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 January.
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 48 and my wife is 46.
We have been married for 10 years.
Do you have kids/family (if so, how old are they)?
We have a 3 year old.
We adopted him 3 years ago after we went through various infertility treatments over 7 years.
What area of the country do you live in (and urban or rural)?
We live in a HCOL area in New England.
What is your current net worth?
$1.1 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?
Assets
- House: $350k
- 401ks/IRAs: $940k (15% of that is in Roth accounts).
- 529 plans: $50k
Total: $1.34 million assets
Liabilities
- Mortgage: $65k
- Student Loans: $182k
- Car Loan: $18k
Total: $265k
We do have plans to buy a bigger house in the future.
I like the idea of diversifying our net worth even more (e.g. real estate, syndicate deals, etc.) but I am very comfortable with the our investment accounts.
EARN
What is your job?
I am a college professor and my wife is a behavioral training specialist (e.g. mental health) and also teaches part-time as adjunct instructor.
What is your annual income?
We make about $175k a year combined.
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?
Truth be told I look at my age and where we are and I often feel a decade behind. Part of that was because I didn’t really start my career until I was 33. I was in undergraduate/graduate school for a good chunk of my 20s and 30s and didn’t make a lot of money.
My first salary out of graduate school was $53k at 33. Now I am at about $130k with teaching extra classes and the extra duties I do at a school.
My wife has had some fits and starts with her career. She took a pay cut for a new job, but she loves what she does and currently makes about $45k.
What tips do you have for others who want to grow their career-related income?
Depending on what kind of job you want to do I wouldn’t necessarily recommend spending 10 years of your life in undergraduate and graduate school to teach. I don’t regret getting my Ph.D., but I could’ve probably made a lot more money.
I think for those people who want to do graduate education there are a variety of ways to go for free (assistantships, scholarships, have your employer pay for it, etc). I did that, but I also took out student loans in addition to that. I do regret taking out as many student loans as I did.
The reality of being a college professor is that you have go where the jobs are. And now with a lot of tenure/track jobs disappearing it can be hard for many people, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, to find jobs. And once you get to a certain level (e.g. tenure and rank) unless you are a superstar you are often tied to that institution for a long time.
I have had the advantage of becoming an administrator over the past couple of years (chairperson of my department), plus I have done quite a bit of research so I do have the ability to move if I would like, which is a possibility soon because we would like to be closer to our families in the Midwest.
What’s your work-life balance look like?
Generally speaking, it is pretty good. I have a lot of flexibility with my job, which I love.
Every day is new. I enjoy teaching and my students.
The problem with my job is the odd hours. There are times when I am answering e-mails until midnight or doing research over the weekend. But generally speaking it gives me the time to spend with my son and my wife.
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?
I do have a couple of side hustles.
I am allowed to teach extra classes for money so I probably make $20-30k per year teaching a few extra classes over the summer and during the school year.
I also donate plasma and sell tradelines, which probably bring in another 5-6k a year. I use that money for my son’s 529 contributions.
SAVE
What is your annual spending?
Well, this is where we need a lot of improvement.
We probably spend about $110k a year.
What are the main categories (expenses) this spending breaks into?
- House (including payment, interest, taxes, and insurance): $15k
- Daycare: $13k
- Student Loan payments: $12k
- Car Loan/Insurance/Auto Repair/Gas: $13k (5k of that is the car loan)
- Medical Expenses: $7k (my wife has some specific medication she needs)
- Food: $20k (yes I know this is huge and really expensive and we need to cut it big time. This is probably the biggest challenge I am working on right now).
- Utilities (phone, heat, cable, streaming services, electricity): $10k
- Personal Care/Clothes/Shopping: $12k (….this is really more my wife. She likes to get facials and her hair done and buy stuff for the kid).
- Travel/Entertainment: $8k (I could break this out more specifically, but I lump it together because it includes us going to visit our families 2-3 times a year, plus we take day trips to go to local events with our son). In the past we have done a lot of international travel for our “vacations.” However, those vacations are often funded, in part, by my university. I use my time presenting research as a partial vacation (a couple of days of sightseeing). We haven’t take a pure vacation in probably about 8 years (e.g. not seeing family, just getting away).
Let me say that I look forward to when our car loan, house, daycare, and student loan costs go away. That will probably save us about $30-40k right there.
And if we can decrease our food bill that would make me happy. I am not happy about how much we spend at the moment.
Do you have a budget? If so, how do you implement it?
We don’t have a hard and fast one.
I track all our spending, but we don’t have a set budget that we get into. This is something we are slowly working on.
My wife and I have had two very different monetary philosophies. And it has taken a long time for us to just get to a point to talk about money without the other person cringing. But our success in the stock market, having a child, and other factors I think have put us in a much better position than where we were just about 9 years ago.
We have had a $1.3 million turn around in 9 years. We were over $150k in debt in February 2013 and now a $1.1 million net worth.
What percentage of your gross income do you save and how has that changed over time?
We save about 20-25% of our income.
Before we got married I was just saving about 10-15% of my income. When we got married, as I made more money, I just kept increasing my contributions.
My wife didn’t have any retirement savings until a few years ago, but she got a job that had a retirement plan and we just started to put in about 15% of her income into that account.
We save about $30-40k per year.
What’s your best tip for saving (accumulating) money?
Well because I have made a ton of mistakes I now try to get my students to do what I didn’t and that is start early.
I just think about what would’ve happened if I would have just tried to put money into an IRA or something. How much further ahead I would be. So I think the best thing is to start early.
Start with the company match and ramp it up over time. But if you can just get people started then it becomes easier to slowly increase one’s savings over time.
What’s your best tip for spending less money?
Don’t get yourself into a lot of debt (ha, ha).
No seriously, I think one of the things we did do right is that we bought a modest home that has increased considerably in value (doubled in 6 years).
I would track your spending as much as you can and make sure you know where things are going. At least you can have a handle on things.
What is your favorite thing to spend money on/your secret splurge?
My favorite thing is to spend on travel. I love travelling internationally.
My wife and I are scheduled to go on our first real vacation in March. However, with the pandemic we aren’t sure that will happen. I hope so.
INVEST
What is your investment philosophy/plan?
I have been interested in money and investing for a long time, but never really did anything about it until my 30s. Over the last few years, thanks to blogs like this, and podcasts I have become really into indexing.
Most of our investments our into index funds. I do hold a couple of actively managed funds in one of my retirement accounts, but the only reason is because I don’t have access to an S&P 500 index fund in that account.
So I combine those funds with a couple of small cap and mid-size cap index funds to try to replicate a total stock market index.
What has been your best investment?
The Fidelity Growth fund has been an extremely good investment for me. I wish I would’ve invested in it sooner.
The other thing is buying a modest house. When my wife and I were looking for a house we purposely bought one where it was only 2x my salary and put it on a 15 year note. We hope to pay it off in the next 3-4 years.
What has been your worst investment?
I have done some really stupid things with money.
I have tried to play around with individual stocks. I jumped in and out of mutual funds chasing returns.
I think the stupidest thing I have done is probably not creating a plan and just sticking with it. I took a look back and my investing history and if I would’ve stuck with my current philosophy (indexing) instead of jumping in and out those first 5-7 years I probably would have another 50-100k at least in investment returns.
What’s been your overall return?
I would say that my return has been about 10-12% over the past 15 years.
How often do you monitor/review your portfolio?
Everything is linked to my personal capital account so I see my accounts every week. In terms of rebalancing and the like I probably do that about once a year or couple of years if the balances are totally out of whack. I am currently in the accumulation phase so I have a 100% stock portfolio.
Over the next few years, however, I will tone down the risk more and go to more an 80/20 portfolio in my early 50s and also include more international stocks because I believe that international holdings will do better in the late 2020s and 2030s. I think the secular bull market in US equities will be over by the end of the decade and we will have a long period of moving sideways (e.g. 1968-1982, 2000-2009). And then it will come back to the US again. I am a big believer in long-term secular trends.
NET WORTH
How did you accumulate your net worth?
Our accumulation was pretty simple.
We invested in the stock market and bought a modest home that has increased in value.
We increased our savings when we got raises and never raided our retirement accounts.
We could’ve gotten there sooner if we would be better at cutting our spending, but we just started and continued to increase over time.
Having a 13 year run in the market has helped, but I have always made it a point to invest every month time and again. And that will continue as long as I earn income.
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?
I think our ability to earn has been our best. I mean our investments have done well, but I have been teaching extra courses and doing side hustles and school and every extra duty I can find for the past decade. I am tired and would like to reduce it.
But my wife and I have hustled. One semester she taught 9 sections at 3 different institutions. Now we did that to help buy a house and furnish, but we have not been shy about taking extra duties for extra money.
But I would like it, in the near future, if we only had 2-3 W2s instead of 5, 6, 7 or more. I think it is time to settle down a bit, particularly when our expenses go down with daycare, house, student loans, and car loan being gone.
What road bumps did you face along the way to becoming a millionaire and how did you handle them?
We have had a lot of road bumps.
We started with a negative net worth of 150k.
We had over 200k in student loans, massive amounts of credit cards, car loans, etc and no house. It took us probably 3-4 years to get a positive net worth, even after we bought our house.
We were also trying to have a baby at that time so we went through years of infertility treatments. Luckily, my insurance paid for a lot of the treatment, but that didn’t cover things like therapy and genetic testing and the like. And unfortunately that didn’t work.
So we went through a private adoption and that cost about $35k by the time we were done with things. So we have had a variety of obstacles.
And I am not sure if it is hard work, luck, whatever, but we are now millionaires and I am going to make sure we don’t go back to that place where we were in February of 2013.
What are you currently doing to maintain/grow your net worth?
We are just consistently investing and paying off debt.
My wife has taken a job that makes less money, but counts for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. She still has about 3 years left.
I will continue to teach extra courses to make sure the student loans and daycare are paid for.
Do you have a target net worth you are trying to attain?
I would love to have 5 million dollars by the time we are 65, but more and more I think about retiring “early” which for me would be about 55. If we could have about 2 million dollars in investable assets by then I think that would be great.
Truth is I will probably do something for money for as long as I can. I like my work. It structures my day. But I would like to focus more on my family and if I could I would love to be closer to my family.
I am willing to take a “demotion” (e.g. giving up tenure for another faculty gig) if I could be closer to family. As long as that job can pay our expenses, which should go down over the next 3-5 years than I will be happy.
I would also like to maybe get more into financial coaching. I really like helping people figure out this money puzzle. It part of my personality to help people and be a teacher.
How old were you when you made your first million and have you had any significant behavior shifts since then?
I was 48. And it was in July of 2021.
There has been no behavioral change yet. I think I am a bit more relaxed about money.
And I look forward to not doing as many extra duties in the future and just focus on my main job.
What money mistakes have you made along the way that others can learn from?
Where do I start with this. I have made some major ones.
First, don’t take out student loans unless you need them. I probably took out about $45-50k in loans that I didn’t need (I had about 100 when I left graduate school).
Second, start early with investing. I didn’t start until I was 33. I wish I would’ve done it at 23 I would be so far ahead of the game.
Finally, don’t try to compare yourself to others. This is still one of my big issues. It truly is the thief of joy. Live your life. That is a lesson I am still coming to grips too. And I think that is in every aspect: money, love, career, etc. It took me a long time and a lot of therapy (still go) to come to grips with much of this stuff.
What advice do you have for ESI Money readers on how to become wealthy?
I think the big thing is for people to start. You don’t have to save huge amounts of money to start. Starting to practice that muscle of saving and investing will only get better over time.
And then when you start you can learn the ins and outs of investing. But don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Focus on what you can do and it will happen.
FUTURE
What are your plans for the future regarding lifestyle?
I think the biggest change to our lifestyle is that I hope we take more real vacations as a family. I have hard time not combining work and pleasure so over the next few years I am hoping that we do a lot of things that I never got to do. Standard stuff like taking him to Disney World, amusement parks, etc.
I think the biggest part of that is going abroad a lot more. That could be fun trips to places in the Caribbean, but we really want to give our kid a lot of international experiences. We have both talked about living abroad for a year or two.
I am hoping that I could find a university teaching gig (or semester at sea) where we could provide that kind of ethic for him. Traveling abroad has changed my life and I want him to at least be exposed to other cultures, other ways of doing things. That is important to our family.
What are your retirement plans?
I think about early retirement all the time even though I really love what I do. What I would like to do ideally is to continue to work at my current university for the next 4-7 years. By that time I figure we should have enough investments to provide enough money to cover our expenses.
But after that I anticipate we will do something for money. I would love to be closer to our family where as my second career I am teaching at another university, but it doesn’t have to be all the teaching and research. I would prefer to just teach, spend time with my kid and wife, and make enough to cover our expenses (I hope). That would probably be an ideal for me.
If I could make a financial coaching business work I would love for that to be a greater side hustle or just more volunteering and helping people. I am spearheading some financial literacy initiatives at my university right now and I think there is a hunger for that knowledge.
Are there any issues in retirement that concern you? If so, how are you planning to address them?
Being bored. I get bored easy. I don’t want to just sit around all day and watch Netflix.
However, work has become such an important part of my identity that I am trying to figure out a way to disentangle that, which is why I want to do more things outside of my job (e.g. travel for leisure, play golf more, pickleball…thank you ESI Money for the inspiration) that offer a sense of fulfillment and structure my day. That is probably what I am working on the most right now or will be working on.
MISCELLANEOUS
How did you learn about finances and at what age did it “click”?
I really didn’t learn about finances until I was in my early 20s. I always had an interest in it. I remember looking up the stock price of the company my dad worked for (Josten’s) when I was a kid, but we never really talked about money. And we never really had a lot growing up.
We always had food and clothes, but we rarely took a family vacation and my parents certainly didn’t splurge on us. I didn’t even go on my first plane ride until I was 18 and that was a high school trip to Mexico that I paid for with my savings.
Who inspired you to excel in life? Who are your heroes?
I don’t know if I have excelled in life. I got involved in speech and debate in high school and college. It was an activity that truly changed my life.
Forensics (not CSI, but speech and debate) is really the reason I have had any success at all. I love it and I think every person should do it.
I don’t really have any personal heroes. My parents taught me hard work, but I learned a lot of what not to do with money from them.
Do you have any favorite money books you like/recommend? If so, can you share with us your top three and why you like them?
I think JL Collins book The Simple Path to Wealth is brilliant.
If I could I would give it to every graduating senior at my university. It is just a great book, basic advice, and if you follow the path it will work.
Do you give to charity? Why or why not? If you do, what percent of time/money do you give?
We do give to some charities, although not enough.
We support our local SPCA. I volunteered with the Big Brother/Big Sister program for years. My little brother is still a part of my life and he is a fabulous young man. It has become more of a father/son relationship over the years and I am extremely proud of him.
I would love to do a lot more volunteering, but we need to do a lot more in the way of giving and that is something I have set as a personal goal for 2022.
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?
I want to leave my son a legacy. I certainly don’t want him to be some kid who is entitled and the like.
For example, I see so many of my friends and even relatives who’s children don’t have jobs in high school. I don’t understand that. My wife and I both worked in high school, did extra curriculars and had jobs. I can guarantee you that our kid will be working when he can. I think that is a good thing. I want him to learn the value of a dollar, but I don’t want him to struggle like we did.
And I hope he passes this down to children he has (if he has them). I want to be smiling down from heaven (hope there is one) and seven generations from now see that the financial seeds we planted our continuing to grow. I think that comes from the lessons we teach him now.
Sask to AB says
Wonderful post! Appreciate your insights.
MI 175 says
Interesting interview. Hopefully the loan forgiveness program works out, as that would significantly improve your situation.
I would consider taking a close look at whether you can actually retire at 55 with $2 million. At a 4% (give or take) withdrawal rate, that only gets you $80,000/ year which is well below your spending even now — which will likely go up later. Of course, this might be supplemented with other income (maybe your wife will still work, or you will work part-time). Just need to pencil it all out as you closer.
Jason says
Thanks for the response. And yes you are right about our current expenses but 1/2 of them will go away in the next 3-5 years. Our son will be out of daycare, no more student loans, no more loans, and no more mortgage. Plus, we should curtail our food expenses a bit. And my wife plans to continue to work that should help. But with the market the way it is…2 million by 55 might be a pipe dream.
Phillip says
“I see so many of my friends and even relatives who’s children don’t have jobs in high school. I don’t understand that.”
IMO, this depends on the situation. My 17 year old is discouraged from working as I rather have him work on studying harder, taking more AP courses , doing extracurriculars (clubs, project, volunteering) and fitness activities (club soccer). I ran through the math with him and figured that if he could place out of more courses and graducate early, the money saved from not paying tuition for that extra semester (or two) combined with better earnings post-graduation a semester or two earlier (he’s planning to go into a STEM field) makes it economically advantageous to focus on getting to future earnings faster. He has ocassionaly worked as a soccer ref where he can make $45/hr. (and for some tournments, you can ref back to back games and ref 4 games straight), but we strongly limit how much he works as we see the primary value is the experience, not the money. And I remind him that even though the pay is good, an entry engineer makes even more.
But yeah, if my kid was sitting around playing video games all afternoon and on weekends, he’s getting a job.
M246 says
Great interview. Thanks for sharing.
“I wouldn’t necessarily recommend spending 10 years of your life in undergraduate and graduate school to teach. I don’t regret getting my Ph.D., but I could’ve probably made a lot more money.”
Could’ve made more money doing what? What is your Ph.D? What subjects do you teach?
Jason says
Hi M246,
I teach political communication. The tenure track jobs are drying up in many, if not most, fields. Unless someone really wants to be a college professor and goes in with their eyes wide open about the job market they face I am not sure I would recommend it as a profession.
MI??? says
Congrats on your financial success so far and also congrats on the adoption of your son! My wife and I are 52 yrs old and proud adoptive parents to a now 9 year old son. Like you, we did the whole infertility BS, but all the heartache was worth it because it eventually led us to our remarkable son. Also like you, we became parents at a more advanced age, but that also worked out well because we were financially secure. So from one New England, adoptive parent millionaire to another, great job so far! The second million will come just as fast as your son’s growth spurts. Enjoy the ride!
Jason says
Great to hear from you MI???? Would love to hear more about your journey and connect if you would like. We, unfortunately, don’t have a lot of adoptive parents that we talk too and have a similar financial journey and the like. If you would like to reach out love to hear from you.
Matt says
Congrats on your success of going for a negative net worth to millionaire in such a short time – that is outstanding! We are also targeting 80k in retirement – once you knock out your student loans and refine your budget a bit, I bet you won’t have any issues retiring (from the career) at 55. Best of luck!
Jason says
Thanks for the encouragement Matt. If nothing else I hope to cut back on my administrative duties and maybe just teach, not having to worry about the other stuff I don’t like about my job (the wonderful world of administration).
117 says
Good read. Appreciate your humility. I also understand and share the need to not compare ourselves to others. It’s hard though. Kinda drives me harder for the better or worse. How much is ‘enough’ after all?
MI-219 says
Great for interview, thanks Jason.
Thanks especially for describing your struggle with comparing oneself to others and how therapy has helped. My biggest regret from my interview is not describing how therapy has helped me in a similar manner. I think interviews like yours, where you’ve been successful despite starting at a negative net worth and not having a super high income, are even more helpful when you mention working on mental health. I think many of us who’ve hit millionaire status(myself included) were at least partially motivated by stuff that may not be the most healthy if left unaddressed. I hope successful people like you openly talking about therapy leads others who could benefit from it to seek it out.
Completely unrelated to the above; I just FIRE’d(maybe a mini-retirement?) a few months back. I’ve been toying with starting a PhD program, as I loved grad school, and really enjoy teaching as well as research. I’d be continuing in the Criminal Justice field, with the goal of teaching at a junior college and contributing to occasional research. In addition to the above reasons, I’m considering pursuing this as I think this would help give me purpose, structure, but still allow me to have much more time with my family than in my previous career. What are your thoughts on my ability to attain such work/life balance both during my studies and my less than ambitious academic career goals? I’ve explored programs, and it looks like I can pull it off without loans. The minimal stipend I would receive is still more than the zero W2 income I have now in retirement, so that’s a plus. I’d appreciate any input you could give me.
Jason says
Thank you for the compliment MI-219. I have to say that therapy really helped me after my father passed. It was a difficult time for me and my family, but we got through it and I still see my therapist on occasion.
In terms of what you are thinking for a Ph.D. I think it is a great idea. And CJ would be an in-demand area. You could probably definitely find a teaching gig at a CC or a teaching intensive institution (that is the kind that I teach at). You would/should get a stipend that is enough to live on and provide free tuition. The work/life balance can be good, but there are times, TBH, that your Ph.D. program can/will be all consuming, especially when it comes to the dissertation. That is something you, when you get to it, don’t want to mess with. Get it done ASAP. But if you have your eyes wide open going in it can really be a wonderful experience (and you can use conferences and travel to have some mini vacations). I think it is great idea.
Tom from MD says
What a wonderfully candid interview. It’s refreshing to hear someone admit to angst/issues around comparing ourselves to others. I spent over a decade being self-employed, and while I did have the freedom to spend more time with my family, I didn’t have the income where I felt I could add to my retirement accounts. So I totally get the “lost decade” feeling. I think it’s important to flip that script, though, and look back on the amazing achievements of that supposedly “lost” decade. It wasn’t really lost, after all; it was invested in something other than the accumulation of money.
Great interview, and I wish you the best! Given your savings and projected spend rate, you are well on your way to EARLY retirement. Enjoy the ride!
PacNWretiree says
Thank you for sharing your story. My husband and I are parents to a 34 year son born after six long years of infertility struggles-surgery, treatment, etc. Although we were not able to have a second child, I give thanks every day for our son. Bless you for adopting your son! May your family have a long and happy time together enjoying life.
Jason says
Thank you so much. We got so lucky with our son. He is just a great kid. I need to do a better job of living in the moment and enjoying every second because it seems to go so fast.
Ross says
Open up a Roth IRA as soon as your sone starts to make money.
This will get him off to a good start.
Jason says
I already plan on it!