I'm just taking a breather from a spot of spring cleaning.

So far I have found several coins and with a little luck one more step will be complete.

I also found the required stuff to connect My PC and Camera directly so now I can upload the pics for ebay.

Furthermore I can get the photo's of the fire in the tower block opposite me. It's too late to sell them to a newspaper but at least I have them.

I don't know how much I have picked up while cleaning but time will tell

TTFN.

Int he comments on my personal blog (The Fantastic Site of Lord Matt) I was recently pulled up for no keeping readers here up to date with progress.

So that is what I intend to do.

I want to make a community site for people wanting to have a go at this mad cap idea too. I want to provide a way whereby there can use a simple money in / money out form to publicly record their progress. I want to be able to record that progress too.

However that is not ready to go yet.

Money wise I am so very near the end of my current stage that I need to make something like 45p after costs on the sale of my copy of James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl.

There are also personal issues. like a corrupt court system where the burden of evidence was with the respondent (guilty until proven innocent), where the summons was illegal and worse of all especially because of the anti-human rights nature of the other two points I was not allowed to give evidence.

Yeah.

Pretty bad stuff.

That sort of thing kinda kicks your get-up-and-go in the testicles.

But I refuse to be broken by the lies and corruption in the UK.

What you expected this inhuman and undemocratic attitude somewhere less stable? Who have you been listening to?

Sigh.

Having gotten as far as taking the picture of the book I am to be selling I am once more stuck as the Photocopier cum printer cum card reader can not cope with a 2GB SD card... buggerit.

This means hooking the camera to the PC which means I must find the cable.

I have no idea where to look.

I am not the only one trying this mad cap idea out. Strange as it might seem there are others just as insane as I.

Read the blog of one such thrill seeker.

Before I sign off again any law experts could you please take a looka at this.

TTFN

I had considered that I had moved from the scavanger phase to the mini trader stage of my efforts however after purchaseing the book to sell on ebay I had beome unfocused and failed to act.

Failure to act is a killer it will strip you very quickly of everything that you have worked for.

I had effectivly let the hope of a crazy effort die at least in my mind.

Then providence stepped in in the form of my two year old boy who left 40p beside me on the pillow one morning. It was two coins that he had been given and as best as we can work out they were his way of saying "good morning daddy".

Then a yesterday my four year old came to say hello while I worked. She put her hand in her pocket and said "this is for you, daddy" 61p in change.

I debated if I should add these gifts or slip them into the childrens money boxes when they were not looking but I decided that in the end I would hold on to them. There is nothing as pure as the gift from a child.

This palces me at GBP£1.90p in change and the additional 10p and two 5ps that were found along witht he penny bring me to GBP2.01p so now to meet may target I don't need to charge a fortune but need only raise 55p (after ebay costs). The ebay costs need to be paid in cash so I will pay the exact ammount onto my credit card. (That's going to look very strange).

Aha - I have an idea I will use the prepay egg money card! I've been holding on ot that for a while and have yet to do anything with it.

Alternatly if any one wants to send me 55p in english money I will send them a copy of James and the Giant Peach.

I have not gone away.

But I have not been especially active here of late. The prime reason is that life get's in the way sometimes but also I am working on business things that should earn me some nice jucy cash. Sadly they are not suitable for counting towards this goal. But the by product might be usefull towards that end.

I have also been talkingwith other bloggers about starting a doublers club.

Which reminds me I have some emails to send.

TTFN.

Yes it's true. I have been looking at the copy of "James and the gaint peach" each morning and I have yet to not fail to simply think "in a moment".

All that is waiting for me is that I need to photograph the item for listing.

Am I lazy or just stalled?

I'm looking forward to the £5 target but at the same time I'm not too impressed with the idea of failng to shift this item.

This week it goes. I must be firm with myself. If I am to convert 1p into a million I need to keep moving forward.

If, like me, you want to create a blog and then use it to chronicle you way to a million it is vital you do it right.

You have two options:

Option A: Free Hosting and try to earn from it.
Option B: Paid Hosting, no earning but interaction and support.

Option A seems like the best idea to start with but to be honest at best you might make $100 over the lifetime of the blog. That is not even 0.0001% of the total you will earn.

The down side of Option A (free host) is that you can not easily put a proper domain name to it and have it work for SEO.

Option B has a number of hidden benefits that are not so obvious. At the cost of not being able to use the $100 you could earn to add to the pot you can use the earnings (such as they are) to pay for your costs. You would have anyway invested in a note pad and an online notepad is still the same thing.

However you can use the blog to build your own fame during the first few steps (0 to 10,000) so that when the bigger projects start up you already have a following.

Furthermore you will have worked for over a year to bring mild search engine fame to your domain name and writings which can be used to give a considerable boost to any web based businesses you might with to engage in.

When you are done earning £1,000,000 or $1,000,000 (around £510,000) you will have a valuable web property on your hands.

Fancy living from the profits or going for 100,000,000? Want to publish a book "My Rags to riches Story"? Where do you think you will get the best sales push from?

Yes that's right - your website.

You will have earned a million of your currency and in all likelihood you will need to have established a profitable company to do this.

Yes, you will be the SEO or MD (depends on country of incorporation) of BlogName PLC.

But being CEO or MD of mysecondchoice.blogspot.com PLC is nowhere near as good as being Chair of say, "More-turf Millions PLC".

You site is going to become the very centre of the branding campaign for your start-up (when you get that far). While the report we have all read says don't worry about the final stages focus on the now (good advice) it is still vital that you think about what you are going to be doing.

At the very least you need to be able to publish your content to your own hosting space and view it via a domain.

The website itself might not make any money (at least until you purchase it from yourself) but it will draw a lot of very important attention.

Lots.

Not to start with (the first year will be very dry) but over time you will get a lot of attention.

You need to be ready for this.

While you don't need to have a clue as to how you are going to make £10,000 into £20,000 you do need to have a plan for getting yourself to the place where you have a hope.

Consider the long term and sketch a rough framework. Most of the work has been done (the steps 28 doubles to a million) but you need to consider the implications.

What bank will you use at the £200 mark?

Are you willing to learn about shares?

What is a profit and loss account and when should you learn about one?

What is a website and how do you us it?

Do you know how to start a blog well?

There are important blogs that your should read even if much of the hype about getting rich from blogging is trash talk.

You are a doubler - an entrepreneur of the highest order and have no need of the pipe dreams of blogging wealth (hardest work lowest yield) but even so you must understand that this blog you are thinking of writing is an important tool that (along with a good Domain Name) hen created correctly will boost your efforts and make your later work easier.

Live for the now plan for the future.

Here is some more vital reading on the subject:

How to Announce a Blog
The first day of Blogging
Submit to Directories

So there I was vorderin' on the next stage of development and needin to make just s few pemce...

Which was were I was yesterday morning. Now yesterday turned out to be nice with a dose of high pressure and the need to give my wife so time to herself (obstensivly so she could have a nap).

So instead of getting one of my very good friends to do a few hours of donkey work on the PC for which I would pay him some nice cold cash I got him to help me take my youngest son and we went into town.

As it turned outwith visitors dropping buy that there were three of us plus little man in the pram shooting off bright and late at about half one in the afternoon.

I did however have a plan. We walked down to the post office where I purchased a medium sized padden envelope and a first class stamp with the word "large" on it.

Then while in town collecting a box of chocolates for my mums birthday (which was yesterday, happy birthday mum) I selected a filling for the envelope from a chartity shop.

My plan is simple. I will sell the book for cost plus 29p on ebay and as they say in these parts "Bob's your uncle".

So I am now getting ready for to say "hello Uncle Bob" but I am beset by doubts. I know it is a good book. I owned this exact edition when I was a boy.

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl, the 1987 Puffin paper back edition with the bright cover illustration by Nancy Ekholm Burkert and her dark black and white internal illustrations with the slightly burtonesk feel to them.

It a classic with just the right ammount of "ooh" to scare yourself with if you are twelve and reading under the covers after lights out and just the right ammount of Roald's best huumour to keep the tone even.

But it's the illustrations that set it apart. They really are something else.

But dispite my confidence that this is a great book in very nice condition with the great illustrations that the book had before the movie came out I still feel huge pangs of self doubt.

Will anyone want to pay £2.19 (including P&P) for this fine book?

It seems a fair price given you can not get the book anymore. Sure the story is still available but without the fine illustrations it's just not the same.

As I mentioned not so very long ago yesterday was rather productive.

I was interupted mid morning by the delivery of the weeks shopping. While taking this in I spotted two one pence peaces on the floor.

Mine!

This took me half way into my 4p to 6p aim.

Then I went back to work on The Great Directory Review and worked solidly until my wife came home.

While out she had found some money. Not a few pennies like I had but a note.

Quite rightly she had spent the most of it but gifted the remainder to the fund.

I pondered if this was acceptable to allow the money into the fund and at last concluded thusly.

Luck is part of the game. The money came into the system by luck.

Gifts are allowed and in the early stages gifts can be a big part of the game too.

It was not something we "already owned".

So I added £2.21 to the pot.

According tot he rules as I saw them such gift/luck are not returns and so not subject to the return cap other moneys are subject to.

Thus I skipped forward to the very end of step 13 with just 29p to raise.

I am going to have to think about how I am going to do this as I have been thinking about pennies and now have pounds to contend with.

Yesterday was a massively successfull day for me. I cleared a handfull of steps in a single moment which while good means I must refocus my mind to a different scale of opperation.

Also yesterday was a hard day of work. I sepnd the entire day untill quite late getting a complex review of directories completed.

Directories are still the lifeblog of the blog. By getting lsited in as many quality and niche directorrrrries as possible you ae mroe readily found by Google, Yahoo and other search engines. You will also increase the flow of visitors to your site.

It can mean the difference between "sandbox mode" where the search engines don't take you seriousely and a reasonable page rank with a flow of traffic.

The Great Directory Review is the result.

The method I am using to turn a 1p I found into a fortune is based on the contents of a short ebook written in 205 by a man calling himself Stuart Goldsmith.

It also teaches the vital strategies for becoming wealthy - strategies which change as you get richer. The techniques you use for making pocket change will not work when you come to make the big bucks. Through using this system you receive a vital training in how to make a million, ten million or even a hundred million!

The rules I will be working to are based on those he suggested.

1. The system is discrete. I can not add to it from my own funds or resources. Only the fund and myself exist for the purpose of this exercise. Starting as if "flat broke" to get to the big numbers. I must find or be given the first This also means that doing an extra hour of work does not count. I must use only my skills and the money I have accumulated. This means not even using the photocopier. If I need copies the fund must pay for it at the copy shop. If I use the business systems beyond that which I would anyway then a hidden cost exists and it is not paid for by the fund - this would break rule 1.

2. Use the actual physical coins, there is no lending - this is the natural continuation of Rule Number One. There is a limit and as I approach £200 I will open a special current account to continue my activities from there.

3. The Scavenger Rule. Really this is part of rule number one. To start with you must find a coin (or be given it). Therefore when luck plays a part and I find a coin or other item (once I've tried to get it back to the owner) it is all added to the pot. This is the only rule that will skip me ahead multiple steps at a time.

4. The step limit rule. Aside from rule 3, if I make more than my target amount then the difference (extra) is to be spent on me and does not get added to the system. This ensures that I get to experience each stage and learn and grow with it.

5. No spending on self prior to the final target.

6. Keep a diary of events. In my case I will be using a blog on a domain that is doing nothing. As this would be adding from outside the system I will not be counting the earnings from the adverts on the site. I will be using that to offset my costs in the real world and so create a cut off between the site and the effort it describes. Later on I may purchase the site from myself in which case I will start earning from it.

7. Each step will require a different technique. The early steps are clearly hunter-gatherer style actions whereas after that might come labour after that comes... I refuse to worry about how I will
manage future stages. I will concentrate only on the current action.

8. The snakes and ladders rule. If I fail on a step, I drop down the 'snake' until I arrive at the step represented by your remaining money - and start again from that step. However much I loose or gain I had nothing to start with and so if I end up with nothing I have lost nothing.

9. In clarification of rule one I am allowing myself to add my own labour into the mix as this is within the spirit of the "game". However, in the same spirit of the game to avoid using my family to get around rule 1 I refuse to trade directly with members of my own household. The money gained must be NEW money.

10. The Golden Rule - No trickery, theft, or deception. What I do must add value or be a fair exchange. Purchasing goods for £1 each and selling them for £2 somewhere else is fair. Purchasing them all for £1 and then selling them to the people who want them for £5 is mean. Purchasing a fake Rolex for £5 and selling for £150 is outright wrong and counts as theft in my book.

Yesterday I soke of making a plan.

My plan was to go out today and turn my 2p into 4p.

However not long after posting that there was a power cut in my town and so work (for me this is using the computer) was not an option.

As my eldest was due to go to nursey for the afternoon I suggested that we all go out and maybe take our sons on the bus after.

So it was that I found myself walking towards the nursy pushin a pram when I noticed a shiny 2p on the floor.

This compleated my quest to turn 2p into 4p right there and then. Athough the rest of the day yelded no further increase opportunities it was a nice day out just jotting about town and taking our time. However the rush back to collect our eldest added some stress to the day but that is another story.

My new target is to double 4p into 8p.

Today while taking delivery of the shopping for the week I spotted two one pence peaces and so my new target is going to be much simpler.

The links are starting to flow in to the more turf blog far faster than I expected. So this post is a quick run down and update.

More Turf @ Squidoo - tis is a lens (a page there) that talks about the project and gives you a chance to buy stuff so that it helps me along. Now you can help me out with just a link.

Obviousely I linked to me

howtosplitanatom.com has kindly linked t this blog and therefore deserves a link right back too.


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So here we are on day 4 and what have I done to forward the aim of such a huge amount of cash?

To be honest nothing at all.

The weekend was perhaps not the best place to start my project even if the first of the month was a good start point. With spending time with family, working and suffering from a mild cold (yes, sob, poor me) I have totally failed to take action.

I started this project to try and learn something both about business and about myself and if I do not make a plan I will not move things forward.

Lesson: I need to make a plan and act on it.

So what sort of plan shall I make?

A good plan must have

+A Specific Aim
+Actions to take
+Timescale
+Logic sequence

My specific aim is to make two one pence peaces (UK£0.02) into UK£0.04 with the least number of actions. The rules (which I should publish so we are all singing from the same hymn book) stated that swapping, trading, finding and being given are all valid methods of increase but that adding something I already have is cheating.

The reason for this is that I am trying to learn how I would act if this 2p was all I had so that there was nothing to add in because I had nothing.

It's a bit abstract because food and clothes enter the picture too...

But what's a learning exercises if not for learning?

So my plan... yes.

My plan is this. Tomorrow my wife is due to attend the council offices to file paper work and this is a good opportunity to get out for a while. While out I will keep my eyes open for plans A and B.

Plan A: Find. Discarded pennies are common and from time to time other coins are too. It is not unknown to see something thrown away that could be worth a few pennies. Growing up I remember that my dad always liked looking in skips because he could find raw materials for making art. I'm sure he still does that. Of course it will be important to ask the discarder (where possible) if only for politeness sake.

Plan B: Swap or trade. Should I meet someone I know (probable) I may ask them to swap a penny coin for a two penny coin. I'll have to tell them that I am carrying out an experiment and they will look at me as if mad but many of my friends think I'm wacky anyway. Optionally I may observe an item that might be purchased for two pennies but sold for three or four (or more).

I fully expect that at this scale I will be picking up coins and making bizarre swaps. However the next stages I have in mind this method will become to slow and the buy and sell kicks in. Slowly at first but then with greater and greater scope.

I have ideas about the bigger numbers of money but right now I am learning in the microcosm of pennies.

I will report back at the end of my outing.

Until then Why not join the email group. There you can request my address and send me low value coins from your part of the world... this gives me an idea.

How hard could it be to double 1p?

Not hard at all it seems. I was sitting at the table in the front room when I noticed a rather unattractive penny sitting on the table under some toys.

A quick enquiry revealed that no one was claiming ownership and so the penny became mine.

I am now at 2p and must find a way to trade this up to 4p.

For the doubters: You will see that as this goes on I will only need the steps I've indicated.

I now have a plan for converting 1p to 2p within the rules I have set for myself.

I will be looking to physically swap my one pence coin for a two pence coin.

This has a number of problems as the only visitor today has been and gone and I have yet to make a swap offer to anyone. Now I am stuck into a lot of work and shall be at my desk all day.

However I think I will allow people to donate to the fund which should be interesting. My probelm is that unless I take on fifty big ones into my PayPal account I'm not going to be able to withdraw it.

I have a email group (opt-in opt-out) that those who want to copy me, talk to me, or make offers to me can join.

Join the Mailing Group for added insight and doubling tips.

Some of you who find your way here will recognise me from The Fantastic Site of Lord Matt, Super Geek. That is still my site and a blog that I invest a lot of work into.

However, I have hit upon an idea so breath taking in it's ordasity and so stupendous in it's scope that if I even partly succeed I will have changed my life forever. I may, in the process, have an impact on some other people.

The name of this site "more turf" was chosen from the collection of domain names I have on ice (ready for such mad-cap ideas) because it embodies part of the aim - to take something and make it more.

In this case the site will give me more space to write.

More cyberturf to play on.

More name-space to build a bigger empire for my children.

More Turf.

Without the turf war.

Now what I plan to do is simple.

Find a penny and turn it into a million pounds.

Yes that is my plan.

I am going to do it in 32 steps. Those 32 steps include getting my site ready to talk about doing it too.

Each step has a limit. If I generate more money than the limit in the process of increase I will be removing that extra and some I might keep but much I will give away.

I have added further rules for myself - no trade can take place exclusively within my own household. This means that unless I can attract people into my home to trade with I must go out into the world.

While this means little to most people who go outside most days it is a big deal to me. I often might not leave my home for weeks at a time. Not laziness but commitment to my work which I do from home.

It will also help me loose the extra girth around my midsection and at the same tie help me to get a life back.

I started to do this today and found a penny while I was putting my shoes on. It might have been mine or my wife's or even it could have come from the children. It was my penny found in the corner.

My next step is to make it into 2p.