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In less than 10 years, I went from negative net worth to net worth millionaire. That's right. Zero to hero. Chump to champ. Bottom of the ocean to king of the world. Except my ships stay in the course, baby. Plus, with my size, there'd definitely be room for me and my woman on that door.
tech my dogs could fit too. So today I'm sharing exactly how I turned the boat around, avoided the icebergs of the toxic money culture, and reached the sunny shores of financial freedom. And like I mentioned, this took a decade. And that may sound like forever to you, but here's what I found. Most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year, and they underestimate what they can accomplish in a decade. Yeah, well, maybe next time you will estimate me
So like many of you, I assume millionaire status was reserved for super old people, CEOs, doctors, trust fund babies, or lottery winners. And I'm none of those things. The closest I've come to winning the lottery was marrying my wife.
Let's set the stage for where I was at 10 years ago. I took out whatever loans I needed, assuming that at the end of the college degree rainbow was a pot of gold that included my dream job and a fat salary. Obviously, that's not even close to what happened. There weren't even Lucky Charms at the end of the rainbow. I could only afford the generic brand.
Marshmallow mateys. So in 2013, I was a recent college grad who didn't even know how much debt I even had. The grand total of all my student loans was $36,000, which is about the average amount of student loan debt people graduate with. I was average, all right, and average sucked.
Yeah, pretty much. My plan sucked. It got me to where I was at, which was $40,000 in debt and broke. So I had to find another plan that actually worked. And I found one through a course called Financial Peace University. And it helped break down all the lies and myths that I'd come to believe about money. And it gave me hope that I could change, that I could take control of my money instead of it controlling me.
So with this newfound confidence, the first thing I did was cut up the all Amex and Discover cards. Now I know that seems aggressive to physically cut up a card, but aggressive is what it takes if you want to get out of debt quickly. So we don't need a credit score anymore if we're done with debt. It reminds me of the classic Doc Brown quote from Back to the Future. Where we're going, we don't need it.
Debt. Absolute classic quote. So now that I didn't have credit cards as a false sense of security, I needed to become the Bank of George. So I saved up a thousand bucks super quick and I set it aside to cover those ankle-biter emergency expenses. The flat tire, the plumber, the ER bill for that little fireworks mishap. Oh, Lord! Oh!
Now, once I had a thousand bucks saved, I attacked that $4,000 in credit card debt with a vengeance. I'm vengeance. I was willing to do whatever it took to throw as much money as I could at this debt every month. So I started budgeting every single dollar super intentionally. I stopped eating out and wasting money. I was doing side hustles. I was selling stuff. I was flipping stuff. I was driving for Uber and Lyft and taking advantage of every sign-on bonus I could get. I was eating lean cuisines instead of steaks, which was hardly a sacrifice. Those are fire. It's frozen.
But it can be served boiling lava hot. I even sold off a few stocks that I had from my days working at Apple. Yes, that's really me. Do I not look like every Apple employee you've ever seen combined into one person who was also an extra on Nickelodeon show? Josh and Drake. Drake and Josh? I think it's Drake and Josh. Uh...
Who is this guy? Side note: If you're wondering why I started with $4,000 in debt rather than student loans, it's because I was using a debt payoff method called the debt snowball. Now, the debt snowball method is where you pay down your debts from smallest to largest regardless of the interest rate. Now, before you jump into the comments saying, "Actually, it makes more mathematical sense to pay off the higher interest rates first." Listen, bucko, that's not how life works. I say nay.
None of this was a math problem to begin with. It was a behavior problem. It was me. Which is why I started with the smallest debt first. You get momentum, you get motivation to keep this snowball rolling. It's like psychology, look it up. So now that the credit card debt was gonzo, it was time to tackle Sallie Mae with that same intensity. And when I say tackle, I don't mean literally. Although I would love to put on a helmet and just knock the living daylights out of Sallie Mae.
But let me tell you, when you become debt free and that first paycheck hits your bank account and it stays with you, that is like a magic trick. And while it was fun to celebrate getting to a positive net worth, getting out of debt, I wasn't out of the woods yet. So I kept the momentum rolling and I increased that $1,000 starter emergency fund all the way up to three to six months of expenses for a fully funded emergency fund. And wouldn't you know it, next time the HVAC went out and the cost was all on me, it turned an emergency into a mere inconvenience.
because I was able to withdraw it from the Bank of George. Disclaimer, Bank of George is not a real bank. Deposits are not insured by a member FDIC. So at this point, less than two years after my financial wake-up call, I'm debt-free, I have three to six months of expenses saved, and I'm finally ready to go ham on investing. Hog wild. Bring home the bacon, turn it into more bacon. Give me all...
the bacon and eggs you have. - So when it came time to invest, there's a whole lot of ways to do it. And this was before crypto bros and TikTok were around to add to the confusion. So my plan was simple, and it's still my plan to this day. Invest 15% of my gross income into retirement accounts. In fact,
8 out of 10 millionaires reach millionaire status through their employer-sponsored retirement plans. Now, most millionaires, they're not Wall Street or Silicon Valley yuppies always on the cutting edge with latest and greatest stock or trend. They're just ordinary people with normal jobs who consistently invest in their 401k over a long period of time. In fact, not a single millionaire in the study said single stocks were a big factor in their financial success. Instead, it was
it was regular, boring, simple, consistent investing over a long period of time that built their empires. Now, aside from investing into retirement for almost a decade now, the other thing that helped me reach millionaire status as early as I did was paying off my mortgage early. You see, by the time my wife and I got married, we had no consumer debt and we already had savings in the bank. So we decided to do something extra weird, aside from having a camel named Cowboy attend our wedding. What's good, Cowboy, if you're watching, for some strange reason? No.
We decided to buy a house that was within our budget and means, save up a big down payment of at least 20%, get a 15-year fixed rate conventional mortgage, and then pay off that bad boy in less than 15 years. We started to ask ourselves some audacious questions like, how cool would it be to not have a mortgage payment by our early 30s? What kind of freedom could we have? What options could we have if we did that? So we saved up more and through side hustles, budgeting, patience, living frugally, we were able to put down well over 20% and moved into the burr.
Now, this wasn't our dream home or a swanky condo downtown. This was a modest townhome in a great area that we knew would appreciate down the road when we were ready to sell. So then we started hammering away at the principle of this 15-year fixed rate mortgage, just like I did when I was paying off debt. And we made it a goal to make extra payments on the mortgage every single month. Now,
Now remember, we had margin in our budget at this point, thanks to getting out of debt. And on top of that, I kept up some of the side hustles. We did some no spend months where we didn't have any expenses outside of regular bills and basics. We sold stuff on Marketplace. We went hard at this thing. And I'll say a major factor in our story is that we were dinks. Dual income, no kids. Actually, for us, it was dink wad. Dual income, no kids with a dog.
Meaning it was a time in our life where we had a bigger shovel and less responsibilities and expenses, which allowed us to be super aggressive with our goal. So if that's not you, if you're a one-income household, you've got kids, you've got childcare, this might look a little different for you. It might take a little bit longer, but you can absolutely do it. Do it! So 26 months later, we had paid off our $165,000 mortgage, and we were completely debt-free. Three, two, one. We're dead!
So as of 2023, 10 years into this journey, between the contribution and growth of our retirement accounts, the appreciation and equity in our home, and our liquid savings in the bank, we are technically net worth millionaires. You are technically correct. The best kind of correct. It doesn't seem like it. Look at this face. But here's what it looks like.
But here's the thing, the millionaires that are actually out there, you wouldn't be able to tell. They drive normal used cars, they live normal lives. This is not flashy private jet life, okay? This is just a life of freedom and options. And home ownership is a huge part of this puzzle. And that's why I recommend as early as you're financially ready to become a homeowner. What does financially ready mean? It means you're out of consumer debt,
You've got a fully funded emergency fund. You've got a good down payment of 10 to 20%. And you get a 15 year fixed rate loan where the payment is no more than a quarter of your after-tax income. If you check all those boxes, you're ready to buy a house. Now, I didn't believe that it was possible for someone like me to get ahead with money. But now that I'm here,
There ain't no going back. And it has given me so much margin and freedom with money. And not just freedom to live my life, but to help others, to be aware of opportunities to give and be generous. So that was the path that I took to build wealth. And I know it might be very different from you. You might be starting from a completely different place, and that's okay. So if you want to figure out what the next best step is, I've got a link below that will help you do just that. And if you want more content about how to build wealth, how to take control of your money, be sure to like,
and subscribe so you don't miss it. Thanks for watching. Sincerely, George. I don't know why I tried an email sign off there. That was really, that was a Hail Mary.
