Still Going 8 years later...Step 14: $40.96 to $81.92

Well, were still in this game, and it's hard to believe that it's 8 years to day that I started this blog.

It's just fortuitous that I would post today, because I finally took action last night on idea that we had beyond just collecting bottles and cans along with finding money. (See below.)

Which until know is all we have ever done and over the past 4 years my wife had a job where many co-workers through out their bottles and cans and she would bring them home.  I would also snag the bottles and cans out of the recycle bin at our apartment complex.  (She no longer has the job, but still bring home a few bottles each week from her new job.)

The breakdown in case you are interested is:

• 358 pennies = $3.58
• 67 nickels = $3.35
• 158 dimes = $15.80
• 114 quarters = $28.50
• 1 fifty-cent piece = $0.50
• 36 one dollar bills = $36
• 4 five dollar bills = $20
• 2 ten dollar bills = $20
• 1 twenty dollar bill = $20

We now have as of this morning a

Grand Total Stake of $147.73!

In only 8 years!

So the idea that I finally took action on last night was to find and repair bicycles.  I will then sell them on Craigs list hopefully at a small profit.  We will take our stake of $147.63 to invest in the parts as we need them.

I have found a non-profit group locally that will teach me bicycle repair, allow me to use their tools and even provide some of the parts from donated bicycles.

I started collecting found bicycles from our apartment complex's trash about a year ago.  I now have blank number of bicycles.

I'm going to donate the kids bikes to the non-profit group, that's all they will take anyways, and work on the others and find homes for them.

I also plan to document everything as I do it with another blog and perhaps create an ebook out of it to sell online.  We will see.  So far this has been the only idea we have had in 8 years that really fits the game, but it's been fun for us to find money and take the bottles in to see how much money we have found that way.

Recommitted - Step 13: $20.48 to $40.96

We have recommitted ourselves to completing this exercise. We never really stopped, but we never had any other ideas for completing the last 6 steps other than just finding money.

A lot has happened over the past 4 years, and we can't believe it's been 4 years!

There's a lesson to learn for sure.

So over those 4 years we have been collecting found money and bottles for returns. Last night we finely counted it. Here are the results (inclusive all the results):

• 203 pennies = $2.03
• 33 nickels = $1.65
• 69 dimes = $6.90
• 56 quarters = $14.00
• 7 one dollar bills = $7.00
• 1 ten dollar bill = $10.00

The Grand Total: $41.58

So we're 38¢ into the next goal: $40.96 to $81.92. In the free report, "How To Double Your Way To A Million", the author start rounding the cents off starting at $5, but the effect of doing that is to lose $62,177.28 over the course of the 28 steps.

The author of the free report also has rules to play this game by, and the only one we might be violating is we haven't bought anything for ourselves with the "extra" after achieving each step. But what do you buy yourself with 38¢? And since we have accumulated this "wealth" by a penny here and bottle there, except when my wife found the $10 bill, we never made a big leap. I don't remember the story of her finding the $10 bill, perhaps she can and will blog it later.

So now we need to figure out some plan to get ourselves from $41.58 to $81.92.
We have some ideas, and I'll blog those later.

Also something of interesting note, when we started this blog, we didn't find anyone else blogging about this exercise. But now there are several. Perhaps we will create a blog roll of them later as well. They definitely will be worth reading to see what others have done to achieve the steps that we need to achieve.

One last thing before I sign off for the night.

This blog is free, and we put our opt-in page for the report on BlinkWeb.com is also free.  In fact you can host as many little websites as you want at BlinkWeb.com.

There is an affiliate program that we signed up for (for free) with the author of "How To Double Your Way To A Million", so if you purchase anything along with that free report, we'll earn a little $ towards our next step. We'll also earn from the ads on this page, too, and I mention all of that to anyone who is thinking of starting on this journey with us and want to duplicate what we are doing.

Step 7: 32¢ to 64¢

Yesterday I found another bottle on the way to the bank, and today my wife found a nickel at the supermarket.

So that brings our Total Stake now to 41¢, 2 cans, and 2 plastic bottles. Total value: 61¢

There's a little story with each of these "nickels".

First, I realized that had he not been looking for money, he would have just driven by this bottle.  If nothing else, this exercise is helping us clean up the litter.

My wife upon leaving the grocery store, remembered that she should be looking for money. And as soon as she remembered that she should be doing that, she found the nickel laying on top of the copy machine at the store's entrance.

Step 1 - Nothing to 1¢

Our Plan: To find a single (Magic) Penny!

After buying a few groceries last night and recycling some cans, we went looking around the plaza sidewalks for a penny. What we found were 2 cans and a bottle that we took back to the grocery store and redeemed for 15¢. This we believed would advance us to Step 5: 8¢ to 16¢.

Upon getting home, my wife reread the rules in the free e-book "How to Double Your Way to a Million" (you can get your free copy at http://doubleyourwaytoamillion.blinkweb.com) and believed that we had broken Rule #1 - Find A Penny.

After some heated debate (most of, if not all of, the heat coming from me) I insisted that we go back out, start at Step 1 again, and find a penny that night.

So together we left at 10:30 PM with the moon shining full, the night just beginning to cool the heat from the day, and the air hung heavy and still with humidity. Heat lightening occasionally filled the clouds.

My wife suggested that we start at the K-Mart parking lot.

Flashlight in hand, we searched around the vending machines in front of the K-Mart, down to the Garden Center, and across the parking lot. We searched around the phones at the Mobile station, the Burger King, the bus stop, the local diner, and then got our car and went to the Price Chopper Plaza next door.

After walking almost to the end of the plaza sidewalk there, with my wife on the sidewalk, and I in the street of the parking lot, I found a Penny! A 1975 Penny, Heads UP!

While searching for the Magic Penny we also found 2 more bottles and 2 more cans.

Before heading home, we took the bottles and cans back to the Price Chopper to redeem them, and found a third can in the redemption machine. Because of malfunctioning machines and the brands not being accepted at the store, we were only able to redeem 1 bottle and 1 can.

So our Total Stake now is 36¢, 2 cans, and a plastic bottle. Total value: 51¢

So after we get the cans and bottles redeemed, we will have advanced to Step 7 of the 28 Steps, going from 32¢ to 64¢

Right now, we our best plan is to find 3 more bottles and cans to redeem.