Elite Dangerous New Beginnings - Have a Plan.

The Story so far...
In my previous article I lost my ship and everything I own was wiped out because I didn't have insurance money.

Here I'll be following my own advice - I've bought a ZP-Hauler and I'm ready to start running rares to build up a stake. I've done the route a couple of times so I can upgrade my ship and now I'm ready to go.
The route will earn 500-600K per hour, and I need to repeat it until I can afford something with a higher income to try and get myself back on the wagon.  And by wagon I mean I think I'm setting my sights on a Combat Asp that I'll spec up closer to the time, but is around twelve to fifteen million credits.

Starting Out in a ZP
My first milestone is a ZP-Hauler outfitted for long range, and I've got that ready to go. I'll be running rares from Leesti to Chi Eridani.

Upgrading to a Type-6
Following the ZP-Hauler my next goal is going to be the Lakon Spaceways Type-6 Transport.  For 1.8M Cr I can buy a 112T ship that should earn more than the ZP. I'll need an extra million for cargo, and some more for insurance of course, so I need three and a bit in the bank. Lets call it 3.3M.

This means that I need to earn an extra 2.3 Million from where I am, and at my current income that'll be probably four hours of running rares.
Once I have the Type-6 I'm anticipating shipping 112T at 8000 Cr/T/Hour on a local route...

Asp
The next milestone will be an Asp, stripped down for 128T of freight at a similar 8000 Cr/T/hour of freighting. The Asp will cost 7.8 Million Credits, and I'll have a 2.3M Type-6 to sell so I need to earn 5.5M Cr in the Type-6 before I'm ready to trade up.
This type of money will take a while, but it'll be around 0.9M an hour so around six hours of solid freight runs will be enough to get me into the cockpit of that Asp.

The Asp will earn just over 1M an hour, and I'll need another seven million before I can upgrade it into a combat machine - so clock up another seven hours.
From here I could keep taking a million an hour, and I guess that's enough to fund the blog - I can easily buy a few different Eagles, Vipers and Cobras and write some ship focus articles.

Supersizing to the Type-7
Then next step after the Asp is a Lakon Spaceways Type-7 Transport. At a million an hour there are another ten hours waiting for me before I can afford this ship, and while I've every intention of getting there as quickly as possible there are plenty of other distractions so this is a bit of a long term goal, and it'll go slower if I run in to any trouble.

Lets total this up - around four hours to get from the humble ZP-Hauler to the Type-6, following that its a further six hours to the Asp that's ten in total. Ten hours to an Asp can be done easily enough.
Adding seven hours gets me into a great combat ship, totalling seventeen and ten more after than until I have a Type-7 transporter ... Twenty seven hours of grinding ahead of me for this one.

So my advice to you is have a plan while you fly casual.