Millionaire Challenge

citizenkitten

i have now read every single post, i was awake till 3am though last night as i was so inspired by you regs LL, tink, YBM, ricitus, you truly are worth your weight in motivational seminars.

i am in awe at how much you have all achieved in such a short period of time, it is the brain food i have needed. ever one of you no matter the down times you have somehow you have the determination to live for the better tomorrow.

I think I should explain quite a lot about myself otherwise what I could post could end up confusing. I am a very private person so this is rather a first for me!

I could have a high net worth, I say could because of the following, my father died when I was 11. My family after someone marrying someone who took all their money now make sure nothing belongs to anyone. therefore there is a family trust where the money gets pooled. my father's money went in to that. the family trust has myself and two sisters along with 15 other members of the family. In summary I have no actual entitlement to anything as it is the trustees job to use the money in the trust at their discretion.

However they kindly decided to buy a flat for me and my sister to live in. So i live rent free (i pay the bills etc) but not with anyone else but my other half as my sister moved out. (i dont own it, the family does, they can choose who lives here or sell it or whatever they wish)

I do have savings in my name, these are my grandfathers donations and the reason I am in debt is because I used 21k of these savings and frittered them away. I had a lot of emotional issues to deal with and spending money made me feel better. Whilst techincally not a debt, I have been determined to honor his donations as he wished for them to be spent and pay them back. they are in an ISA and not performing well LOL! so really I probably should have invested all that i paid back into something else. but anyway I want to clear these and efectively start at 0.

Some may question my motivation to make myself more affluent.

but let me tell you this from someone who has smelt poverty, has seen the sheer depravity of it, and I am not talking about those who live in the UK, and i am not talking because I spent two weeks in a gap year in some poor country. I tell you from someone who lived, saw and was the consequence of poverty.

That whilst money does not always equate to happiness, money gives you CHOICE.

and I live to be the controller of my own destiny and not by whether the trustees decide to favour me above the rest of the family.

So how am I going to do this?

NO IDEA! but the following I am determined to make happen, they might not make me money but at least I have always wanted to do them! and if you cant be rich, then I am determined to spend my life happy. (after 25 years of unhappiness)

I am 26 and I will do my damndest to be millionaires like you all are going to be.

I am not going to do betting - my mother was a problem gambaler, i spent nights waiting for her to come back from the casino on the front door step of every house we had because we had to keep moving because of the debts she ran up.

So I am instead going to concentrate on

1) pay off last bit of debt

2) make from Jan -Sept money neutral (hard when i have a wedding etc, but basically i want to have saved enough money to pay everything without use of credit card) (car insurance etc)

3) research at least 1 hr every day how I am going to start my own business - ( i have an idea but I just dont know how the hell to make the product ....! anyone know a software/app developer???) ((this is what i think i need))

4) Write my book, (part of my emotional growing up) i am going to set myself a word target every day. (this to be decided) ((yes i am very bonkers as I happen to be dyslexic, but if i got an A and B in English at GCSE then it is damn well achievable))

5) Start to sell (got lots of clothing etc to sell, if it doesnt ebay then carboot etc) get used to selling things that I dont want- then maybe ic an progress to selling other things.

6) believe in myself and my ideas, hilarious that i had no problem spending odd 30 quids here there and everywhere yet i lived without a sofa for 2.5 years because i could bring myself to spend 1000 on 4 years interest free credit. even though my 30 quid here and there turned to 21k!

7) start getting used to saving very feverently for big targets

8) start drawing again, i dont aspire to be an artist but i need down time and i like to draw and if i think of it as money spinning because it makes me mentally all safe and well then i will encourage myself to do it.

MKeynesMoneySaver

LL - We are off to stay with a friend to begin with on the Central Coast an hour and a half north of Sydney but hope to end up in Newcastle which is three hours north of Sydney. Homes Under The Hammer is a good show but too risky a strategy for me at the moment but definitely something I would consider in the future, more on that in a later post.

Kitten - Hope the wedding plans are going well and have set yourself a budget in true MSE style. I got married last year and set my wife a low budget as modern day weddings go, and we had a good day. It's easy to get carried away with trying to keep everybody happy and having the 'perfect' day. It is only one day however, and I didn't feel worth getting into big debts for.

I've got a few ideas for upping my wealth over the next twelve months will update everyone soon.

MKMS

citizenkitten

mkms- well none yet, we have decided though we want to. I am ringing the priest on monday as he seems to be away this week! we have no problems in telling people where to get off because we can threaten them with no marriage taking place instead LOL! we have set a budget and because we only plan for 30 people to be there, it is not going to be at a great expense (hopefully!) we plan for quality not quantity.

i look forward to your update.

MKeynesMoneySaver

Good for you, we set a budget of 5k. Even though parents gave us nearly 3k towards it still went over budget by a few hundred pounds.

We had a late afternoon wedding with a few nibbles for 28 guests, then evening for 38 more having a buffet for everyone which cut down on the food costs.

We bought our best man/bridesmaids suits and dresses as a present which were suitable for wearing in the future which I feel is better value than hiring. Also bought vases for table decorations which we did ourselves and then were able to sell on eBay.

We went for a venue that we loved and would get good service from even though it may not have been the cheapest. There were loads of optional extras but again didn't go for them to cut costs or supplied ourselves.

MKeynesMoneySaver

So before I go to Oz next September It probably won't be possible to set up any high income streams so I'm going to work on the streams below.

• Work through
moneysavingexpert com/family/make-money
(Boost Your Income - 60+ Ways To Up Your Income)
• Shares - Currently invest in a FTSE All Share tracker which

is low cost and doesn't require too much

research/time
• Maximise interest receipts - Making sure any savings are

not left in low interest paying accounts
• Minimise expenses - Getting the best deal for my bills, not

spending extravagantly,
• Earn money on the side - Plumbing and heating for friends,

family and working for a couple of other

engineers I know
• Declutter - Ebay, MusicMagpie, Amazon, etc
• Sell friends items on eBay for a cut of the profit
• Sell off stuff to friends for a donation
• Matched Betting - just researching this
• Blog - written quite a lot of posts through blogger.com but

not linked it to Adsense yet
• Ebook - Work in progress
• Generate/write down some ideas for when I get to Oz


They aren't going to make me millions but at least in a positive direction and would be good starting points for those trying to get out of debt or raise some seed capital.

citizenkitten

we have budgeted 7k and hope we underspend. yeah the theme for most MSE wedding is not getting those "extras"

i have decided not even to go for basics lol, thank god my other half and i are in unison as to what is important to spend money on and what else is pointless. if anyone else disagrees i can tell them that if they think it is so important then they can buy it for us. hell i will have live acrobats accompanying me down the aisle and gibbons chasing bridesmaids if it is on their bank balance. what is important to me is saying my vow to the one i love infront of God, i really couldnt care about the rest of it.

what is the FTSE all shares thing?

they look to be all great starting points, i am going to re read the 60+ ways again

MKeynesMoneySaver

The FTSE All Shares tracker is a way of buying shares. There are many different trackers you can buy to diversify your investment. I only invest in the FTSE now because my fund supermarket began charging fees for every tracker I had. It is a long term investment and part of my strategy for a pension so don't expect any short term gains.

When you buy the FTSE tracker the value of your investment follows the ups and downs of the FTSE and any returns. Buying it within an ISA may be the most tax efficient way of buying it depending upon your circs.

Tim Hale's Smarter Investing is one of the best and most straightforward investing books I have read and would recommend this to anyone looking for an investment strategy.

A good website/blog for researching investing is Monevator dot com, it has quite a few articles on tracker/index investing as well as other asset classes. Some of the articles are quite technical and beyond me, but there are some good basics to start with also.

lessonlearned

Thanks for the links for the shares info, MSM. I will take a look at those later.

I've always been a bit nervous about stocks and shares - I just felt that I didn't know enough to risk my hard earned pennies.

As I mentioned I always considered myself to be useless at Maths. However, as I've got older I've developed a lot more confidence and I now find that I'm not quite as dumb as I thought I was;)

Anyway, I now have two viewings tomorrow, both STC and both moving because they want to get their children into the local schools which are excellent - the senior school rates as the third best in the county. Fingers crossed.

My OH gave me 22 days to arrange our wedding, put our cottage on the market, and prepare for a move to another part of the country.

A piece of cake.:D

Plus the following week a second wedding/leaving party for 150 people. I did the buffet myself.

citizenkitten

MKMS - thanks for that, sounds all interesting, must add them all to my every growing to do list.

LL- what is STC? all good news of the viewings. hopefully those couples get into a bidding war over your house!

yeah i have to say my stocks and shares ISA grew 0.25% last year... and hasnt exactly been performing much better than that for the past few years, but I see this as long term investment that due to inflation and emerging markets that in 25 years I will see some good out of it.

yeah piece of cake LOL! just goes to show when you got to get something done, you will exceed yourself. Motto of this challenge eh?

I had a good year review on my job today, i set out my goals to him and he understood them. it is nice to talk about future expectations and not think the person is going "yeah right! cheeky git" in their head. LOL!

lessonlearned

Sorry - STC - the purchaser has sold their property Subject to Contract.

Yes I agree - we can surprise ourselves at times with just what we can achieve. When the chips are down and we put our minds to it we really can achieve small miracles.

Good news about the work review.

Well the two viewings seemed to go well. Both parties were young couples with a child who want to move into area because of the schools.

Keeping my fingers crossed.