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It's amazing what you can do with 2 pennies

It's amazing what can be achieved with 2 pennies.

I was born in Nepal to expatriate parents.

It is a tradition in that culture to give your friends a gift upon the birth of a child. One of my mom's friends was a local lady who was very poor. But she insisted on giving a gift to my mother. The gift was two rupees, which would have been the equivalent of about 2 pennies U.S. at the time.

My mom took those 2 rupees and bought a few trinkets in the market. When returning to the States for a visit, she sold them for a couple of dollars.

Back in Nepal, she took the 2 dollars and bought a small collectible knife (a kukhari for anyone in the know). Again she repeated the process of selling it when in the States, buying larger and larger things, and multiplying the cash.
Eventually working up to walkman radios from the States that she sold in Nepal because they were in high demand.

She kept repeating this process, and kept multiplying the money. But never adding outside money, only using the original funds.

By the time they moved back to the States, she had over $200 saved up.

She then decided to purchase a Yorkshire Terrier pure-bred dog (she had some prior experience with purebreds). She bred the female and had puppies. She sold the puppies and bought another dog with the money.

After a few years she (and we) had a proper dog business going. We had Yorkies, Schnauzers, Dalmatians, Labradors, and even a Shar-Pei (wrinkle dog). It was fun to have all kinds of puppies around constantly, but lots of work to clean the pens and feed them!

After a while she saved up enough to purchase a Quarter Horse named Rusty. Then another horse. The horses did OK but not great. She didn't make much on breeding them.

By this time we lived on an island and land values were super steep. She found a way to purchase land at auction, and turn around and make 50-100% by flipping it.

She took $20k and bought a plot of land. Flipped it and turned that into $40k.

Eventually she bought 90 acres and sold some timber. Then she subdivided it and sold the plots.

There's now a street named after my family on the island.

Eventually she paid most of her 4 kids' way through college and graduate school with the money.

She still had some left over, so she bought a special breed of goat in Asia and sold those to local farmers for breeding. She also bought a plot of land in middle-America next to a popular destination and turned it into a mobile-home park.

I don't come from an educated family, or a family with any wealth at all. However, I'm proud of my mom and her entrepreneurial spirit.

She said her goal was always to double her money with each investment. That strategy worked out well, turning 2 pennies into over $500k!

I have taken inspiration from her and when my son was born I took $2 and bought some keychains when I was visiting Asia.

I brought them back and sold them, turning it into $100. Then I doubled it in crypto.

Now I'm looking for my next investment to double the cash.

It's amazing what you can do with just a small start and some creativity and action.

Hope you enjoyed this little story.

  1. 2

    A great story, thank you for sharing!
    Reminds me of One red paperclip

    1. 2

      Super cool - I had never heard this story of the red paperclip thanks for sharing! Amazing he did all that in 14 days. I wonder if it was through media attention he gained the trades?

      1. 1

        I think it was July 2005 – July 2006, so about one year, but very impressive nonetheless 😄 And in 14 trades!

        The first four trades was before the press started to catch on so I'd attribute quite a lot of the success on bigger trades to media coverage

        1. 1

          The red paperclip story is your story!!!??? Amazing!

          1. 1

            No no, just my thoughts, not my story :)

    1. 1

      It’s real, a true story.

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