I've been coming up with some pretty creative ways to save money in unusal ways. My wife had me buy some Vanilla Extract, but it turned out we already had some. I often would have just shrugged and thought to myself, "Money comes, money goes". I decided to return the bottle and give half to the double project (figured 50% chance we would have eventually used it anyways...) I was also going to meet my wife at a restaurant and then head over to my inlaws. I calculated that I could save $2.56 in gas if I took a bit more time and just drove home first so we could just take 1 car around town. These are great ideas aren't they? They are, but they didn't make me enough money to be ventures above the 1% of the current level. I can only participate in ventures that I believe will gain me more than $3.60 (ie. 1% of the $360 I need to complete this level.
Not to be discouraged, I went to an NHL game last night and instead of paying the $10 for parking, I parked 2Km away and ran in the freezing cold to the game. Since I definitely would have paid the $10 normally, this one all goes towards the project, plus the gas I saved! Also I made one grocery purchase which saved me approx $8. Overall, I have already saved $18 after two days, which is 5% of this level. So I guess this is my strategy - keep hunting for grocery deals while also keeping my eye out for other creative ways to save money, but they have to meet the threshold. I have a feeling this will be the last level this will work for a 3-4 month doubling period. Since I started gaining money two days ago, I will set my new deadline for three months from that date, which is April 13. Actually, that sounds like a terrible date since it is right in the middle of tax time so instead I will give myself an extra month and choose May 13, 2011.
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I think you're right - making savings will only get you so far in the challenge. Once you get a few steps further on, the trick will be to come up with enough ways of actually making money. I like your idea of posting due dates for each step - a simple way of forcing yourself to stay focused. I might use this in my doubling challenge.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Yes - the due date REALLY made a difference, but the other thing I added was a bi-weekly blog update at a minimum to keep the focus going between levels. I added your blog to my blogroll.
ReplyDeleteFlip