Is it possible to get money for nothing?

It turns out that you can make money for nothing (and you don’t need to resort to crime). Actually a small amount of effort was involved, not strictly nothing but close enough. Using accountancy worthy of Enron it works out that I made £522.50 in free cash offers (I won’t bore you with the details, suffice it to say that the profits from the whole year have been included in this weeks figures).

Breakdown
- Cashback credit card - £100
- Current accounts - £410
- DVD Rental Trial - £10
- Cashback Service – £2.50
Full details of how to do it for yourself can be found at www.millionpoundyear.com/freemoney.htm.

Now for the maths, I know you have been desperately waiting for them, ok I know you haven’t but you are going to get it anyway (sorry).
- £522.50 is the equivalent of working 90 hours or 2.25 weeks at minimum wage.
- It is also more than the median weekly wage of £489.
- It took under an hour to make the £522.50 and the hourly rate is nearly four times the £114ph needed to earn a million in a year.

So that’s it then, week three and I’ve managed to find a way to make a million pounds. Unfortunately no, there are only so many free cash offers available before you need a new identity and I have a feeling that collecting identities like Jason Bourne may just sit on the wrong side of the legal fence.

For one hour I was earning like a millionaire, which is a bit like someone who stood in line for an X-Factor audition saying they were famous. It is hardly surprising that there isn’t enough free money to make me a millionaire (at least not in the UK, it may bet easier in Zimbabwe), but at least I am in profit for the first time and as far as failures go I will take one that pays over five hundred pounds any day of the week.

Next
Common wisdom tells us that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but if it is possible to get money for nothing then perhaps there may be such a thing as a free lunch. So the next activity on the list is to try and get a free lunch. I know it won’t make me a millionaire but ‘Well Fed Year’ is still a worthy experiment, although I suspect it will turn into ‘Really rather hungry does a half eaten big mac count year’.

Week Two

I gave myself a snow week. My boss was very happy with the idea, that is the beauty of being your own boss.

The sums are easy this week. Did nothing, made nothing, spent £2 on lottery tickets, running at a total loss of £129.53, fifty weeks to go.

Profit this week - £-2.00
Total Profit - £-129.53

Week One

Nice and gently to begin with. No point in stretching myself too much in the first week, it is a marathon rather than a sprint after all. All I did was sort out the millionpoundyear.com website. The total cost for the domain and hosting (along with some other sites to be revealed in the weeks to come) came in at £125.53.

I also set up a subscription for the national lottery. It is the easiest way to make a million that I know of (although also highly improbably). The tickets came in at a whopping £2 for the week. Neither ticket won so this week I made a total loss of £127.53.

Profit this week - £-127.53
Total Profit - £-127.53

Is it possible to make a million pounds in one year?

The problem with ideas is that some of them are not very good, some are plain bad and some are so ridiculous that they are locked away behind a door in the mind and forgotten about. The problem with alcohol is that it unlocks that door.

On the eve of the millennium I made a resolution, no more New Year’s resolutions! I thought to myself, what is the point in making yet another resolution that will waste time, cost money and ultimately fail. This was a resolution I kept for a decade until the stroke of midnight on the thirty first of December 2009 when a door unlocked. I made a new resolution, and in turn broke my only successful resolution to date.

So what was this new resolution? Something simple, to ease me back in with at least a chance of success? Perhaps resolving not to eat mint club biscuits on a Tuesday morning. Or did I go with something worthwhile, like saving the lesser spotted urban cheetah from extinction? No I decided to try and make a million pounds in one year.

I blame the alcohol. Specifically I blame the ‘Jager Train’. Whose idea was it for a large number of people to set their ambitions for the year ahead whilst under the influence of the greatest possible amount of alcohol from the year before? Perhaps there is a god and he does have a sense of humour.

It could be worse, I could be the one who boldly proclaimed after more Jack Daniels than should be humanly possible to consume, to pogo-stick up the Eiffel tower (in a teenage mutant ninja turtle costume). Is this resolution ridiculous, definitely, impossible, probably, but why not?

So what exactly would earning one million pounds in a year take?
- £83,333 per month
- £19,231 per week
- £2,740 per day
- £114 per hour
Now all I have to do is find a job that pays twenty times the minimum wage and work every hour of every day without sleep or sustenance. I can’t believe everyone isn’t doing it.

Until I get offered the high paid job and someone eliminates the need for sleep (an invention that would surely be worth at least a million), I’m going to try every idea that pops into my head (yes the same head that came up with the ridiculous concept of making a million pound in a year).

But even as one part of my mind foolishly declared to try and make a million pounds in a year another part gave myself a chance at succeeding, an unconscious get out of jail free card, a small grammatical slip. I don’t have to make a million pounds this year, I just have to try to make a million pounds, and that at least I have a chance at.

Happy New Year, and I wish you every success with your resolution. And who knows, I doubt I will become a millionaire, but maybe this time next year we will be reading about a triumphant teenage mutant ninja turtle, atop the Eiffel tower, pogo stick in hand.