Easiest way:
No kids. Two good incomes. Reliably saving 20%. Mid 40s. No college debt or health issues.
That should get you to about a million in assets.
No kids. Two good incomes. Reliably saving 20%. Mid 40s. No college debt or health issues.
That should get you to about a million in assets.
In order to develop a successful model, one should also have negative examples, i.e. people who could have had ~$1M in their mid 40s but do not. The greatest mistakes I made that I see with hindsight are (i) doing a PhD in EE where a MS was more than enough and then taking too long to finish that and (ii) taking too long to get acquainted with the concept of creating wealth, a la http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html; I'd say that, had I read Hackers and Painters 15 years ago (it wasn't printed at that time or course), my life would have been different (or maybe not, it's easy to get caught with might have beens). That's why I buy a copy of this book to many young people I know who are starting life.
Not to say that's a great plan. Having a life without kids wouldn't be a satisfying life for most people, and so if its a choice between kids and wealth, then most would choose kids.
I do think having kids early probably makes it much, much harder to become wealthy. My friends who had kids in their early 20's are generally poorer than my friends who waited until their 30's. I think a more realistic plan would be something that includes children, but waiting until you've had time to get some type of career started.
[9]This is a good plan for life in general. If you have two choices, choose the harder. If you're trying to decide whether to go out running or sit home and watch TV, go running. Probably the reason this trick works so well is that when you have two choices and one is harder, the only reason you're even considering the other is laziness. You know in the back of your mind what's the right thing to do, and this trick merely forces you to acknowledge it.
To add some value to this anecdote, I'll share that I've been using voice dictation more often, both for convenience (as here) and also as a tool to help improve my diction. I tend to swallow my words and speak unclearly, so by having a computer check me I'm slowly learning to enunciate a little better and specifically figuring out which areas I need the most work. I am not speaking to the phone robotically, the only change from my conversational tone is the speaking of punctuation. (As for the pain of to/too/two and similar homonyms, the iPhone helpfully underlines these in blue and makes it a snap to tap and pick the correct version, a trick it took me a while to learn so I thought I should share.)
its a good way to avoid ending up on the street...you'll always be able to get room and board with your kids.
Since our generation won't get any social security or pensions to live off, we are going to need all the help we can get if things go south.
Be nice to your kids, and hopefully they will give you room and board in case of emergency -- but I've tried to help my parents many time only to regret it.
So try to avoid beating them for fun...and you'll be fine.
I'm not talking about relying on your kids to pay your bills etc...but more of an extreme situation where you are just making sure you don't end up begging on the streets
She responded that she had eight retirement plans, and I was the oldest.
In my view, kids are not investment. They take out much resources from you, and you do so willingly because you love them. As they get older, they may or may not show appreciation, depends on your relationship with them.
Debt is definitely the first thing to avoid.
I've made my riches, modestly, by working hard. Hard work, being paid to do things you like to do, having a strong investment in the tools one needs to work hard, then getting on with it. By work, I mean, 'do something that someone else needs done, well'.
Also: get paid. The world is a big, wild, woolly place, and if someone is going to pay you well to haul bricks all day, get out there and haul bricks, to get PAID. Doing a good job means also, getting paid well. Because the person you are working for wants to pay you well, and for little other reason than that your hard work is valuable to them.
This is the nature of the realms in which money, our subject today, becomes of any use: someone else thinks its worth it to do/make BLAH, even if you personally don't.
Imagine for the millionth time that day, you're yelling at your older kid to do his chores, feed his pets, practice his instrument, do his homework, etc. Or the younger one smells like ass and he's having a meltdown because you want to change his diaper and he'd rather keep playing
I swear, some days I come home and feel like turning around and heading off back to work. So, no, it's not all wine and roses.
But then they do something that shows you're at least semi-competent at raising them and it makes your day.
* Basic living costs (food and clothing and fun).
* Childcare requires either expensive daycare or a parent not working / limited working.
* Money needs to be saved for college.
* Require more bedrooms, which drives up housing costs although it's arguable whether this has an impact on net worth. (This may be double-counting the first point, but going from a $100k condo to a $400k house because of a child is more than just living costs.)
Add those up and yes it probably takes another 10-20 years to meet your net worth goals. OTOH, you have a safety net when you get older. And, you know, a kid.