Might be a millionaire this year

[corn18]

I wonder if I'll be flamed for suggesting ...'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up' [Marie Kondo] as there are financial ramifications which result from examining personal purchasing patterns and how you, spouse and family [if applicable] use space.

No flaming from me. I just ordered a copy from Amazon.

[bjl584]

well done. congrats

[disneysteve]

I wonder if I'll be flamed for suggesting ...'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up' [Marie Kondo] as there are financial ramifications which result from examining personal purchasing patterns and how you, spouse and family [if applicable] use space.

I agree. That's part of why I have my long-running thread on decluttering. It is definitely a financial topic, even though it might not seem to be on the surface. We definitely shop differently since we got more focused on reducing clutter.

[StormRichards]

Great. So the home is almost none of the NW. So you actually will be a millionaire in terms of liquid (or more liquid than your home) assets. To me, that means more than a $1 million NW when half of it is tied up in the house.

Totally agree. Our home is currently 19% of our Net Worth. That percentage should be slightly less when we reach the milestone this year.

My projections have us reaching $1,000,000 excluding home by September 2018. Of course I am hoping for a much better return than the 7% I am using in my projections.

[corn18]

It's official! Got my bonus check and cashed in my RSU's and I now have a NW just north of $1M. $850k of that is in savings of some sort (401k, IRA's, taxable and other). And my wife told me I was nuts to pay off the house right now. So that is solved.

[~bs]

nice work!

[sblatner]

I wonder if I'll be flamed for suggesting ...'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up' [Marie Kondo] as there are financial ramifications which result from examining personal purchasing patterns and how you, spouse and family [if applicable] use space.

My husband read this book and we proceeded to declutter and took two vans full of stuff to Goodwill. We now think more clearly when we want to buy something - do we really want that in our house?! After 22 years, it was time to declutter!

[scfr]

It's official! Got my bonus check and cashed in my RSU's and I now have a NW just north of $1M. $850k of that is in savings of some sort (401k, IRA's, taxable and other). And my wife told me I was nuts to pay off the house right now. So that is solved.

Hooray for teamwork.
Congratulations to you both.

[Beginning]

Corn, would you be able to share how you increased your network in 5 years from $0 to a million ? We are where you were in 2012 - a $0, due to a combination of bad luck, stupidity and just plain laziness. We want to turn our lives around and make something of ourselves.

I would be very grateful to you for any tips that you have for me on how to make this happen. BTW, Prof Stanley's Millionaire Next Door and Dave Ramsey's radio shows were what gave us some much needed kick in the butts and the strong desire to turn our lives around.

TIA for your advise / feedback / help.

[corn18]

Corn, would you be able to share how you increased your network in 5 years from $0 to a million ? We are where you were in 2012 - a $0, due to a combination of bad luck, stupidity and just plain laziness. We want to turn our lives around and make something of ourselves.

I would be very grateful to you for any tips that you have for me on how to make this happen. BTW, Prof Stanley's Millionaire Next Door and Dave Ramsey's radio shows were what gave us some much needed kick in the butts and the strong desire to turn our lives around.

TIA for your advise / feedback / help.

Welcome to SA!

The first step is to ask here on SA. I started by asking if I should payoff $100k in auto loans. SA turned that into "why the heck do you have $100k in auto loans?" I fought hard against their will and really just wanted to know the answer to my question. They irritated me with their advice and I almost left for good. Luckily, I stayed. And then I read the book The Millionaire Next Door. Then everything changed.

First step was to reduce expenses. At my peak, I was spending $20k / month, which was about $3k more than what I made. That is just plain stupid. The camper, BMW, horse, horse trailer all went. Reduced cable, got rid of home phone, cnx magazine subscriptions, cnx lawn service and a lot of other little things. I worked really hard to get my expenses down far enough to live off of just my base salary. I now live off of $9300 / month. This is not a meager living by any means, but it is less than 1/2 of what I was spending.

Then I attacked the debt. That's where I was fortunate. Once I got the expense side under control, my high income allowed me to dig out fast. Now that I was living off my salary, my pension went into savings. My bonuses went to paying off debt. First went the credit cards. Then the car loans. That only took 2 years. Again, making a boatload of money helped (but I never forget where I came from and I am always fearful we could go back).

Now I have the perfect situation. I have not let my lifestyle re-inflate. It has stayed where it was when I cut costs. Now all of my bonuses and pension go into savings. That's a lot of money each year.

So, that's how I went from $0 to $1M in a little under 5 years. And I hope to keep my expenses under control and get to $2M in under 4 years.

Stick with the folks here. They know what they are talking about.

Tom

[Milly]

I think it's very cool that the book The Millionaire Next Door is what got me started on all this. Along with SA.

That is the next book on my reading list! I plan on checking it out at the library this Friday after story time.

That is absolutely amazing that by getting a plan together you were able to boost your net worth in such a short amount of time.

I read Automatic Millionaire by Bach. It was loaned to me by my sister-in-law who had to read it for her family finance class. I recomend that one to anyone because it is so simple.

[disneysteve]

That is the next book on my reading list!

Millionaire Next Door is good because it really shows how the rich don't live the way most people think they live. Everyone's perception is so skewed by what they see on TV and "reality" shows but that only focuses on the extremely excessive people, not the unassuming millionaire next door.

[Beginning]

Welcome to SA!

The first step is to ask here on SA. I started by asking if I should payoff $100k in auto loans. SA turned that into "why the heck do you have $100k in auto loans?" I fought hard against their will and really just wanted to know the answer to my question. They irritated me with their advice and I almost left for good. Luckily, I stayed. And then I read the book The Millionaire Next Door. Then everything changed.

First step was to reduce expenses. At my peak, I was spending $20k / month, which was about $3k more than what I made. That is just plain stupid. The camper, BMW, horse, horse trailer all went. Reduced cable, got rid of home phone, cnx magazine subscriptions, cnx lawn service and a lot of other little things. I worked really hard to get my expenses down far enough to live off of just my base salary. I now live off of $9300 / month. This is not a meager living by any means, but it is less than 1/2 of what I was spending.

Then I attacked the debt. That's where I was fortunate. Once I got the expense side under control, my high income allowed me to dig out fast. Now that I was living off my salary, my pension went into savings. My bonuses went to paying off debt. First went the credit cards. Then the car loans. That only took 2 years. Again, making a boatload of money helped (but I never forget where I came from and I am always fearful we could go back).

Now I have the perfect situation. I have not let my lifestyle re-inflate. It has stayed where it was when I cut costs. Now all of my bonuses and pension go into savings. That's a lot of money each year.

So, that's how I went from $0 to $1M in a little under 5 years. And I hope to keep my expenses under control and get to $2M in under 4 years.

Stick with the folks here. They know what they are talking about.

Tom

Oh wow ! Tom, you're incredibly lucky to have such a high income. The only debt we have now is about $18K left on a car loan and about $10K we borrowed from his sister to pay off unexpected medical bills. She's not charging us interest but we do feel that we should pay her back ASAP. We purchased the car after our old and battered 22-yr-old car died on us and the cost to repair it was too much that it did not make sense. So we got a new car and on target to pay it off within 2 years.

My other question is -- did you invest in the stock market ? Or was it all just bank deposits and such ? We just started funding our 401Ks and ROTHs (for both of us) and given that we're middle class on a middle class income, even if we merely lived on one income for the next few years, our cash savings would be nowhere even near $200K, leave alone a million.

Thanks again for your very motivating / hope-inducing post ! I will be sticking around here to get to at least half of where you've gotten in the next 7 or 8 years !

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Congratulations! I like to see such big changes.

[scfr]

Has anyone taught you the secret handshake yet?