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I made a goal a few years back. I wanted to be a millionaire by my 30th birthday. I defined Millionaire as having a Net Worth (Assets - Liabilities = Net Worth) of $1,000,000.
I’m 3 months out from my 30th birthday. I will not make it to millionaire status.
When I made this goal I wrote it on a piece of paper and told absolutely no one. I was embarrassed that I even wanted to be a millionaire. I thought it made me vain or selfish or something. I knew that I wanted it, but I was scared to admit to other people that I wanted it.
Here’s the thing - this goal was not entirely a vanity project. I thought have a million dollars of net worth would equate to financial security. Behind the goal was the real goal - I wanted to be financially free. I wanted F U money. I wanted to be in a place where I was not worried about when payday was, or when the bills were due or how much interest I was paying on the credit card that month. I wanted to go to sleep at night and not be anxious about money. I wanted to dream about my future or hop on a plane to see my family without wondering how in the world I would pay for it.
My mom taught us the envelope method for budgeting (Shout out to Dave Ramsey for that one), and it worked for us. We were not rich growing up, but my parents made sure the bills were paid. Even with that, they were paying off long-term debts (medical bills and Credit Card bills that had stacked up from years of poverty), and I wanted something more secure than that. So, I made myself a little goal. I wanted to be a millionaire by my 30th birthday.
I’ll be honest, I was off to a good start. I had $0 in student debt and a salaried job. Out of college I was making approximately $3k/month. Not a bad place to start. I bought my first house at 22 (I used the VA loan which enabled a 0% down payment), and I got a roommate that paid enough rent to cut my mortgage in half. I was off to the races.
This, I believe, is where I failed. I was so embarrassed to admit that I wanted to be a millionaire that I didn’t even tell my husband. I simply encouraged investing in our retirement accounts and got him on board to buy a rental house. My husband’s money philosophy when we first got married was this: spend less than you earn. That was it. It was so simple, and yet not quite enough. We have grown and learned a lot since then, and we invest regularly in our retirements (and it helps that we both earned raises since then).
You know what’s nearly impossible to do without making a salary of $1,000,000? Saving $1,000,000. It just doesn’t happen. If we wanted to be millionaires, we were going to have to be far more aggressive. Neither of us were handed a trust fund or any appreciable savings from our parents. We were taught solid money lessons, but we weren’t handed cash.
Then in 2021 I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad and it lit a fire under my *ss. I knew we could make it, but we weren’t going to make it by saving 10% of every paycheck. We bought another rental, then another. Except, I still had not actually told my husband what the goal was. For him, the goal was buy rentals, have them pay for themselves, then sell them one at time once we were retired and live off the capital (or something close to that). Honestly, that’s not a bad plan. It just was not my primary plan. I wanted these rentals to pay themselves off enough so that by my 30th birthday, our Net Worth was a million bucks.
Of note, this is also very difficult to do when the rentals we were purchasing were all sub $100k. They were adorable starter homes. They were small, they were well maintained but old, and they were not the kind of homes that would appreciate $100s of thousands of dollars. It was what we could afford. For those who are curious, to buy a house that you intend to use as a rental or investment, most banks require at least 20% down. Which meant we had to save $20k to account for the down payment and closing costs for these rentals.
Let me also interject here with praise for my husband. He is not interested in rental properties or real estate math, but he knows I am so he gets on board. He trusts me. He also works very hard to keep me grounded and not outrun what we can afford.
This is all well and good - but it meant we were not on track to reach millionaire status. It means we will not reach millionaire status in 3 months. And this is where I wrap it up, because it’s okay.
It’s okay that I won’t be a millionaire in 3 months. While running (albeit secretively) towards that goal, I did something else. We set ourselves up to be financially secure. We may not be millionaires, but we have assets that we can leave alone so they can grow, or that we can sell and move into more liquid accounts. We gave ourselves options. If we do nothing but properly maintain these properties, in 30 years when they are paid off and we are ready to retire - we can use them to fund our retirement. We can (partially) live off the rent, or sell them. We have options, and that is powerful.
I’ll be honest. I have not given up on being a millionaire. I’ve changed my approach though. 30 was an arbitrary number. It didn’t have to be arbitrary, but because I did not have a plan or deadlines or even a roadmap for how to make it happen - it was less of a goal and more of an arbitrary wish.
Here are my lessons learned for chasing a large goal like this:
Set a timeline, with deadlines to check in and assess progress. If you are behind, determine why. See if the overall timeline is unrealistic or if your actions need to change to actually meet your goal.
Be honest. Both with yourself and with the people who support you. What do you want to achieve? How will you get there? What support do you need? Is it realistic? Why or why not?
Be flexible. Life happens, it throws curveballs. Accept that not everything will work out the way you want it to.
Find your why. Like I mentioned, I had a goal of “Millionaire by 30” - but it was arbitrary and it didn’t address my real concerns or rationale. What I really wanted was financial security and financial independence, but what I didn’t dig down deep enough to get to that. If I had, maybe “Millionaire” wouldn’t have been the goal, and maybe “by 30” wouldn’t have been the timeline.
I believe financial independence is wildly important. I also know that it looks different for everyone. I realize that “Millionaire by 30” was something I grabbed from someone else, without pausing to think if it made sense for me, my family or our values. It turns out it was a vanity goal, which is probably why I was so embarrassed about wanting it to begin with. Along the way I’ve learned a lot about what my family needs, and what financial independence means for us. Now, I’m in a better position to make those goals a reality.
Here’s to turning 30 as a not-millionaire.
Cheers,
Kathryn
