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I know a fella who was born poor in Cleveland. Worked his way through college working 3 jobs, came to California with $ 600 to his name, knocked around in different jobs before becoming a real estate appraiser. 23 years later and he has a net worth over $ 2.5 million. He earned it $ 350 at a time. The secret is to live comfortably but below your means and work really really hard at something you enjoy.
Do you know any self-made millionaires? And if so, what are the most consistent traits that you see among them? We're talking about people who were able to go from being a member of the middle class community, to becoming a millionaire. Do you find that there's any general commonalities among people who were able to achieve millionaire status?
I had a relative who went from dirt poor without even 3 meals a day growing up to a multi-millionaire. He went to college on scholarships, got a law degree, got a great law job, worked hard to make partner at the firm ASAP, had a family, but was able to save money and invested that. Upon passing away he left at least 3 million. The main trait was working hard, single-mindedly working toward the goal of busting out of poverty. Growing up in miserable conditions on 1 meal/day, or two on a good day, is a strong motivator.
I doubt spending $100K per year as a retiree has all that much correlation with high net worth. I'd bet the majority of retirees spending like that have defined benefit pensions. Two married retired teachers in the Northeast certainly have more than $100K coming in.
The 70%th percentile for net worth of retirees is about $300K. There just aren't that many households with enough investable assets to throw off that kind of passive income...
When I claim my wife's and my SS benefits at 70, the check will be $62,000 a year. That is not taxable if we have no other income, so you can get pretty close to $100K just with SS and a million in a Roth… that is not exactly my investment profile but I am saying you can spend $100K without being HNW.
When I claim my wife's and my SS benefits at 70, the check will be $62,000 a year. That is not taxable if we have no other income, so you can get pretty close to $100K just with SS and a million in a Roth… that is not exactly my investment profile but I am saying you can spend $100K without being HNW.
I'm sure this is theoretically possible, but I doubt it's common.
i could never see delaying retirement 8 years after getting a taste of it . so i would think anyone who actually does retire earlier like ourselves and uses their own assets has substantial assets in traditional ira's since for most of our careers roths didn't exist . .
those rmd's combined with that large ss check would leave very few not getting their ss taxed .
in theory i can come up with all sorts of ways after the fact it could be done but in practice very unlikely .
Yeah Roth became available in 1998 with an initial contribution max of $2,000.
Quick math shows if you maxed it our every year you'd have contributed about $70k thru 2015, you'd have to have some serious returns or paid lots of income tax on giant Roth conversions to get anywhere near a million.
The secret is to live comfortably but below your means and work really really hard at something you enjoy.
I don't even think enjoying it is a requirement. Grind away at a well paying job you despite while living well below your means for long enough and you'll still amass wealth.
My wife and I (33 and 30) are on the fence about having kids; one of my concerns is that kids will eat up all of our income and we'll never be able to retire. As it is now, we are able to save 29% of our income but that's running things pretty tight. I will never make much more money than I do now (51K with about 3% raises every year capping out around $80K) although I have about as stable employment as anyone can get. She may increase her income (about 25K now, she can make at least 40K in my opinion - she is working way below her potential).
We're running out of time to have kids, but everyone we know our age spends a fortune on their kids, don't know if we can do it and still save money.
This is one of those questions that runs into that "is $1MM or some other high figure of savings & net worth late in life worth sacrificing lifestyle" type decisions.
My wife and I (33 and 30) are on the fence about having kids; one of my concerns is that kids will eat up all of our income and we'll never be able to retire. As it is now, we are able to save 29% of our income but that's running things pretty tight. I will never make much more money than I do now (51K with about 3% raises every year capping out around $80K) although I have about as stable employment as anyone can get. She may increase her income (about 25K now, she can make at least 40K in my opinion - she is working way below her potential).
We're running out of time to have kids, but everyone we know our age spends a fortune on their kids, don't know if we can do it and still save money.
This is one of those questions that runs into that "is $1MM or some other high figure of savings & net worth late in life worth sacrificing lifestyle" type decisions.
Kids help me and my husband set priority, we would have squandered all of our money otherwise. I think 33 and 30 are still youngish. I've put almost 2 kids through college, one half year left for one, the other one graduated from a pricy private school and we still have plenty left over to retire early for me at 55.
I've always told my kid that each one of them is worth at least a million, so I'd say go for it. You become millionaires sooner with kids.
I don't even think enjoying it is a requirement. Grind away at a well paying job you despite while living well below your means for long enough and you'll still amass wealth.
Enjoying it isn't a requirement, but it sure makes it a better experience! Not always possible though.
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