Here’s our latest interview with a millionaire as we seek to learn from those who have grown their wealth to high heights.
If you’d like to be considered for an interview, drop me a note and we can chat about specifics.
This interview took place in May.
It’s a long one (which I love!) so I’ll be breaking it into two separate posts.
My questions are in bold italics and their responses follow in black.
Let’s get started…
OVERVIEW
How old are you (and spouse if applicable, plus how long you’ve been married)?
I am 44 and my wife is 38 years old. We’ve been married for 7 years. We dated for a few years and knew each other as colleagues for a few more years prior to dating.
Not to sound sappy but my wife is the light of my life. She knocked me off my axis when we started dating.
I like to say that when we met two things happened, my life expectancy went way up as did the likelihood of me being able retire. We’re true partners and take an active and equal role in managing our financial empire.
Do you have kids/family (if so, how old are they)?
We do not have children and do not plan on having children. My family is all local including my mom and siblings.
My wife’s family is spread out around the United States. We also have a dog that we spoil rotten.
What area of the country do you live in?
I was born and raised near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and have lived here most of my life. I did live out of state for a couple of years because of my career, but when my father passed away, we decided it would be best to move back closer to my family. We were lucky in that regard as my company was willing to cover the relocation costs.
We live about 35 minutes north of Pittsburgh, PA in an affluent area. The property taxes are high because of the school district, but our house is paid for and we like the area and neighborhood so we have decided to stay.
I think once we are both done working, we will likely move somewhere a bit warmer but that’s probably 10 years away at this point.
What is your current net worth?
$4.05 Million
What are the main assets that make up your net worth (stocks, real estate, business, home, retirement accounts, etc.) and any debt that offsets part of these?
Our net worth breaks down as follows:
- Real Estate: $956K. Consisting of our primary residence $743K and a townhouse that my mom lives in worth $213K.
- Retirement Accounts: $1,220K. Consisting of mostly long dated funds and a subset of dividend paying stocks that are automatically reinvested. We both have pensions worth $162K that are included in this number but they are frozen and no longer actively receiving company contributions, they do grow at roughly 2% to 3% per year.
- Non-Retirement Accounts: $1,742K. This is a retail brokerage account and a working cash account that we use to manage our monthly bills. In general, we only keep enough money in the cash account to cover the next 30 days of bills, with any excess being pushed to the brokerage account to be invested.
- Other Assets: $31K. Consisting of Pittsburgh Steelers PSL (Personal Seat Licenses) and Pinball machines. We actively track these values as they are fairly liquid and can be sold/transferred.
- Vehicles: $102K. My wife and I both have newer vehicles. I have a pickup truck and she has a mid-sized SUV.
Debt:
- We currently do not carry any meaningful long-term debt. Our real estate and vehicles are paid for and we have no other outstanding loans. I normally like to run about 10% margin in our retail trading account but as interest rates began to rise in 2022, I unwound those positions with the anticipation that rates would continue to rise.
- We try to put all of our expenses on a credit card to capture the airline points.
- Additionally, we do carry a very small balance with Apple for various device purchases. The Apple balance is currently about $1K and has a 0% interest rate.
EARN
What is your job?
I work for a Fortune 200 company in technology executive.
My wife works at another large company as a finance executive.
What is your annual income?
My base salary is $230K and I also receive roughly $60K of restricted stock annually and a 28% bonus target. My income varies a bit year to year based on company performance. In 2023 my total earnings were ~$385K.
Tell us about your income performance over time. What was the starting salary of your first job, how did it grow from there (and what you did to make it grow), and where are you now?
I started hustling to make money at a young age. I was into comic books and there was a full-page ad that said I could make money selling products to people. I asked my mom if I could sign up and then filled out the request for more information and mailed it in.
In a few weeks the welcome kit arrived and I was officially a door-to-door salesman. I did okay but the prospect of going door to door and facing mostly rejection wasn’t very exciting.
I cashed my earnings in for an ant farm. The ants were shipped separately and ended up living a few weeks until I managed to somehow flood most of them to death when trying to give them sugar water.
I moved up to snow shoveling during the winter months and was able to generate about $50 per day on my own. I convinced a few buddies to come work with me and we were able to each make about $80 a piece because of the efficiencies of having 3 people.
This was honestly a great lesson for me. I had more money than most of my friends and could buy the things I wanted. Mostly comic books and a video game or two.
There were other various hustles along the way like getting people food at school and keeping the change, etc. I was always hustling.
I got my first real job at 16 working for Best Buy. I was hired as a cashier for $5.15 an hour, but as the store was in the process of opening, I got to do all sorts of tasks.
I setup displays, I organized the CDs, movies and software, at one point I even helped fill sandbags because we had a horrible storm and they were worried about flooding.
I would complete my task and then would seek out a manager for something else to do. This caught management’s attention as many of the people were twice my age or older and had a habit of completing tasks and then standing around.
Eventually the store manager let me pickup whatever odds and ends I wanted to go after. When the store finally opened, I asked if I could work just weekends because of high school so they let me handle the weekly floor set.
I quickly figured out how to use the computer system to check inventory, print new labels, tags and so on – eventually they let me run the floor set for the media section.
I’d have my work completed before the store opened on Sunday, then I’d move to being a cashier for a few hours, or help out in the section I just setup. Eventually the next summer rolled around and I asked if I could go full time.
The store manager agreed but asked if I would be interested in doing appliance deliveries as a helper. I loved this idea as the job got me out of the store and I could earn extra money from tips.
The work was hard at times but it was nice to be out driving around and doing short burst of work. I saved most of my money throughout my time at Best Buy (more on this later).
Eventually it came time to go back to high school and I was able to get a position back in the media section doing the floor sets. I got my first raise to $5.35 an hour. I remember being so disappointed by the 20-cent raise.
How was I going to get rich at this rate? – It would take a million year! I figured if I wasn’t going to make a lot of money yet, why not do something fun?
An older friend of mine was managing an Arcade at the local mall and he offered to hire me for minimum wage of $5.15. I jumped at the opportunity because what money I did spent was usually at the mall playing video games.
I figured with the free games plus minimum wage; I’d actually come out ahead. I absolutely loved this job and worked there for most of the rest of high school.
Eventually the company that owned the Arcade lost their lease and I was laid off. This was honestly probably a good thing as I might still be working there!
I turned 18, graduated high school and immediately went off to college that summer. I didn’t work the first year of college but I did take what money I made over the past couple of years and invested in the stock market.
I started reading an online stock forum and invested some of my money in penny stocks. Looking back those didn’t go particularly well but the money I had left I invested into company focused on LED products. Over the next several months I turned my initial investment of $500 into $5,000.
I thought I was going to be rich, but the stock fell and I ended up selling for about $3,000. When I came home that summer, I did not get a job.
Instead, I lived off my stock windfall, continued to invest and supplemented my income by driving my friends around and having them pay for gas / buying me food and drinks.
This worked out well until mid-summer when my mother left a note for me on the kitchen table that said “Meet me here at 5:30 pm”. She was concerned that I was never home, clearly didn’t have a job yet had not asked her for any money.
How was I paying for gas she asked? How was I paying for things? She asked if I was dealing drugs! I laughed and said no mom I’m trading stocks!
She didn’t believe me and I had to show her my brokerage account. She mumbled something about gambling and left me alone at that point.
In fairness it was the late 1990’s when everything was going up, so while I thought I was a savant, I was eventually humbled when the tech bubble burst.
Luckily, I learned a lot and I did take some of my money out of the market and started buying used computer equipment. I found a local scrap yard that had contracts to scrap old equipment. I’d dig through things and would buy whatever I thought I could sell.
I found some old Next Computers, Sun Microsystems equipment, etc. I did my best to advertise to friends as well as online to strangers. I eventually expanded this enterprise by bidding on government auctions.
I ended up buying enough pallets to fill a 26-foot box truck and then spent the next summer and fall selling monitors, PCs, old printers and so on. At this point I had taken out an ad in the newspaper and sold some of the more exotic stuff online.
The funny part was I wasn’t old enough to rent the box truck, I had to convince an older relative to go with me. The local scrap place dried up as a source of equipment and the logistics of the government auctions, storage, fulfillment was a bit much with school so I sold the last of the equipment and sought out a tech job.
A friend of mine got me an interview at a local internet service provider. I think I was making $7 or $8 an hour doing phone support.
I eventually took a full-time night shift position and spent the last year and a half of college working full time. This enabled me to buy my first house in a rundown area of the city for $25K.
It took some persistence but I was eventually able to find a bank that would make me a mortgage. Surprisingly (to me at least) most banks wanted to loan only higher amounts.
I closed on my first house in 2001 a few months after my 21st birthday. I took in some friends as roommates and I was in business as a landlord. Having three roommates covered all of my living expenses and enabled me to continue to save much of what I earned working fulltime.
When I graduated college, I asked the company I was with for a promotion and the obliged by making a support position that directly supported the sales team. I got a couple of dollars raise. After about a year one of our systems administrators left the company.
I talked to the office manager and said I would do the job for the same money as I knew I wasn’t qualified but desperately wanted to learn. She agreed to hire me but thankfully gave me more money.
I was now making a bit over $30K per year. I stayed in this role for a few years honing my craft. When I left, I was making about $35K.
Out of the blue, I received a call from a friend who used to work at the same company. She asked if I would help her out with a list of email accounts that needed some work. I didn’t think much of it and took care of it fairly quickly.
She called me back a few days later to thank me and to tell me that her new company was looking for someone to come in and manage their IT department. Intrigued I agreed to interview. As it would turn out there was no IT Department, it would only be me.
I really didn’t want the job, as being the only IT person made me nervous, so when asked my salary requirements I said – $70K. The owner of the company didn’t bat an eye and barked across the front office to the secretary to type up the offer. I honestly did not want this job but couldn’t refuse it because it would double my salary.
This proved to be great decision as the company exploded with growth and I was able to build out all of their infrastructure, work on new facility designs, implement various engineering, financial and manufacturing systems and hire additional help to form a real IT department.
I had full autonomy which was a lot of fun being in my mid-20’s. Looking back, I did spend a lot of money going out to eat, partying with friends on the weekends and so on, but I did invest/save some of it.
Eventually the company stopped growing and the pace of work slowed down. This made me really uncomfortable because I knew I still had a lot of career left.
I was at a family holiday dinner and was complaining about my situation. My cousin suggested I apply at this company – the same one I am with today.
I agreed and eventually landed a job working as an Assistant Manager. The job didn’t have a glamours title, but they paid me a signing bonus and offered me $85K per year – matching what I was making.
I worked hard and continued to navigate towards situations others failed at or things no one else wanted to do. This led to numerous different opportunities and raises.
Over the next 17 years I managed to grow my annual W2 earnings by roughly 4.5X.
What tips do you have for others who want to grow their career-related income?
As mentioned above do the things that others can’t or won’t. Find a way to be seen as a problem solver, not a doer.
Get in, fix things, leave them in better shape then you found them, make them sustainable and ensure that you can hand them off to other lower cost employees once you’ve made the improvement.
The other tip is to always ask for more money and responsibilities. If you are valued by the company, they will generally give it to you. It also serves as a good way to know when it’s time to move on.
I faced this situation prior to taking my current role. I asked my boss for more responsibility and money – he couldn’t get it approved so I leveraged my network at my existing company to find another opportunity.
While it was a lateral move, I was able to negotiate a pay raise of almost 10%.
Make sure you have access to cash and/or credit. During the 2008 financial crisis I was able to pick up a couple of single-family homes very cheaply.
I renovated them and quickly rented them for a total of $1,600 a month. Eventually when I needed to move away from Pittsburgh, I was able to sell them for about 3x what I had invested plus all of the rental income that I generated.
What’s your work-life balance look like?
For most of my career it’s not been very good, but as I worked myself into being 75 pounds overweight and developed stomach erosions from the stress – I realized I had to do something different.
I was able to go remote about 7 years ago and that allowed me to get my weight and health under control. I now workout frequently and eat right.
At this point I think my work-life balance is significantly improved. Part of it comes from the financial freedom that we’ve built, knowing that when I want to quit, I can.
If I’m honest I’ve been thinking about leaving for the last 6 to 8 months. I don’t really want to quit working but I’d like to go back into business for myself.
Do you have any sources of income besides your career? If so, can you list them, give us a feel for how much you earn with each, and offer some insight into how you developed them?
Our retail portfolio is also throwing off ~$119K per year in cash. We’ve been working hard to try and grow this to match our yearly overhead. We currently do not have any other income beyond these items.
I am actively looking at some real estate investments but have no desire to be a landlord again – so mostly REITs and/or syndications. I’ve also been on the hunt for a business to buy or start up.
SAVE
What is your annual spending?
In 2023, we spent $162K (excluding income taxes). This year was particularly high, but the average last few years is ~$150K.
What are the main categories (expenses) this spending breaks into?
- Groceries & Toiletries $22K (fresh & organic)
- Dining Out $17K (mix of high end, often including friends & family)
- Home Expenses $35K (property taxes, utilities, maintenance, mechanicals, insurance, etc.)
- Cars $4K (insurance, maintenance, gas)
- Pet $3K
- Entertainment $35K (Steeler’s season tickets, concerts, books, streaming services, drinks out)
- Electronics $5K (iPad upgrade, home network, camera system)
- Vacation $10K (two domestic trips)
- Fitness & Healthcare $7K (upgrade home gym equipment, Peloton)
- Townhome Overhead (Mom) $7K
- Gambling $5K
- Misc & Gifts $12K
I’m always amazed at how much money we spend on our lifestyle and believe that once I decide to leave my corporate job these numbers will come down a bit. We will likely go down to one vehicle, I’ll be able to pickup some of the home repairs and maintenance.
I’m handy but typically don’t have the time to tackle larger projects. We will also be able to travel at more favorable times and look for deals.
If we needed to lower our expenses, I would sell off the PSL seat licenses and we could comfortably go down to one vehicle. We’d eat out significantly less and I would probably be a bit more mindful about finding deals on groceries.
We think we can comfortably cut our expenses to about a ~$125k a year. If we downsized and made further reductions, we could go quite a bit lower.
I only mention this as I always try to plan for the worst. My wife usually chuckles at some of the scenarios I dream up – which is nice because it helps bring me back to reality if I get spun up with worry.
Do you have a budget? If so, how do you implement it?
We have a “rough” budget of how much we plan to spend each year. Currently that’s ~$150K. This number comes together based on how things went the prior year, it seems to stay reasonably predictable but does seem to go up every year with inflation.
My wife manages this and we review how things are trending once a month during our financial review. In general, I tend not to think much about it, but I do check our credit cards monthly as I have a number roughly in mind that keeps us on track.
The variable each year tends to be home repairs. A few years back we installed a new roof, the next year we added a whole house generator, but things seem to kind of even out year over year.
We’ve tried a hard budget before but honestly it was more work for the two of us then it was really worth. We do our best to save each month and we are keeping an eye on things monthly – so we are able to stay on track.
It really helps having two financially minded people working together.
What percentage of your gross income do you save and how has that changed over time?
Our savings rate is >50%. We both make 401K contributions (6% for me, 8% for my wife), save 100% of our variable compensation after taxes, re-invest all dividend income and typically generate enough after-tax income after expenses to add to our retail investment account each month.
As most of our income is W2 earnings, we have fairly high federal, state, and local income tax burdens.
What’s your best tip for saving (accumulating) money?
I really wish I had more sage advice here but we’ve managed to accumulate our fortune via a very simple philosophy. Invest every dollar that you can afford to invest.
Take risks but be mindful of the cost of failure and have controls in place. Make sure you understand your investments and can explain them to someone who has no frame of reference in the particular industry.
If you can’t explain it – you shouldn’t be investing in the space.
Create your own luck. Find the things that others don’t want to do and learn how to do them. This has proven effective for both investing and our careers.
What’s your best tip for spending less money?
Delay gratification when it makes sense. Buy things that have utility and/or bring you real joy. Often times buying things is just one more thing to worry about, spend money on, etc.
Some of the most enjoyable activities I’ve found are cheap or free. We love to ride our bikes, in particular in the city. We make a day of it and bookend our rides with a beer at either end. Where else can you spend $30 and have 6 to 8 hours of entertainment?
What is your favorite thing to spend money on/your secret splurge?
In one word – FOOD.
Our grocery bill is one of our bigger expenses, but I firmly believe in eating the best food that we can afford. I have dramatically increased my fitness, mental health and overall health by striving to eat non-processed foods, avoiding corn syrup / high fructose corn syrup and anything artificial.
Eating out less and aiming to eat all organic. I also spend money on vitamins and supplements.
I like to create my own juices, in particular ginger/turmeric shots. While these are cheaper than buying a pre-made shot the costs are not insignificant on a monthly basis.
This of course has led to me building an expensive arsenal of cooking tools and bookcases full of cookbooks. In my defense most of it will last a lifetime and we have learned to cook at a very high level which saves us from going out and spending money at really expensive restaurants.
My second biggest splurge is live music. I absolutely love going to concerts.
We’ve traveled to other states to see certain bands, but it’s always an enjoyable experience and to be fair I’ve never gone crazy and spent more than a few hundred dollars per ticket.
INVEST
What is your investment philosophy/plan?
I tend to think about everything in terms of rate of return. I can buy this new thing I probably don’t need or I can invest and get a 7% to 10% return (or more).
This thinking has really helped me build out a significant dividend portfolio that now generates almost enough cash each year (sans taxes of course) to cover a big part of our living expenses.
This really has helped me to avoid worrying about money. It’s also given me the ability to say no to things at work or in my personal life that I don’t want to do.
What has been your best investment?
Our best overall general investment has been the stock market. I’ve done well by chasing value in companies that I understand and that pay a dividend.
We’ve done particularly well in the midstream oil and gas space as most of these companies were left for dead during the early part of COVID. These investments delivered significant capital appreciation and out-sized dividend/distributions.
What has been your worst investment?
When I was 21 years old, I decided that I was going to create a ceramic tile grout cleaner as well as an oatmeal face scrub. Both of these products required plastic bottles.
I sourced several large boxes of plastic bottles and caps. I had no plan beyond this and the bottles and materials sat in my basement for several years.
Eventually I disposed of the bottles and took it as a total loss. If I recall it was roughly $500 worth of materials.
Looking back, I have no idea what I was doing or what I was thinking but this provided to be a valuable lesson and I think about it often as I approach new ideas. “Don’t buy the plastic bottles without a plan.”
So, in a way it has also been my best investment because of what I’ve learned.
What’s been your overall return?
This is a pretty tough question as I’ve not really done a good job of keeping track prior to meeting my wife. I would say in general our stock market returns have been inline or several points better then what the market has delivered over each of the past 10 years.
I would estimate roughly somewhere between 12% and 15% per year. Keep in mind a big part of our income has been W2 related income which I’m not counting in these numbers.
Both my wife and I have been able to significantly grow our income every year.
I don’t particularly like the swings of the broad market so I’ve worked hard to build a portfolio of companies I understand and that continue to pay a dividend even when times get tough. This has allowed me to think of the stocks in the same way I would think about a piece of real estate.
The value is less meaningful on a day-to-day basis, it’s about what cash it generates. Interestingly I don’t worry about our retirement accounts and as mentioned they are mostly broad market. I tend to only look at them about once a month during our finance date.
How often do you monitor/review your portfolio?
I monitor our retail portfolio daily, usually checking a few times a day. If I’m actively looking to make new investments or sell existing investments, I tend to spend a few hours in the trading software to ensure I’m getting the best prices on the buy and sell side.
My wife and I do a full financial review on a monthly basis. She prepares a financial update and that shows what’s working, where we have opportunity and how we are doing overall across all of the buckets that we track.
Once a quarter my wife will do a deeper dive and bucketize all of our spending and other expenses.
———————————-
What a great start, huh?
To read the rest of the story see Millionaire Interview 413, Part 2.
MI-413 says
Thanks for posting the first part of my story. I truly appreciate your website and the folks that follow it.
MJ says
That’s a solid net worth for someone so young. Great job….btw, what’s your combined income/salary? Don’t worry about the spending. You guys can easily afford it on one salary, and still live below your means. Money’s to be enjoyed, not hoarded. love your hustle…..no wonder you’re successful. can’t wait to learn more. Thanks for doing the write up.
MI-413 says
Thank you — it’s been on an upward trajectory for sometime now:
2020: 493k
2021: 524k
2022: 668k
2023: 905k
2024: 917k (projected)
Financial Fives says
Quite an entertaining interview, looking forward to the rest of it! Your work history was engaging to read. I also worked at Best Buy as a teenager yet haven’t been in one in years. Good times. Seems like you have a lot of good friends with connections too. Impressive that you thought to buy a property at 21 and rent them out. Most new grads move to a loft apartment in a new city and splurge on location. Smart thinking.
MI-413 says
Thank you — I’ve just tried to do my best to get ahead without ever stepping on others and I have always had an entrepreneurial streak. I like to work hard and have a knack for solving problems.
I can’t recall the last time I was in a Best Buy either! How the world has changed since the days of the big box stores.
My mom was blunt when I told her I wanted to move out. She said — hey you have a 200 pound dog, no one is going to rent to you — go find a house to buy. You have a job and money saved — take in some roommates. I had a conversation with my Dad and he else thought it was a good idea. My parents were long since divorced by this time and usually didn’t agree on things, but in this case they both thought it was a wise decision and thought I could pull it off. I’m glad they encouraged me.
So in the end I can’t take all the credit on this one, I had a lot of good advice given to me and support from both my parents that I was making the right decision.
MI 343 says
Thanks for sharing part 1. I liked your comment, “If you can’t explain it – you shouldn’t be investing in the space.”
It’s good advice. Too often well meaning people who don’t have much money but want to engage investing do so without clearly understanding the risks of the types of investments peddled to them, many times by get-rich-quick marketers online and off-line. If they would only take the short amount of time it takes to learn more about the investments academically via others who have no vested interest in them investing, then they would gain a better understanding of the inner-workings, outer-opportunities, and risks of worthwhile investments like stocks, mutual funds, and real estate, etc. and the unworthiness of many investments being pushed (or the hefty commissions & fees or untrustworthy people associated with them).
MI-413 says
Spot on!
If you have a system that generates outsized returns, why would you be selling it to someone else? it’s just baffling to me that people tend to avoid using common sense when it comes to finances.
We just stick with the old boring way, buying companies we understand in industries we also understand, using sensible valuation techniques all while paying attention key things like debt, cash flow and dividends/return of capital.
Seems to work out over the long run and tends to have less major swings.
SMB116 says
I really enjoyed your interview! Congratulations on achieving your savings and doing so well getting there! Good luck to you and your wife.
MI-413 says
Thank you — we’ve both been lucky and blessed with a strong work ethic and passion for learning.
I look forward to what life brings each day and year. Just hoping it doesn’t all go by too quickly.