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.
My questions are in bold italics and his responses follow in black.
Let’s get started…
OVERVIEW
How old are you (and spouse if applicable, plus how long you’ve been married)?
My wife and I are both 45 and married for 19 years.
My wife and I share the same values for hard work and saving.
Do you have kids/family (if so, how old are they)?
We have two children. A son that is 14 and a daughter that is 10.
What area of the country do you live in (and urban or rural)?
Both my wife and I grew up on the ‘burbs of Seattle but recently changed everything to escape the Puget Sound.
Currently we live in the Central Washington. More on that later.
What is your current net worth?
Current net worth is just over $3M.
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?
Investments
- 401K’s: $860K
- 529’s: $110K
- IRA’s: $90K
- Cash: $260K
Assets
- House 1: $900K
- House 2: $450K
- Land: $100K
- Cars/toys: $145K
Liabilities
- $200K mortgage (3.125 APR) on House 1
EARN
What is your job?
I currently work as a VP for a global business.
I spent nearly 20 years with the same business, growing from the ranks and become a Director and a significant strategic contributor before at age 40.
I’ve recently moved to a different business where I have earn-in to equity in the business.
My wife has spent the bulk of her career in Project Management, first starting at a large software company, then doing a stint with outside consulting before returning to that same software company as a Principle 3 years ago.
Her income and benefits at Microsoft have helped us catapult our wealth and allowed us to build a vacation home that is paid for.
What is your annual income?
Combined we make around $380K a year.
I earn a great salary and bonus. Microsoft is a leader in total comp for the Seattle area.
My wife is very good at her job and earns a great income with fantastic benefits.
We’ve been about 50/50 over the last 15 years on income matching. Some years she earns more than me; some years I earn more than she does. This is key to our success.
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?
We’ve grown our incomes Y/Y since marriage.
My first job from college was $28K a year and my wife wasn’t much different.
Both my wife and I are ones that push for growth and advancement. My wife is a driver/driver and so am I.
Over the last 10 years our income has really increased because we push ourselves, take stretch roles, grind, travel, and work 50-60/hr weeks to get it done.
We both come from families that had little but valued hard work and saving. My parents are the model for ESI. I am not sure of their exact Net Worth but I am most certain it far surpasses ours as they enjoy retirement.
What tips do you have for others who want to grow their career-related income?
Take; not wait.
Nothing has been given to my wife and me but college degrees. We both bust our butts and have work ethic to drive and succeed.
People need to focus on: work, grind, travel, stretch roles, long hours, training, never settle.
This is what grows a career (and income) and nothing else.
We both read, listen to podcasts and work to expand our value. This is how we’ve been able to excel at our careers and income.
What’s your work-life balance look like?
Better in the last year than ever.
One year ago we hatched a plan to escape the Seattle area, continue to earn Seattle wages but move to Central Washington where pace of life is better, cost of living is better and the lifestyle (ski, swim, float, dirt bike, surf, SUP, hunt, fish, relax) is second to none.
Our only regret is not doing it sooner.
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?
Not at this point but we are in the planning stages now.
We could retire now but I feel that the lack of other income was an oversight in our planning. We should have bought 2-3 rentals in 2010/2011. Hindsight sucks.
The reality is we would have been fine to invest during that downturn but our conservative nature complicates decisions.
This is why we have more cash on hand. We will strike during the next downturn. [Editor’s note: this interview was completed in December 2018.]
SAVE
What is your annual spending?
We dramatically live beneath our means with the exceptions of school districts. We both learned this from our parents. Spend a little more and take the hit on property taxes to be in a great school district.
We’ve invested in zip codes in order to get our kids started in school correctly. The downside of this is exorbitant property tax and housing costs.
This is crushing in the Seattle area. We laugh at people trying to keep up with the Jones’s.
What are the main categories (expenses) this spending breaks into?
Our only major expense is a $200K mortgage. As mentioned above, we hatched a crazy plan to escape Western Washington for the sunny and dry slopes of Central Washington just over a year ago.
Part of this plan is because of a cancer diagnosis I had in 2015. This accelerated our plans for quality of life.
Our network of friends and influencers are very successful entrepreneurs and business owners. We dug deep during treatments and surgery to create and set up a lifestyle that maximized earnings, savings and no liabilities if catastrophes happened.
The cancer I have can be very aggressive. I recently had 3 more tumors removed so back to being watched every 90 days.
This meant we sold the home we purchased in 2011 and made out very well.
You’ve all read or heard about the Seattle housing market. We timed the buy and sell perfectly having just about $700K in net equity from that home sale.
This enabled us to buy a new home in a lower cost area in Central Washington. We applied all of the proceeds on our Western Washington home to buy the home in Central Washington and build a pool. This is our craziest splurge in 20 years and very uncharacteristic.
We also own a vacation home on the Columbia River. We bought the property and paid-as-we-went until we had a beautiful 2,200 sf house and 3 car garage.
This happened over the course of 10 years. It’s a place we never intend on selling but rather willing to our kids.
We spend many weekends there in the summer and on the water and out in the hills and farmland hunting and dirt bike riding in spring and fall.
Our other major expenses are taxes and upkeep on two homes. Both are located in areas with very low energy and water costs. Since both of our homes are newer there is little to do in terms of maintenance. We try to be simple.
We do not take vacations; choosing to spend time at our vacation home with friends and family. This is what makes us happy.
Do you have a budget? If so, how do you implement it?
Yes, we manage our expenses very tightly.
My wife shops for deals, cuts coupons and we save at every spot we can.
We do not have expensive cable packages, we do not spend many meals out, etc.
Thrift is the model in our house.
What percentage of your gross income do you save and how has that changed over time?
We save a lot. Perhaps 50% of our income or more.
We do not track to the dollar but have an unwritten rule where we talk to one another if we plan to spend more than $200 on a single purchase.
Are we tight? YES! Do we deny ourselves? NO.
2018 has been a spending year as we took some of the proceeds from our home sale and furnished our new home and purchased some small toys.
What is your favorite thing to spend money on/your secret splurge?
I’m embarrassed to admit but we are terrible with vehicles.
Every 3-4 years our needs seem to change which can lead to vehicle changes and of course lost equity.
We currently own outright a 2017 Lexus GX 460, 2013 Ford F150, 2015 Subaru Legacy, 4 dirt bikes, multiple trailers and 2007 Malibu Wakesetter.
INVEST
What is your investment philosophy/plan?
Save: we live well beneath our means.
Invest: 401K, property, 529, and we have way too much cash on hand.
As conservative people, we want to save and see the emergency fund grow.
We should have been more aggressive early-on on in real estate and flips. I am handy and have remodeled every house we’ve lived in.
I should have used extra time to invest in these areas; especially given the RE growth in Seattle over the last 5 years.
What has been your best investment?
We’ve made money on each home we’ve owned. Those sales have allowed us to upgrade, move to areas with better schools and put cash in the bank.
We have also maximized our contributions to my wife’s company ESPP and both our 401K’s.
Bonuses, etc. have most always gone straight to the bank or used to pay off any lingering debt.
What has been your worst investment?
Cars. Definitely cars.
I’d have at least another $100K in cash and likely $400K in investment wealth if I would have spent wiser on vehicles.
I’m a car guy and tend to change vehicles every 4-5 years. Stupid I know but I can afford it so it doesn’t bother me too much.
What’s been your overall return?
17% average rate of return across all portfolio assets.
Housing has been more but any profit has been rolled into the next place.
How often do you monitor/review your portfolio?
Monthly.
I review this about each month but things can slip due to travel, etc.
I have taken a more timely review as we are trying to determine if we can retire at age 50.
We track via an Excel file back to 1999 when we were married. It does not include real estate; just investment accounts.
NET WORTH
How did you accumulate your net worth?
Earn, Save, Invest. No rocket science here.
We live a similar lifestyle as we did 20 years ago…well beneath our means.
We’ve been following the rules from before we knew what the rules were.
Both of our parents gave us nothing. We have had no inheritance. What we did both receive is a college education free from debt.
What would you say is your greatest strength in the ESI wealth-building model (Earn, Save or Invest) and why would you say it’s tops?
Our Earn and Save is good but we need to focus more on investing.
My wife is VERY conservative – me less so but far from crazy.
We’d own 4-5 rentals if it was 100% my decision.
My wife is very cautious in investing and loves a large cash nest egg. The balance is fine for me as I do not push her beyond her comfort zone.
This is a partnership so we need to work as a team.
What road bumps did you face along the way to becoming a millionaire and how did you handle them?
None really. We follow the ESI rules and live beneath our means. This is critical.
We take no “big” vacations. Our summer home fills this gap. If we do travel as a family it is done with frequent flyer miles and hotel nights from rewards programs.
What are you currently doing to maintain/grow your net worth?
We are waiting for a lull or crash in real estate and then will invest heavily.
I would like to pick up two 4-plexes and perhaps an apartment building.
I mentioned earlier the equity opportunity I have in my business.
Do you have a target net worth you are trying to attain?
Not really. We do want to retire as soon as we can.
I doubt I will ever stop working. I would love to have the flexibility to not have to work and would love to spend an entire year hanging out on the water or on my dirt bike.
We’ve told our kids not to expect a dime except college will be paid and our vacation home will be given to them to share with their families.
Our parents gave us $0 and we do not plan to break the tradition.
I plan to spend/invest every dollar I earn. Our children will inherent our vacation home and our plan is to secure this in trust for generations to enjoy.
How old were you when you made your first million and have you had any significant behavior shifts since then?
Looking back in my tracking spreadsheet it looks like 2010 where we broke the $1M number.
We love to look at the results. I get more enjoyment from seeing our nest egg grow than I ever would with more stuff.
What money mistakes have you made along the way that others can learn from?
Our spend on cars has set us back $100K’s of missed opportunity.
What advice do you have for ESI Money readers on how to become wealthy?
- Work your ass off.
- Life beneath your means.
- Take stretch roles at work.
- Add value.
- Learn an industry well; better than anyone so you become very valuable to many companies.
- Save more than 50% of your income.
- Own multiple properties. Buy at the bottom; not before.
- Invest aggressively when you are younger.
- Read. Listen to podcasts. You can make $20K a year from lessons learned through reading or listening to a podcast. Dedicate the time to learn and grow.
- Surround yourself with smart, self-made and independently wealthy people.
FUTURE
What are your plans for the future regarding lifestyle?
As I said before, we will likely never stop working but at 45, and as someone that has had two bouts with cancer I can tell you that we are all about maximizing life and reducing stress.
What are your retirement plans?
“Retire” as soon as possible.
What this really means is being financially independent enough where we don’t have to work to pay our bills.
Grow and live off our investments’ equity and the low-cost living plan we’ve put in place over the last 10 years.
Are there any issues in retirement that concern you? If so, how are you planning to address them?
Healthcare is a primary concern given my cancer diagnosis.
This is why we are likely to never completely stop working. Access to benefits with lower deductibles is key to my situation.
MISCELLANEOUS
How did you learn about finances and at what age did it ‘click’? Was it from family, books, forced to learn as wealth grew, etc.?
“The Millionaire Next Door” was when it clicked for me. I read this in my early 20’s.
Who inspired you to excel in life? Who are your heroes?
I have a few friends that are older than I am that I have learned a lot from. They are great business people and live what I consider to be fulfilling lives and this drives me to be better.
Do you give to charity? Why or why not? If you do, what percent of time/money do you give?
We do not give enough to charity.
Do you plan to leave an inheritance for your heirs (how do you plan to distribute your wealth at your death)? What are your reasons behind this plan?
No. The only exception is our vacation home will be given to our children to share with their families.
Awesome interview! Major props for having the wisdom and courage to relocate to an area better suited to your lifestyles. I spent some time traveling WA state last year as a tourist and as nice as Seattle was, I absolutely loved the Cascades and Central Washington.
My one recommendation (to be taken with a grain of salt as my NW is a fraction of yours) is to consider having yourself or your wife begin to take your foot off the career gas pedal as you scale into retirement and look to replace NW with cashflow. It’s convenient to want to “wait for the next housing dip”, but it’s possible that the dip may simply be no appreciation for a few years and not a major housing discount. If you don’t need to be earning $350k+ per year at this point, why not start now in acquiring cash flowing properties and start to replace some active income? At this point, money added to your 401k may have less marginal utility to your quality of life versus the marginal utility of having monthly cashflow from rentals. Best of luck!
Thank you, great points we have talked about recently but need to act on.
Awesome interview and congrats. I live in the PNW as well and am similar age. We have the same attitude as you and your wife around moving out of the city. Seattle is much different than 10, 20 years ago. I agree with Bill on getting some passive income from rentals so you can relax a bit more. Curious what city in Central WA you decided to put roots down in? Keep up the good worth and take care of your health!
Thanks. 98801 zip code!! No regrets.
Great interview—— good for you for having a plan in place for the future. At least your kids will know exactly what will happen in the future (vacation home is for them and their families – I like it) —— too many people leave this “level of detail” out of the plan —- trust me, it makes sense to do whatever you think/feel is best. You’ve earned your BANK 🏦 and you should spend it anyway you want to. Good for you —-
Buy 5 more cars, if that works for you —— and sell me the ones you discard. Ha. At 64, I’ve never owned a new vehicle —— so, that’s a goal for me, when I retire for good (probably won’t happen) —
As for the cancer you mention—- good luck in this area —— my thoughts and prayers will be that you will experience “full and complete” healing ——
Thanks for sharing and please know how impressed I am about all you and your wife have done together—— you’re right, it takes a team approach to reach this level of NW wealth you guys have reached —-by the way, I love watching our NW grow too!
Each and every year, I monitor and track our NW—- started in 1977, when I graduated from the University of Arkansas until now —-
Both my wife and I have enjoyed a life of dedicated service in the world of public education—-
NW in 1977 : $0.
Married in 1983 —-
NW in 2019 : almost $4 million.
E-S-I
Sure wish I would’ve known about this concept earlier in life, but I’m proud of all we’ve done —- both of our kids left college with their Masters degrees being debt free and we plan to help our grandkids in the same way. No college debt for our TEAM —- none at all.
I too read the great book:
“ Millionaire Next Door” in 1996, I think.
Good luck to you and your great family.
Thank you for the words!
Interesting read. What financial focused podcasts would you recommend?
Thanks in advance.
I am interested in replies to this one here.
Most of what’s I’ve pulled from podcasts have come from listening to guests on shows like Joe Rogan. His range of guests and topics is about as good as it gets…not only in finance but life. I also like Dave Ramsey and Peter Schiff.
Great interview. I see a lot of similarities in your story and in mine. Almost same results in NW numbers, and similar excel tracking methods! Good job and best of luck on the health front.
Thank you…great minds…
Congrats on keeping life in perspective. As a fellow PNW’er, I’d be curious your general area of Central Washington as I’m cutting the corporate cord in Sept. and we’ll consider moving somewhere else in WA as well. We live close to Vancouver, WA and it’s spendy now. So far, the only other place I really like is Walla Walla but that is just as spendy, at least for Real Estate.
Would love to find that perfect mix of weather, cost of living and season that we love.
Great interview and best of luck with your diagnosis.
Jeff (MI-96)
Thanks. 98801. You won’t regret it!
Great story! You are blessed to be so handy. It seems natural for you to maintain several rentals and manage them in retirement. Make good passive income and keep busy enough at your own pace to remain active but still enjoy the retirement life.
Congrats on your success and future plans. Well done!
Thank you. I appreciate the extra push toward rentals. We continue to discuss options.
Great interview and approach to life. The diagnosis seems to have spurned some recent focus on enjoying life with toys and vacation home. This is a question I wrestle with – is it worth working so hard and risking ill health? Or is it better to work less, earn less and live more?
Great question. This is a balance. We do live more now than ever. I would like to retire similar to ESI soon. I am making a significant push into a medium size business which will lead to equity and a nice payday. I will give this 6 more months and then decide to push more to dial-back. I am having fun, earning a nice salary which most goes into savings. Win-Win!
“Surround yourself with smart, self-made and independently wealthy people.”
When you are younger and in more individual contributor type roles, how do you go about meeting and befriending these type of people? I have noticed this to be common advice from most successful people, but to date have rarely found easy opportunities to meet and become close with these types of individuals.
Best of luck to you going forward, especially where your health is concerned.
Great question…I’m still trying to figure this out 🙂
Most of this is networking. I worked for a CEO early in my career who is one of the smartest people I know and continues to act like a mentor to me. He has been tremendous.
Make sure you add value to people and they will reciprocate. Some of these connections are neighbors, friends of friends or parents of kids sports. I always ask people what they do and try to make connections for them. These most always come back to me in spades. Finding smart people is key and they tend to also be surrounded by smart people.
I have met executives that set goals of 1 new face to face contact a week. It can be done. You have to commit the time. Once you start it begins to snowball.
Great interview. I’m a Seattle area resident myself, did time at Amazon then Microsoft and now back to Amazon. I’m also about the same age with kids of similar age. I can relate to a ton of what was said in this interview.
I have two big questions:
* What has been the impact on the kids of moving to a smaller town in central Washington? Schools, social life, personal development, etc. This was one of the big reasons why I was eager to move to the Seattle suburbs, but I now question my prior logic. Curious what your experience has been.
* What was the conversation like with your respective management teams at work on the move? I presume you still do significant work remotely. I have considered trying to angle for a similar arrangement at some point but I am not sure how best to approach this with my manager and skip-level managers.
Hi Bad Brad – First piece of advice…Do it and don’t look back. Quality of life here is amazing. Our goal was the make Westside money and live here. Mission mostly accomplished.
We believe parent involvement and outside activities build a well rounded young adult and you can’t rely exclusively on the school to do the work of the parents. Our kids have transitioned better than expected. Our quality of life and overall happiness is significantly better here vs. the Eastside of Seattle. Pace of life is slower and we no longer spend 20 hours a week in the car fighting traffic. We love being outdoors and now have so much time to bike, hike, ski, boat, swim, etc. Needless to say, our kids are having a blast and so many people here into the same activities we are.
I switched jobs completely to make this move. I was seeking out a global role for a business in my industry where location didn’t matter to getting the job done. The more people we meet here the more we see this as a common theme. We didn’t seem to discover this on our own :). This interview was written back at the end of 2018 so some things have changed. It looks like my wife will take a role with another company to make her transition complete. There are a number of roles in large companies that offer remote work. I travel about 50% of the time for my job so my justification to my employer was “does it really matter where my base is since I’m on the road a significant part of the time…” It’s hard to argue with that.
I’d be happy to talk to you on the phone if you’d like. Good luck and don’t wait. We have 0 regrets!
Very interesting interview..it has encouraged me alot.
Curious about the 17% return on portfolio. Was this mainly driven by the real estate returns? Live in area where real estate isn’t a great return, which is fine since no desire to landlord or flip. Doesn’t seem like equities would return this high.
Hi Buckeyecub – Real Estate was significantly more as we rode the Seattle wave until spring of 2018. 17% accounts for all asset classes. Some of it is 401K investment but a lot some from items like stock options, grants and ESPP.
Really connected with this post for some reason. I’m 27 and newly married (4 months). My wife doesn’t have debt and is generally not a crazy spender but doesn’t share the same drive for investing/saving as I. We make a similar salary and can really have some impact on our future wealth if we take the rights steps now. Any advise on getting her on the same page without turning her off completely?
Good luck on getting your wife interested in the finances, but don’t get your hopes up too high.
If they are not interested, that may never change. I have been working for 17 years get my wife slightly interested in our finances, with little success. Things I have tried: Scheduled monthly financial review meetings, review of quicken data, reviews of excel lists and charts, emails, power points etc. etc. About all I can get out of my significant other is “Are we ok or not? What do I need to do different?”
I keep track of everything in quicken and excel and forecast via charts the date and age we will be when we should likely hit FI. That’s about the only metric she can relate to – When are we done. When we talk about possible big expenditures, the discussion usually boils down to…”OK, we can do this, but this means XX more years of work, do we really need this? or should we stick to the plan?” Usually the answer is “stick to the plan”. The goal you should focus on being young and just getting started is establishing being frugal early, make that and saving/investing what’s left a way of life. If you start out this way and stick to it fairly easy, very hard to change course one the spending and more lavish lifestyle becomes a habit. I say a few words about this in my interview. The growth will seem slow and boring, and you will see a few of your peers seemingly advance ahead of you early in the race, but like the turtle and hare, slow and steady in the end works great. We are now age 48, NW is now at $4M ( I believe up around $800k from our MI-94 interview a while back), all growth by just sticking to the boring plan, Good luck! Age 27 is a great age to start doing all the right things!
MI-94,
Thanks for the detailed reply. I just read your interview and enjoyed it as well.
I like the idea of presenting our finances/NW to my wife in different formats and seeing which one she reacts to best. I also agree in setting the standard of frugality now rather than trying to cut back when we’re already used to an inflated lifestyle.
I’m lucky in the fact that my wife is very career driven, and with advancement, her salary will continue to rise. I think we both work like you mentioned in your interview “Do your best, try hard and work to be the person the boss is happy to have on the job rather than the one they wish they could replace.” It’s encouraging to know slow and steady will make a significant impact on careers and finances. Thanks again!
This is tough. I’m glad for a spouse that shares the same values as I. Actually, recently, she;s relented a bit and we’ve spent on some items that are outside our conservative approach to ESI.
Interesting example of a life I could not live or even attempt, which is by no means meant to diminish it. The world’s full of introverts and extroverts, a wide variety of work ethics, from slowboats and the disinterested to the great overachievers and workaholics. To each their own ends up being a bit more difficult than expected, but between heredity and environment, not exactly a choice. How any given individual reacts to these sometimes troubling prospects is where the magic i.e. resemblance of free will lies. Lifelong renter, PT worker for the most part, never worried about the future. The Great Recession largely erased that, until more recently regaining leverage. Thirty hour work weeks, living wages, full medical paid, S&P 500 401(k), Vanguard Traditional IRA, Schwab ‘vanity’ brokerage, and now savings/cash protection up the yin yang. Eight-minute commute from our (me and the gf) ONE home, a simple 2BR with two garage bays, so even more space than we need, nevertheless under 900 sq ft–so easy to clean, inexpensive to heat, property taxes as low as humanly possible, a major purchasing decision, currently $1200 a year. Fifteen years left to eradicate the last of my student loans (first), then the mortgage, before retiring, assuming we’re still alive. At every stage of life, quality of life paramount, usually more free than technically rich, although the latter trend is expanding at a more rapid pace. Nevertheless, the Coronavirus ‘plague’ here in WA state is bringing some operations to a halt; could get very interesting quickly. Thankfully got hip to more cash protection before that came around. Long story short, I’ve naturally chosen to work smarter, not harder, without exception. I’ve never viewed work or labor as a virtue in itself, more a necessity, like wheels. On that front, I’ve had a car payment in 51 years. I keep $2500 around for the next ride, whenever my old beloved finally gets too costly to patch up. Just sayin’, the world is full of different people. On S and I, currently top boss; regarding E, historically, only as necessary. Sentiments expressed in ‘Your Money or Your Life’ have always stuck with me the most forcefully. TMND less so, mostly curious in passing, a book loan, not one I own or bothered to reread. Not my people really, no one I currently know, no one I really want to be. I also think trust funds and inheritances are a fabulous idea (lol). I mean really, if you can build empire between generations and pull others off the treadmill into smoother waters, why not. I know, drug issues or sloth, but this isn’t Hollywood Hills. Didn’t really work with my family either, but you’d think an attempt to transcending it all or the grind and building that empire between generations would be every family’s preference. Not the case, of course, just another lifestyle choice in a world of ideas. Food for thought, anyway–or not.
Never had a car payment, should say. Not one. Even the idea of it causes problems (lol), as does ‘frugality’ oddly enough What is that, some Victorian-era disease? A carefully managed budget, sure, objective one, forever and always. So I can royally screw around within its margins.
That sounds crass, dismissive, ‘no one I really want to be.’ Incomplete thought, actually. Who wouldn’t want to be successful multi-millionaire, and knowing what I know of certain family members and other humans, stealth wealth would be the thing. Nevertheless, I remember growing up, me and the brothers exhibiting great admiration for our attractive neighbors with a nice house, small lake, large hay barn on a five-acre lot. Koi pond as you walked up to their 70’s rambler palace; out back, a nice swimming pool . . . many happy days there, and you know how kids think. Showing conclusively even broken clocks can be right twice a day, my strange mother suggested WE were the richer ones, sitting high on a hill, massive living room, extra bedrooms and a game room with a pool table built of the original old farmhouse on an old 160-acre homestead. Father tried his hand at ranching, very successful at massive gardening while holding down his electrical engineering job to fund it all. Retired early at 55, but shortly after and along the way, it all went quietly to hell with great repercussions. But she was right; unfortunately, it took divorce to actually prove that, turning father into a millionaire after re-investing. Not her story, mine, or even his. He wasn’t trying to do that, but his Depression mindset and then a couple of shrewd moves made it possible. One brother went deliberately gung ho (pursuit of money and prestige) and flamed out. I’m trying (lol) in my own twisted way, with much better principles and strategies, and it IS starting to work out. Fifteen-year window to prove that; never say never.
*A successful multi-millionaire . . . 4 million to 10 million, sure. Four million to live off interest with substantial medical protection for two; 10 million to king out like a total gangster. I don’t think I’d be a monster, but who knows; I’m sometimes like one for not being i.e. not inhabiting the ideal. Gardening strikes the balance.