is doing now. It's sitting in a bank account and it's earning interest. It's funny you said that, because I was going to put it in the rules, but I decided that I would not count the interest from a savings account with my total. The money is mingled with some other funds, and it would be too hard to separate it out.

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  8. This is fascinating! I will be following your progress with enormous interest over the coming year. I wish you the best of luck. If I had any get-rich-quick-ideas I would not be typing this myself- one of my many assistants would be, so not many ideas from me I fear.

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  9. excited to follow this journey!

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  10. Thanks for the comments guys. It helps to have interested people reading your blog and giving comments.

    Eileen, no need for get-rich-quick schemes. If you have any get-rich-slowly schemes I'll take that too :) Every little bit helps.

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  11. [...] former co-worker of mine, Terrence, has started up a new blog called Double Journey. His goal is to double his money from $20,000 to $40,000 using any legal means at his disposal. So far he’s in the hole by [...]

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  12. Will you use lottery? If yes, how often will you play?

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  13. I may do it for fun, but it definitely won't be part of my main strategy :)

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  14. A friend recommended your blog to me. Very ambitious goal. Good luck!

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