Good ol' Poker

It has been FOREVER since I have updated this. Since my last post I found a dime on the ground. I also played poker last night so I finally had a chance to put my new strategy into play (only using a maximum of 20% of my stake at any one time) My stake was $10, which means I could bet $2 in the first game, which I did. The buy in was $5, so 40% of the winnings go to the double project. We were trying to cram in 2 games in 3 hours as the babysitters were only available that long. The blinds were goinog up at a crazy pace. I slowly was losing my chips and eventually found myself at 1/2 my stack (700 chips) with the blinds at 100/200. The blinds were about to hit me which would have decimated me. I pushed with A9 and I got called by KJ. He ended up drawing out against me and I was out of the game. Boo. Luckily the next game started quickly as the last two players were married and agreed to split the pot. Next game, my stake was at $8, so I could only play with $1.60, which would net me 32% of the winnings. This game went much better. The key hand was being called all in when I already had top pair. From there I just bullied the table and it worked wonderfully. Winnings were $25. So, the stake was down to $6.40 ($8-$1.60) when I won $8 ($25*32%)=$14.40, which is a 44% gain for the project. Add in the dime I found and I am at $14.50.

Bear Sized Donation!

I received a bear sized donation. Literally. It's a jar of coins in the shape of a bear (the jar - not the coins). I rolled out all the coins and it turned out to be exactly $8.28. That completes level 9, 10 and 11. There were a few old coins in there - 1958 was the oldest, so I grabbed them out and swapped with some of my newer coins. Might as well keep them. That puts me at level 12 $10 to $20. I overshot by only $0.52, so I can buy myself something that costs $0.26 and I will donate $0.26. I feel a bit bad that I didn't overshoot more for the charity, but I guess thats the way the cookie crumbles. I never bought myself something for $0.24 on the last overshoot, so I guess I get to buy something for an even $0.50. Now that I have some real cash I'll have to come up with a new strategy. No more looking for coins on the ground.

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Found 2C

I found 2 cents on the ground at Zellers today. I also realised I never bought myself something with my half of the 48 cents I overshot last level. I'll keep my eye out for something good (or at least SOMETHING)

Update

Has it been a Month since I posted already? I'll have to try to keep up better. Ok, since my last post, I have found two more pennies and a dime on the ground. Then we had a poker game. This time I decided to never risk more than 20% on any transaction as opposed to risking blowing the whole thing. I had $1.63 at the time, which translated into $0.32 of my buy in being from this project. I played crappy and lost out first. The second game I could only put in $0.28. This time I played well, but I got rivered by my wife (which basically means she drew out on me with bad odds). Oh well - you can't win them all. I do seem to be on quite the losing streak though. I was also given $0.07. The best news is that I found two pennies, a dime and A DOLLAR at the grocery store. Add all this up and I'm at $2.34. The other thing that happened is that I looked and looked and looked for a way to donate $0.24 to the hearing impaired, but I couldn't find anywhere to do it without looking rediculous, so I just donated to the dog-looking piggy bank at the grocery store for the blind. I figure its close enough and once I have some more dough I will make sure I do donate to the hearing impaired.

Found a beer bottle

I was walking to the mail box and came across a beer bottle. I picked it up on my way back and put it with the rest of my beer bottles for returning. I'll consider myself to have purchased it for 10 cents since that is how much I will ultimately get for it.

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Sold a book

Last time I did this challenge I never allowed myself to sell anything I owned outside of the project. Yesterday my wife was throwing some books out and asked me get rid of them. I usually just bring them to work and donate them to the book drive we have, but this time I took one and walked over to the used book store to sell. I have used them in the past, but they rip you off so much I decided to just give them away instead. Since I made this decision, I knew that I wouldn't ordinarily have used them, so that would make the book sale fare game (because it wouldn't affect our personal finances). How much do they rip you off? Well, I sold a book with a $20 price tag on it and she offered me $0.25. That's right. A measly quarter. You can see why I decided to forget them and just give them away. I tried to negotiate, saying that it wasn't just a $8 paperback, but she said that is their policy since the book is more than 7 years old, not to mention that they had a huge inventory so they were being very picky. I figured $0.25 was good enough for this level, so I made the sale. I definitely won't be using them once I get a bit more cash. Until then I might look for some more books she might buy. Still feels like I'm getting robbed though.

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WOW!

I havn't posted in a while because I have been maxing and relaxing at a cottage for 2 weeks. I was going to post about how you'd think I would find a lot of coins away from home, but I only found one penny, putting me 2 cents away from step 5, but forget that! I found a nice surprise when I got home. I got a $2 donation from Falin at Double My Way to a Million. After Paypal fees, this comes to $1.62 (I went and turned my paypal into a business account during my last double attempt - ouch.) Thanks Falin - that's awesome!
Now I have been thinking a lot on how this whole donation thing should go down. Technically I only need 2 more cents for the next level, which means I should finish the level and split $1.60 between myself and charity. That of course would be very frustrating since this would leave me at level 6, going from $0.16 to $0.32. Another way to do it would be to make a rule that if one transaction is enough to complete multiple levels, then it should go towards that, only splitting the overshoot on the last level. In this case, that would put me at $1.28 (completed step 8) and leave 0.48 for splitting between charity and myself as overshoot. Less frustrating, but this could lead to a situation where I double up several levels on someone's donation, but don't actually donate anything to charity. Of course, half of the million is going to charity in the end so that's not really true. Still - they might expect at least SOMETHING to go immediately to charity. Of course, that would be completely in their control since all they need to do is donate a bit more to make it happen. Perhaps I worry too much. I think I'll pick option B and have this donation go towards 4 doubles, leaving me with $0.48 to split - $0.24 for myself and $0.24 for charity.
This raises two important questions. 1) Who will I donate to (who won't laugh at less than a quarter) and 2) What am I going to buy myself for $0.24? Who I want to donate to is easy. I owe the Hearing Impaired at least a dime, so I will give them the $0.24. See Lady - I was right. It was worth the wait. Now I just have to figure out how to give you $0.24 now that I have no idea where you are. As far as my treat goes - I have no idea what I can buy for $0.24. Maybe penny candy? Stay tuned. The options are limitless (ok, they're very limited - so much that I don't know what I can buy. Whatever.)

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