How to Earn a Million Dollars Starting with One Dime

Here are the rules in brief. For a more detailed discussion of each, visit The Rules: Our Wealth Building Program.

Rule 1: You must start literally from nothing. You must find your seed money on the street, on the subway, or wherever else you might happen upon dropped change.

Rule 2: You may never add outside money or resources to your stake. Not one penny of your own money is allowed.

Rule 3: If you more than double your stake in one transaction or with one strategy, you may spend the excess. This is the only time withdrawals are allowed before reaching your million-dollar goal.

Rule 4: You don't have to double your entire stake in one transaction.

Rule 5: You must keep a journal of your progress. You can do this in a blog, on our forums, or just a hand-written notebook.

Rule 6: Focus on the current step. Don't think about future ones!

Rule 7: Don't stop until you have a million dollars.

Rule 8: The game must stand apart from your normal life and work. No intermingling of assets is allowed.

Rule 9: If you lose money on a step, you must go back to the appropriate previous step.

Rule 10: You may invest your own time, but not hourly wages earned from working. Part of the point of the game is to free yourself of the notion that you must sell your time for money. Your time is far more precious than any amount of money you could be offered for it.

By the way, these rules are adapted from an article by Stuart Goldsmith called "Double Your Way to a Million." I have made a few adjustments to account for advances in the Internet and other modern developments, but the spirit of the idea is the same as it always was: anyone can grow wealth with the right mindset.

It's funny, but the first few steps of the Million-Dollar Dime game can be some of the most daunting. I mean, how do you go about doubling one dime? Here are some ideas.

Places to Get your Seed Money
Here are Ideas on where to get your first tiny seed to start your stake with:

• Find it in the street, in a vending machine, on the subway, or any public place. (Under your couch cushions doesn't count - that's "your" money already.)


• Take a Penny or two from a "Give a Penny, Take a Penny" dish at your local 7-11


• Join the Million-Dollar Dime forums, sign up for the revenue sharing, and join the conversation.


• Create a Squidoo lens of your own that's dedicated to the game. It doesn't have to be about the game itself - just consider its earnings to be "owned" by your stake. Remember, investing your own time is allowed, so long as you are not paid an hourly rate.


• Find an object on the street and sell it. It's extraordinary what people throw away every day, or just leave out on the sidewalk for anyone to take. Keep your eyes open, and you'll start finding things everywhere. Pick them up and sell them on eBay or Craigslist, and use the proceeds to start your stake.

Your First Steps
Here are some ideas about how to get through the first few steps of the game.

How to Double a Nickel or a Dime
If you have a very tiny stake, like a penny or a dime, go up to a friend (or even a stranger in the street), and say "pardon me, but I am trying an experiment. If I give you this nickel, will you give me two nickels?"

The person may look at you strangely, of course. If they ask why, just say that it's an experiment and you're not allowed to say why. From my experience, they will almost always do it. If not, just move on and ask someone else. Remember, no giving up.

How to Double 50¢
Go to a garage sale or your local Goodwill store. Chances are you'll find used paperbacks there selling for 25¢ to 50¢. Find a popular title that is in decent condition, buy it, and sell it on Amazon for a profit. Trust me, this works. You can easily go from a couple of quarters to a few dollars this way.

How to Triple $2
Go to the grocery store and buy a six-pack of soda for $2. Take it to the golf course, local streetfair, DMV, or wherever thirsty people convene, and sell the sodas for a dollar each. Do this a couple of times an you'll have $10.

Take Stock
Now stop and consider for a moment. Just by following the simple steps outlined above, you can quickly go from one penny to $10, a return on investment of 100,000%.

Where did that $10 come from? The answer is you created it. You started with nothing more than an idea, and with a little effort, you created money from nothing. You didn't need a job, or a boss, or a paycheck to do it. And if you can create $10 in wealth, then you can create more. Much more.

How to (more than) Double $10
Buy a domain name for $10 and start a blog or other simple Web site. Write some original content, put up some ads, do some link building, and watch as a tiny trickle of income develops. Reinvest the earnings.

Now You're On Your Way
Follow the above steps and you will have gone from zero to having created a little stream of passive income which will grow your stake over time. Now do it again. And Again. After a while, you will have built up enough passive income to consider more ambitious projects to get you through the later steps in the game.

Note that none of these steps is difficult. They're all quite simple, really. Anyone can do it. In fact, I'm certain that if you try, you can think of a lot more ideas along the same lines to help get the ball rolling.

You Must Take Action
There's a dirty little secret you must learn, though: ideas are cheap. Just about anyone you meet will have at least one million-dollar idea. Few of them will ever actually earn a million dollars, however, because they never act on the ideas they have.

As Dad always told me, "You won't catch any fish if your hook ain't in the water." No one is going to hand you your million dollars for free. So take action, and go out and get it for yourself.

So, have you found your first dime yet?