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Why Teachers Consistently Become Millionaires

2024/10/25
logo of podcast George Kamel

George Kamel

Key Insights

Why do teachers have the ability to increase their income through side hustles?

They have holidays and summers to double up on income.

Why do teachers choose practicality over luxury?

They are realistic about their financial situation and prioritize classroom needs.

How do teachers excel at investing?

They have a great long-term perspective and patience.

What is the key to teachers becoming millionaires?

Regular, consistent investing over a long period of time.

How does compound growth benefit teachers' investments?

It significantly increases their account balance over time.

Chapters

Teachers are surprisingly among the top professions to become millionaires due to their ability to increase income through side hustles, practical spending habits, and realistic financial management.
  • Teachers can boost income through side gigs during holidays and summers.
  • They prioritize practicality over luxury, avoiding status symbols.
  • Teachers are realistic about their financial situation and use extra money for classroom supplies.

Shownotes Transcript

- Teachers, the beacons of knowledge, purveyors of wisdom, hope for the next generation, and the unexpected top five profession of millionaires. And all the teachers said, "What?"

If I had known that Miss Duderstadt was rolling in the Benjamins, I would have spent less time sleeping in social studies and more time getting all the deets on how to build up fat stacks of cash. Now, I think I can speak for all of us when I say teachers should be paid double in respect and in money for what they have to put up with, especially you saints in the trenches of middle school and the odors. Oh, the odor. You can't mask it with Axe. Doesn't work like that.

But since most teachers don't have giant salaries, how is it that they're consistently one of the most likely professions to become millionaires? Well, I'll give you my take. But first, I'm conducting my own social study to see how many likes and subscribes we can get from today's video. So go on and prove my hypothesis that, well, I can't tell you because it'll skew the results. Okay.

Okay, for starters, I think one of the biggest benefit teachers have when trying to reach that millionaire milestone is they have the ability to increase their income through side hustles. For teachers, they have holidays and summers to double up on income and bring in some extra cash. And I'm not just talking about side gigs here. There's things they can do at school like tutoring, coaching, and summer school. That can be huge to help them build wealth and hit their financial goal. Another reason I think teachers are able to become millionaires is because they choose practicality

over luxury. Most teachers are not trying to impress their friends and family with all the stuff they have, the cars they drive, and their houses. They're simply trying to survive. Have you been in a classroom?

That's why they're not rolling up in luxury cars to the school parking lot. Mostly because they know that they're going to get sideswiped by Becky's new Beamer that her daddy got her for her birthday. You're 16. You don't deserve a brand new luxury car. Sorry. Okay, maybe I got a little carried away. Teachers are realistic about their financial situation, so they don't care as much about status. And you know what? If they do have a few extra hundred bucks, they're rarely spending it on themselves and on luxury items. They're using it to buy supplies and decor for the classroom because the schools won't pay for it.

Please change your behavior. All right, another reason I think teachers are able to build wealth is because they're really good at getting creative and stretching a dollar. They know that one man's trash is another man's theory of relativity. I mean, just look at this thing. I mean, what a great visual.

It clearly explains that the laws of physics are the same for all observers and that space and time are interwoven with the speed of light remaining constant, leading to effects like time dilation and the warping of space-time near massive objects. And yet I got a D. This is a social studies class. Don't bring that crap in my classroom. I don't care! It was art. And you destroyed it. You destroyed it, Mrs. Duderstadt. How is that even a name? Mrs. Duderstadt. You got a light? No, I don't have a light. I'm in fourth grade.

Anyways, along with being creative, teachers are great at committing to a proven, structured plan. They do it every day with syllabus and curriculums. Teachers have to look at the big picture. And in teacher land, that's called the scope and sequence. Literally, what do I want to achieve? Scope. And what steps do I need to take to get there? Sequence.

Then they break those steps into lesson plans to make sure they're aligning daily with their scope and sequence. And this systematic approach ensures that they cover all of the material and ultimately they won't miss the mark. If you want to build wealth, it takes being intentional and resourceful with every single dollar in your budget. And having the same approach will make sure that you don't miss the mark on your financial goals. All right, this next one is key. So pencils down and eyes up here.

teachers tend to excel at investing because they have a great long-term perspective. I mean, teachers get to see those scrawny little insecure freshmen grow into a scrawny, still somewhat insecure senior, but with a great personality and a sense of humor. Didn't love my senior superlative, but it is what it is.

Anyway, here's why this is key. There are way too many social media gurus and wealth strategists selling snake oil, claiming you can get rich quick overnight with their course or their crappy insurance product. But obviously, they never sat through Mrs. Perez's AP Stats class. If they had, they would know that only 5% of millionaires got their million dollars in under 10 years. So that means 95% of millionaires had to have serious patience for over a decade.

And who has more patience than a fourth grade teacher the day after Halloween on a full moon? Nobody. I've said it once and I'll say it again. If you want to build wealth, you have to be a crockpot in a world full of microwaves. So how do millionaires like teachers invest? Well, first they have the margin to invest by saving on other things like their cell phone plan. And for that, I recommend Telo. They've got plans as low as five bucks and the unlimited everything plan is just 25 bucks because teachers ain't got time for name brand $150 plans.

With all the money they save, they can do more fun things like travel and see the world. And even then, Tello's got them covered in over 250 countries with their affordable pay-as-you-go international roaming. And of course, there's no contract and no fees. So whether you're a teacher or not, go check out Tello by going to tello.com slash george to get five bucks off the unlimited data plan for your first month of service. Or click the link in the description. And one more thing. You ever wish you could go back in time and delete a bad grade from your report card? Not that I ever had to do that.

Well, you can't do that. But what you can do these days is delete your personal info from the internet. And that's why I love and use Delete Me, another sponsor of today's video. They scour the web for your personal info on these data broker websites, and they remove it, and they send you a report showing exactly what they've done. And they save you a whole bunch of time. I've saved 44 hours already thanks to their hard work. And I want to give you guys a discount. You can get 20% off any of their plans by going to joindeleteme.com slash george, or you can click the link in the description below.

So back to the question, how do millionaires become millionaires? Well, 75% of millionaires, teachers included, said that regular, consistent investing over a long period of time led them to millionaire status, meaning their millions didn't come from some well-timed single stock investment. It came from a good old 401k, 403b, or a Roth IRA, which is great news because it means you don't need to game the system or be a financial prodigy

or find some cheat code to make your investments work. All you need is a simple investment account and compound growth. That is the cheat code. Yeah, but I don't have that much to invest, George. I hear you, but let's look at an example of the average teacher's experience. Let's call her Sally. Let's say she starts at 22 years old with the national average starting salary of around $44,000.

Now, Sally isn't quite ready to invest because she's got some debt, she needs some savings, so she doesn't start until she's 27, five years later. Now, assuming a conservative annual salary growth of 1.25%, she's now making around 47,000, and she starts to invest 15% of her income every single year. Let's skip ahead 35 years, and she's now 62, and her salary has only increased to $73,000. Well, over those 35 years, Sally was investing 15% of whatever her yearly salary was,

That's a total contribution of around $320,000. However, thanks to the magic of compound growth, Sally's consistent investing creates an account balance of around $3 million. And now Sally can retire at 62 without a gray hair in sight, thanks to her perfect classroom management and without being dependent on some measly teacher pension. So the ability to side hustle, the creativity, the practicality, the patience, the long-term perspective, all of this is the perfect recipe for teachers to excel financially.

Now, if you've been watching this and you're not sure what your next step is in building wealth, check out this video for the seven things that made all the difference for me, or click the link in the description below to watch. And huge shout out to all the teachers out there putting in the hard work and the long hours. You are not forgotten and you are changing lives. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.