This challenge should be pretty interesting but before I tell you about the Premium Bond Challenge let me tell you about how it came to me and why I’m doing it.

The History: I have been staring at the NS&I Premium Bonds booklet all week long. I got a copy from the Post Office the other weekend and decided that I definately should give it a shot. What is Premium Bonds? Premium Bonds works like an investment fund except that they do not pay you in interest, there is a monthly prize draw with hundreds of cash prizes. It is basically like playing the lotto without ever paying for the ticket as you will get to keep the money invested. The only catch is that you need £100 to open an account. For each £1 you spend, you will be issued a unique bond number which will be entered into the draw each month, giving you a hundred chances of winning something.

 

The Challenge: Since living in London is quite an expensive luxury, I have decided to scrape together anything I can get my hands on without digging into my own pockets and not doing something illegal or begging. All I need is a £100 to get started. I think I can manage that. Every time I get a few pence, I will update this page and pretty soon I should have enough to get my hands on Premium Bonds.

10 October 07 - People, we’re off the mark officially. I found a 5p on the floor today while on my lunch. You may laugh now but every penny counts and I am 5p closer to my goal. I now only need £99.95 to complete this challenge!

13 October 07 - Guess it was my lucky day, found a lonely penny while on my way to do some shopping. It has been quite slow. I normally pick up a lot of money, got a £5 note the other day which made my day, hopefully it will happen again. I’ve added a logo on the main page with the $$$ count.

15 October 07 - We are slowly making progress here with the Premium Bond Challenge. I have added a small image on the main page to help me keep track of the count down to London donating a Premium Bond account to me! Am I weird for doing this? Nah, figured that Londoners throw away so much, time that I use that weakness and benefit myself in the long run without hurtin anyone. Oh, I found another shiny 5p close to Sainsbury’s today.

17 October 07 - I have just noticed a strange pattern, I seem to find £££ every second day… hmmm, found another 1p, not much but it counts.

2o October 07 - Moaning and bitching about what you find has paid off, not much more but I can add 5p to the fund. Had been sick for the last three days, could not go anywhere.

22 October 07 - We’re making progress very slowly…. frustrating at times but at least we’re getting something for nothing. Add another 1p to the total! It seems like people throw away a lot of money around Sainsbury’s.

25 October 07 - It has been getting darker and darker in London, hard to see any £££ on the floor wherever I go but still managed to find 5p today, not bad, getting there. As you guys can see, there is not a long pause in between when I do find money in London.

27 October 07 - Ahh, I found another lonesome penny on the streets of London. Ka-Ching!

The last couple of days have been quite dull around work and I haven’t been able to walk around as much as I use to. Stay tuned folks, we’ll soon find something that Londoners have thrown away.

6 November 07 - As you can clearly see, we had a nice fat gap in between our last found. We can now add another 5p to the fund for today.

9 November 07 - This challenge has been quite slow so far, at least I have managed to get 3p today. I think I should scan in my current premium bond, obviously editing out the details and show what folks what it looks like.

15 November 07 - Being sick does not do this challenge any justice. Lost out on a couple of days where I could have found something. Luckily I found another 2p to add to the rest of them lonely pennies in the jar. To thus far, I’ve managed to collect £0.33 from finding money on the streets. It is £0.33 more than what I had and £0.33 closer to the challenge goal.

22 October 07 - Finally picked up something again!

3 December 07 - Urghh it has been incredibly slow or it could be that I have my heads in the clouds and not paying attention to what is going on around me. Found something to add to the collection!

5 December 07 - Another lonesome penny found it’s way to my pocket

12 December 07 - Two pennies can be added to the glass jar.

17 December 07 - Still only finding the pennies… *sigh*

19 December 07 - This 2p made me work for it today, had to get it from the street, was teasing me in front of a lot of people waiting for a bus, almost left it there but then I thought, won’t be a challenge if I don’t pick them up, would it?

24 December 07 - We’re now in with the “high rollers” with the amount of money we have picked up since we started this challenge! Man, I had to bend down a lot for those lonesome pennies!

2 January 08 - We’re off to a flying start by picking up 1 penny and 2 euro cents…

3 January 08 - Almost missed this baby, but it is so far our biggest find, a massive, wait for it….10p

11 January 08 - Finally found a lot of coins for this challenge despite the major credit crunch we all suffer after Christmas.

It is probably about time I show you folks what an actual Premium Bond looks like, I have tried to google it myself but have had a lot of difficulty finding a photo. Took out all my details for security reasons but you should get the picture.

 

15 January - It must be my lucky day, found 5p, 1p and 1c (euros)…..

20 February - 2p… finally found something again. Haven’t been actively looking though!

23 February - Whoohooo, getting somewhere now, add 7p to the total

12 July - In between February and now…. well a lot has happened but I finally opened my eyes and decided to invest the money into my Cash Isa which currently allows me to save £3600 a year and earn tax free interest on that! So, I’ll be creating another page and we’ll take the challenge further like that!