The Penny Experiment

The experiment to date

2009-11-23T04:08:00.001-08:00

Sorry for the delay since my blog post I have been too busy to keep up with the blog but hopefully I can keep the posts coming regularly in future.

Progress is still slow for me with the experiment although I have purchased a coat for £0.01p which I estimate I’ll be able to sell for at very least £4.00 with would bring the amount of money I estimate to have in unsold items to £6.00 but this isn’t real money until I actually sell the items.

Another change I have made to the experiment is to move the dead line for the net goal to the New Year as this seems like a more realistic goal then my past targets. This new target gives me over a month to reach my next goal which is no easy task but one thing I have learnt so far from this experiment is that without a can-do attitude you get nowhere.

First goal is a failure

2009-10-30T10:42:00.000-07:00

The goal of reaching £10.00 in one week, with the benefit of hindsight seems perhaps a little over ambitions. But hopefully I can learn from the disappointment felt and put the experiment back on track by reaching my next goal.

I have decided to move the goal posts for my next goal. I am now aiming to achieve the £10.00 mark by the Wednesday after next (11th of November). I hope that by changing the target to a more reasonable time frame that I will be less daunted by the amount of money I have to raise.

What this Failure has taught me

• Making money requires effort

• Making money from £0.01 requires patience

• It’s a lot harder than I once thought to sell a bag!

Frustrated but not without hope

2009-10-24T17:32:00.000-07:00

Day 5-

After two days without any forward movement in the slightest and our hopes of reaching the goal of £10.00 by Wednesday diminishing, we have decided to brain storm ideas for future profit. Here are our ideas of getting to the next step and reaching our next financial target-

• Sell bag-

This may seem obvious but we are having a hard time actually being able to sell the bag. Our first thought was to sell the bag on Ebay but the problems with this idea are, one that this option would take more time than we have in order to reach the goal of £10 by Wednesday and two that having researched how much money rucksacks are selling at on Ebay we have noticed that they don’t seem to create much money and/or bids. Our hope is that by asking around we will be able to offload this bag to someone for around £2 which would defiantly help get the ‘penny experiment’ ball rolling.

• Use our £0.02 to buy and sell sweets-

Although this won’t create as much profit as selling the bag until we do sell the bag this seems one of the few options available two us on a very limited start.

• Offer money for unwanted items-

It may seem stupid to offer money to people for stuff there going to throw out anyway but under the rules of the experiment ‘No items found or given to us are allowed to be added to the stake’ this means that we must offer an amount of money no matter how trivial to the owner of the items. An issue with this tactic is that in general these items are harder to turn around a quick profit on than sweets (as you can see in the instance of the rucksack) but if we are lucky and get our hands on a good item the potential rewards are much higher.

Hopefully with a combination of these idea we could be well on our way to reaching Wednesday financial goal of £10 but with only 2 days to go we’re not holding our breath.

P.S We would love to hear any other suggestions to help our cause. Feel free to comment below.

Step 1- £0.01-£10.00

2009-10-21T09:23:00.000-07:00

21-10-09-
Started the day with £0.01 and we brought a Wham bar worth £0.10 off a friend (thats some good business).After this we then traded the Wham bar for £0.12. We then saw a perfectly good rucksack being thrown out so offered then owner £0.10 for the bag which they accepted. I reckon that we'll be able to sell the rucksack for at least £2.00 which will plump up our stake very nicely.
All in all a very productive firstday
Math-
£0.01 - £0.01 + 1x Wham bar - 1x Wham bar + £0.12 - £0.10 + 1x Rucksack = £0.02 + 1x
Rucksack
27-10-09-
A friend said that he had some money that he could contribute to the stake but as the rules state nothing can be given to the stake for free so I offered him £0.02 for the £0.17 in change.
£0.02 - £0.02 + £0.17 = £0.17
21-11-09
A offered money to a friend for a perfectly good coat that they where about to throw out the excepted the trivial amout of £0.01 I hope the sell the coat on Ebay in the not to distant future
£0.17 - £0.01 + 1x Coat = £0.16 + 1x Coat

Welcome to the Penny Experiment

2009-10-20T12:02:00.000-07:00

Ever wondered how far you could make a penny go?

The aim of this blog is to answer this pressing question. Starting off with just one penny me and my trusty companion Jack will see just how much money we can make. Keep checking this blog to keep up to date with this fascinating experiment.

No items found or given to us are allowed to be added to the stake (all items must be purchased with money or items in the stake)
Everything in the stake must in someway have originated from the original penny

Tactics
As we only have £0.01 to play with we think we will start off in the penny sweet business. Our tactics to start off with are simply to buy a sweet for one pence and selling it for two pence and then buy two penny sweets with the profit and selling those for four pence We're sure you get the gist.
In order to put this task into focus we have decided to set financial goals within given time frames. Our first goal is to take my stake up to £10.00 within 7 days.