In addition to the items I mentioned here I now have £6.05p and am on to the next stage.

Woo-hoo!

The fnny thing is I have made no effort what-so-ever all I have done is pick up coins near my home. Honestly that's it. Once you start looking for them it's amazing how many you can find.

To celebrate I am going to do three things.

1. Move this blog to a new server.
2. Give away a series of ebooks to help other people that are aiming to reach a million
3. Write here every week without fail for an entire year fromt he release ofthe first free ebook.

My wife went shopping today and purchased a pile of dress jewlery at something of a bargen price. When she got back she offered to sell them to me at 5p an item. These items normally retail at arround £4.50 which is less than $10.

I am confident that even I can resell these earings, necklaces and bangles for more than 70p for the lot. I will photograph them soon (sooner than the never arriving book I still have) and post images here for a first refusal to my readers before putting them up on ebay.

Also I recently had my company buy two cases of padded envelopes so I should be able to get my packaging at cost too. All-in-all a sound investment I feel.

On a geeky note I have not forgotten that I would like to set up a site for all you bloggers stuck on blogger.com doing this doubling challenge. I need to upgrade some ahrdware but then I will be back onto it.

We you might have noticed that this blog went down there for a bit. That is because it is on the same server as my prime personal blog (The Fantastic Site) and it was getting hit good and hard by spam. I think I have that licked now so it is time to press on with the updates.

Art wise I painted my first oil canvas a few days ago. I'm quite pleased with the results but want to add a few extra touches once the paint is dry. Also it took a tiny bit of damage in while drying that will need a correction.

When I was little my dad (who is world class at this sort of thing) used to paint with oils all the time so I had a head start in that I have been able to watch a pro at work. None of this adds a penny to the pot (shame) but it puts me closer to being back in the arty swing of things after my first marriage all those years ago killed it all off. (Yes, I am still rediscovering who I am).

But what did put money in the pot was going to play in the yard with the kids. We live in a flat and so share our yard with other households. I found a total of 17p in small change while letting my children run about and let off steam. Some of those coins will be candidates for my Worst Coin Ever Quest which I will tell you about soon.

The good news is that if I want to claim victory and do it in dollars I need only reach £496,031.75p at the moment. But that's just cheating - I will be working in pounds even though that is currently over two million dollars. More on that in the post "Do you know about Dollars and Pounds" over at my personal blog.

I have not been idle in my quest but with the stress of being harassed for (what is now) seven months solid by my local council I have not exactly had much by the way of spare time. Not for anything.

However I have been putting the coins I find in a pot on my desk and then feeling guilty that I have not updated my journal of finds, attempts and results.

This is the update for all those other updates. It was prompted by a big search for the none standard cable used to directly attach the digital camera to the PC.

My 2 gigabyte SD card works fine in the camera but the reader in the printer does not want to play ball. Since we moved at the start of the year I had yet to use the camera direct to the PC. In my search for the blasted cable the wife noticed a stash of small change at the bottom of a box. This was all I needed to get down and sort out the box in question.

Added tot he other coins I have been picking up the finds today amount to 18p in coppers and 55p in silver for a total of 73p which is worth about US$1.51 or there about.

Adding it all up I now hold UK£3.02 which is worth about US$6.05 or there abouts.

This puts me on Step 14 of my plan and the quest to put a £5 together. I have a theory about this that relates to the development of civilization. I am currently at the hunter gatherer stage. Just foraging for berries and going where-ever coin is to be found. I am starting to form an idea about what is next but until I get into stages 15 and 16 I don't think I'll be ready for it.

The good news is that I will soon be publishing photo's of the book I will be selling. I will give my reader(s) the chance to jump in and nab it for a song first.

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.

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 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.

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.