Millionaire Challenge

Luckystepho

Welcome Vinny, looks as though you have made a good start already, I am interested in investing but at the moment I don't have anything spare. I have a couple of blogs I'd like to monetise at some point.

Kaya, good idea to go with your gut instincts re your Dad's property proposal. Fingers crossed you get the job!

Chesapeake, your business idea sounds interesting- and I love the small holding idea too.

This last few weeks has been very expensive for me as I have had lots of vet bills for my old lady (20 year old cat) and she now has to have renal food which, of course, is over twice as expensive (plus medication and regular tests).

I have also had problems with my car- initially it looked as though the head gasket had gone but it is a water leak- still going to cost me around £300 though after £180 spent a couple of weeks ago.

I am trying to build up an emergency fund but it's not happening! I have had a little blow in that one of my long term tenants has given notice- still waiting for a valuation from the other property.

On the plus side my guides are on Kin dl e and starting to sell. I also have an idea for a gift box around one of my interests so am aiming to dip my toe in cheaply then reinvest any profits.

Hope everyone is having a great and prosperous weekend.

lessonlearned

Hello Everyone.....

Good to hear you are all still with us and on track.

Stepho. Sorry to hear about your set backs re your car and the vet bills. These things happen I'm afraid but just keep, plugging away and you will get there.

Remember it's a marathon, not a sprint. :rotfl:

I am currently reading the Naked Trader too. Only just started but it looks interesting.

In the meantime I have decided to dip my toe in investing and have allocated £2100 to Mutual Funds. My son has chosen and is managing them them for me. They have made a 1.2 per cent increase since Tuesday.:D

Long may it continue.

Bmth100

Little update from me.

A good start to March. I'm 3 weeks into a new role and it's the first job since university that I'm actually enjoying. It's Monday tomorrow and, although I would of course love to stay at home and drink cocktails, I'm not dreading the thought of work in general any more!

Just had a rebate due to being emergency taxed last month (£400) and found out I was due back £300 from an old pension they had to shut down from 2006 (not worth moving this small amount so I paid off debt with it).

Congrats on the increase already LL, I'm currently paying £10-20 weekly into an S&S isa. Despite saving for a mortgage, I like to think I'd spend the tenner on coffee if I didn't do it and it's a nice intro to investment. Going to ramp it up significantly once I'm on the property ladder. Only 30, so I have years of potential compound interest to make the most of!

lessonlearned

Bmth great news about the job. I too would love to sit sipping cocktails but I'm trying to be sensible (for once) and lose some weight.

I Love the idea of investing your "coffee money". True MSE style. Martin would be impressed. And yes it's the dribs and drabs that really add up.

My small Change jar needs emptying but that will be spending money for my holiday in May so I'm hanging on for a bit.

My £2100 investment was similar thinking.

I recently saw a holiday advertised and thought it was a great bargain. It was - it was sold out before I could book. I thought well I'm going on holiday in May anyway, don't be greedy, you don't NEED another holiday!!!!

So before I had chance to be tempted again, I invested it instead.;)

Nice bright sunny day so going to get out and about. I do need to balance my accounts etc and do some transfers but can do that tonight.

Luckystepho

Thanks LL- hopefully the car will not cost as much as I first thought as it is apparently a water leak, not the head gasket.

Well I was supposed to be going to Limoges for a couple of days with my mum today- but thanks to the baggage handler strike all flights have been cancelled so we won't be going!

We are having a spa break in a hotel not too far away instead for one night, it was a special deal on Travelzoo- evening meal and breakfast included for the cost of the flights which will be refunded so very MSE!

I took this week off work so gives me some free time to work on finances, decluttering and ebay the stuff I don't need- be ruthless!!

lessonlearned

Well Frugal February worked did ok....

Just done the month end figures and I managed to save 50 per cent of my net income for the month. Let's see if I can do the same for March and April.

Then holiday in May and then back to it again over the summer.

Hopefully after my holiday I will then start selling some of the jewellery and bric a brac that's cluttering up the cupboards.

stepho....enjoy your spa break.

Btw - Kaya I meant to say I think you've made the decision re your dad. If you have doubts it's best not to proceed.

Sharing financial/business arrangements with family can be problematical if you aren't careful and even if you are things can still go horribly wrong.

(As I'm finding out with my parents estate.......but that's a whole new thread right there.....so I won't bore you all. Suffice it to say I have placed everything in the hands of the solicitors and have walked away..........much less stressful, he will more than earn his fee on this one).

Chtsiuk

Hi guys,

I have read through the whole thread and plan to join the challenge I currently have £1700 in overdrafts and £500 on a credit card. I also have £3K on a loan and about £3.5K on a car but working towards paying it off.

I see passive income as a great way to increase my income, I used to have my own business but ill health ruined that. I am better now so starting another it's just so far a struggle to get my first customer after the restart.

I love how ambitious you all are & looking forward to the next updates.

minxy-x

Hi everyone new and old!

Glad everyone is ticking on with their plans.

Have been busy since last checked in as we are in the early stages of getting a premises for a bar and restaurant (the idea is a lot more interesting than than, but that's the gist of it).
Massive, beautiful building, needs lots of work, but that's what we like! Inside and outside will have aprox 200 covers for food, and there is hopefully something extra which will add another revenue stream, this is one of my ideas I always have and never normally get to implement as someone else gets there before me. It also has the possibility for letting rooms, but that's something we will look into later.

This new business will mean a house move to a new area, it is commutable but decided we would rather spend that extra time where we would be travelling, on us.
Going to turn our current home into a BTL, which was always the plan, but feels strange to think of renting our home, our first BTL never felt like that as was always purchased as a business.

My other business idea is still going through development, hopefully we will have finalised the design Sept time, then its off to factories...

Good luck everyone!

Tomjones_2

Jacka87 wrote: »

Thanks for the advice, I will try reword the homepage to help get a higher ranking. Do ou know if the same can be done for images?

Has anbody on here done any website to website pier advertising? I was told that its a good way to direct clients. So an example might be that a joiners site might have a link to a local painters site and vice versa. if you are having a full refurb of a house then you maybe need both. If you have done this does it seem to help?

Hey Jacka87, While you've received some advice about how to get your website more traffic about including more keywords, this is fine but not strictly as simple. You need a good keyword density yes but you do not want to go overkill on what you put. It still needs to read well. I think first off make sure all your on page seo is done. Google will be your main source of traffic if you do not want to spend anything. They look for quality content so make sure you have some decent information about what you do, ofcourse include some of your keywords and put down the business contact details, have a sitemap etc etc. I personally do not recommend getting links from other websites that do not relate to exactly what you do, Google will most likely see this an unnatural and will not like it. If it's a restaurant website linking to yours about where it sources it's fudge then great but if not leave it. If you do want links from un-relatable places make sure the links are no-follow.

There's so much to say when it comes to getting more traffic from free sources. Research on how to do on-page seo, easy if your on a CMS like Wordpress etc. Use other methods of free traffic like posting on relatable forums, using Social media like Facebook by posting to relatable groups and having a Facebook page. Even use sources like Gumtree etc and make free ads. Literally scratching the surface but 1) Check and learn about on page seo 2) Look for alternative ways like I've mentioned for getting traffic 3) If you get links make sure they are relatable, if not make sure they are no follow. 4) You probably want to do some keyword research to find out exactly what you want to be aiming for, Go to Adwords for the Keyword Planner.

There's so much content out there about generating traffic for free so just do a Google search, Get a cup of tea and just read for a few hours haha! Best of luck!

As for TinkTay84, Yes you can make a million. Didn't read all the posts so not sure if you mean a million cash or including assets. Best way is to focus on your business or another business, whichever would have the potential to make that kind of money. A million is no longer a massive amount like it used to be, especially in 13 years it will be worth less that what it is now. Yes a million is still a lot but you get my point :money:

The rental property is great, continue with that and try and get another. Unfortunately you are dealing with the extra stamp duty now but as long as your rental covers the mortgage and maybe makes you a little extra, it's the overall property value that will make you the money. So maybe instead of paying off your mortgage, use that money for a Buy to let deposit or something else. You want your money to work hard for you and paying off the mortgage (although smart) might not be the best if you want to make money.

Hope my comments help a little, if not best of luck anyway :rotfl:

angelicious

Hey all

I joined a wee while ago but as yet haven't had a good look at my finances:o. I'm 42 at the minute and I'm hoping to retire at 55. I need to look into the pension I currently have and see how much is in there but I'll need to do a bit of research first cause to be honest I have no clue about pensions or how they work:o so this is something I need to rectify.

I have looked a wee bit into our mortgage situation. Home we currently live in is on a repayment mortgage only and house is probably worse less than we owe:mad: we are paying over what we supposed to each month to try to reduce this a bit but on the up side I own another property with quite a lot of equity in it so this should cancel out the mortgage on our current home. Given this should we continue paying extra on our current mortgage or should we save this instead? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.