How to Make a Million with Confused.com
Publication Date: Friday, April 04, 2008
Have you ever come up with a get rich quick scheme? Did it work? If so, why are you reading this and not sipping on cocktails in Barbados? Go on - hop it! For the rest of us, here are some ideas as to how we could bag that elusive fortune, and tales of the unlikely few that have.
Pixel perfect
One enterprising young tyke - Alex Tew from Wiltshire - released the 'Million Dollar Homepage' in 2005 in order to hopefully fund his university education. Advertising was sold on the site at a dollar a pixel. All pixels were sold by January 2006, grossing US $1,037,100 (the final 1,000 pixels were auctioned). Not a bad little university fund, I'm sure you'll agree. Although think how many more tins of beans and bottles of cider he could have bought had the site dealt in UK rather than US currency.
Tricks of the trade
In the same year, Kyle MacDonald achieved his goal of securing a house through a chain of trades beginning with a red paperclip. The idea was inspired by a childhood game called 'Bigger and Better'. The ball started rolling when he traded the paperclip for a fish-shaped pen; and over the course of a little over a year, he worked his way up to a role in a movie, which he traded in for a property in Saskatchewan in Canada. Not bad going.
Spice up your life
For all you millionaire wannabes, becoming a Spice Girl seems like a good way to get a golden ticket. Tesco reportedly paid them a million pounds apiece to appear in their ad campaign over Christmas. You know - the one where they had to do a little bit of shopping, then sat at a table with a delicious spread in front of them, sipping champagne? If ever a million pounds was truly earned, this was the time.
But what can we do?
Ok - very few of us are going to make a mint through some dazzlingly original internet-related brainwave. And very few of us are Spice Girls either. So how can we make that million?
Let's start at the bottom of the pile. If you got a two-hour paper round, at £3.50 an hour, for seven days a week for 392 and a half years, you would make your million (as long as you didn't spend any money). Admittedly, that doesn't take inflation into account, so you'd most likely make your million sooner - although by then, it would probably cover the cost of a sandwich.
One Confused.com member of staff said 'I reckon if I give up smoking ten-a-day now, in 909 years I'll have saved enough to have my million. That's assuming that my bad habit doesn't restrict my life expectancy in any way.'
Another member of staff said 'Apparently if I had placed the following bets - before the start of this year's rugby and football season - for:
- Cardiff to win the FA Cup[1] and for Wales to win the Six Nations,
- took the proceeds (103k from a £10 original bet) and put them on black twice in roulette,
- and then placed just £90,500 on a final roulette bet (red) - I'd get my million. Sounds easy!'
[1] At the time of writing, Cardiff City have yet to win the FA Cup.
So it seems like you could become a millionaire quickly by having an idea of surprising simplicity yet inventive novelty. Or you could build it up through scrimping and saving over the course of a few hundred years.
Alternatively, you could win a million by merely applying for a car or home insurance quote on Confused.com! As we speak, the clock is ticking on the Confused.com Million Pound Giveaway. Anybody who gets a car insurance or home insurance quote through Confused.com will get the chance to win a cool million, and the prize will be drawn on the 15th of May 2008. So why not enter - what do you have to lose? Even if you don=t win the million, you may very well make savings on your car[2] or home[3] insurance that are worth shouting about.
[2] Customers who provided a best alternative price on their car insurance policy between 1st January and 31st December 2007 saved on average £206.60.
[3] Customers who provided a best alternative price on their combined buildings and contents policy between 1st January and 31st December 2007 saved on average £181.69.
Follow this link to get a car or home insurance quote, and be entered for the fantastic draw!
