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.
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’m 47 years old, wife is 44 – we have been married for 22 years.
Do you have kids/family (if so, how old are they)?
We have no “blood” children, but we do have several “adopted, no paperwork” kids, including about ten who we have grown very close to.
We support them emotionally and financially, like real parents.
What area of the country do you live in (and urban or rural)?
Amarillo, Texas (urban).
What is your current net worth?
$1.17 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?
- Cash/Checking Accounts – $140k
- Main residence – $220k
- Rental Properties – $438k
- Retirement Accounts – $345k
- Personal Property (Cars, Hot Tub, etc.) – $30k
- Liabilities – $0k
EARN
What is your job?
I am a high school teacher.
My wife worked as a department head at an University, but now is the world’s best looking 40-something- year-old PhD student. She currently has a part-time student worker job.
What is your annual income?
We make right at $80,000 a year.
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 did it mostly working as employees for the great state of Texas.
I became a teacher at age 31. What most people find shocking is before that I never made more than $19,500 per year.
I started in Radio/Television at $6.25 an hour (with a college degree) in 1998 — I could have made more working at Chick-Fil-A. I chased that dream for all of my 20’s and made between $17,000 and $19,500 that entire time.
From age 31 on, I started teaching at $36,000 – a huge raise for me – and received the standard yearly raises along with some school district salary increases. I topped out at $59,000 before moving to a small, rural school district two years ago where I took about a $6,000 pay cut. I make $55k now.
My wife only worked part-time the first year we were married – our combined income our first year together in 2001-02 was $30k. After going full-time, she has worked at a retirement community as an admission coordinator ($33-34k), a museum assistant marketing director, then the marketing director ($36-45k), and finally as a university department head ($57-86k) over 20 years of working.
We’ve never made more than $135k in salary in any year. It’s important to note the cost of living in Amarillo is very low; thus, the salaries are similarly low.
Because we have always lived a simple lifestyle, we’ve not really focused on making our salaries grow. I’ve never been motivated to look for new jobs. I feel like the Lord has always had us where we were meant to be, and we’ve always had enough.
My wife has always had jobs find her. She’s been offered the next job in her career path without looking for it, and she has rarely looked for new jobs.
What tips do you have for others who want to grow their career-related income?
A CEO I got to interview once told me the best thing an employee can do is make themselves valuable. That way if a business ever has to make layoffs/changes, you are much less likely to be let go. Valuable employees also get the raises and promotions first. That has always stuck with me.
Otherwise you only have two options: get an education or get skills. A lot of people can’t put their phones down, and either don’t want to work hard, or want someone else to do the work for them. There are a lot of opportunities for people who will work and don’t mind putting in the hours, especially if you can work with your hands.
Sadly, my wife and I have too many college degrees to fix anything, and have to pay a plumber or a handyman $150.00 for something they can fix in 15 minutes.
What’s your work-life balance look like?
Exceptional. We both chose state jobs because we wanted a lot of time off.
My wife has turned down higher paying jobs due to the fact she would only get two or three weeks off per year. We both get at least six weeks minimum every year. It’s at the cost of higher salaries, but you can’t put a price on that much time off.
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?
We started purchasing rental properties in our mid-30’s and they have done well for us.
After researching for a couple of years, we bought our first rental in cash and figured if it didn’t work out, we could sell it and move on. It was a 2 bed, 1 bath 800 square-foot house with asbestos siding built in 1948 located in a not-so-great part of town. However, I taught at the high school that served that area and wasn’t scared. People need less expensive places to live.
We had it replumbed and added a shower (it only had a bathtub). We had a good first year, so decided to keep going. We bought rentals in 2014, ’16, ’18, and 2020.
We put around half down and pay off the remaining balance over the next year or so. Then we save up until we have enough to start the cycle over.
The Texas Panhandle (used to) be one of the few places in Texas where you could find affordable property. Currently our five rental units bring in around $3,000 a month, depending on repairs and vacancies. We don’t use that money for personal use; it goes for reinvestment into rentals and will one day be a source of retirement income.
SAVE
What is your annual spending?
We spend around $4,000 a month, so around $50,000 a year.
What are the main categories (expenses) this spending breaks into?
We rent an apartment across the street from a major Texas University while the hot wife gets her PhD. really splurged on it because it’s the nicest, most expensive place to live in town, but it is for a short amount of time. Her whole student salary goes to paying the rent.
In trade she has easy access to campus on her bike and doesn’t have to worry about traffic. t also has a nice fitness center so we don’t have to pay additional money for it. This is the first time we’ve had a rent/mortgage payment in 15 years.
The other big expenses are: Gasoline (for me to drive out to the small town I teach at), Food, Travel, Taxes, and Insurance.
Do you have a budget? If so, how do you implement it?
We did our first budget about six months into our marriage – it was eye-opening and life changing.
We are both natural savers, so once we figured out where our money was going, and where we could cut some of our frivolous spending, it was only a matter of time to FI.
We haven’t kept a detailed budget for years, but I do several every year with my former students and some of their family members.
We do go over together what’s called an annual spending report every year or two just to see if anything is out of whack.
I pay all bills, except for my wife’s credit card. We put everything on the credit card to get the cash back bonuses and of course pay it off in full each month.
Our budget is more a spending philosophy: Only buy what you NEED. We know the less we buy the more we save. The large numbers in monthly savings is more valuable to us than anything we can buy.
We only analyze our spending about every other year to see if there’s something that has snuck in that we can actually cut out. Dry cleaning is an example of that. My wife was getting things dry cleaned, but at the end of the year, it turned out to be $50 per month. So we just threw some of that stuff in the washer. Now that she’s a student, her wardrobe has changed and doesn’t require dry cleaning!
The philosophy can be compared to that of nutrition for athletes. They know eating donuts for breakfast will be felt later as they are working out or competing. Instead they eat protein, fruits and veggies, etc. and reap the benefits of that. They aren’t even tempted by donuts because it’s just not in their lifestyle. That’s similar to how we “budget;” it’s a lifestyle that’s become natural.
Now, if we could only be that way on our eating too! (Unfortunately, we’d rather have the donut for breakfast and the ice cream for dinner…..but no one’s perfect.)
What percentage of your gross income do you save and how has that changed over time?
Up until my wife quit her job to go back to school in 2022, we saved between 30-40 percent for most of our marriage.
Our first savings goal was to save $200 a month, which we did almost immediately. Then it went to $300, then $500 dollars a month.
We were shocked we could save so much considering I was only making $1300 a month take home at the time and she around $1000.
When she went to work full-time, we shot for $1,000 a month and celebrated when we made it by year two of our marriage.
We decided to meet with a financial advisor to get an outside opinion and he seemed shocked we were saving that much at such a young age (27 and 24). We have saved at least $1,000 a month ever since, topping out at over $4,000 a month the last several years until she started the PhD program.
What’s your best tip for saving (accumulating) money?
The most important thing ANY person needs to know about personal finance is this: It matters little how much you make, all that matters is how much can you save.
I’ve taught that to my students for almost 20 years now, and some of them will end up with far more money than we have. The person who makes $100k a year, but spends $95k will always be beaten by the person who makes $60k, but learns how to live on $40k. Find a way to save money.
Say NO to spending. No to pets, no to subscriptions, no to eating out all the time, no to $8 coffee, no to going to “Da Club” or “Da Bar” (as my students call it). No to your friends or family asking you to spend money or “invest” with them.
Spending money does not make you feel better — Financial Independence will.
For those who need a mindset/philosophy example, be afraid that you might be poor/broke if you don’t save money. A healthy fear provides the proper motive. I ran out of money after making my last college tuition payment my senior year of college. My granddad and mother helped me pay the rent, but I will never forget that feeling and never want to have it again.
What’s your best tip for spending less money?
Stop looking at the world and its lies for validation. Do you really want to live like everybody else?
Powerful marketing machines have been created to separate you from your money. You can be smarter than the machine, or the machine will keep you poor.
You must be a good steward with your money. Many people are surprised to find out that the Bible teaches lessons about money almost as much as any other subject – starting with not coveting what your neighbor has. That is a common problem in America today.
What is your favorite thing to spend money on/your secret splurge?
We have traveled a LOT over the years – we have been to 49 states, including Hawaii several times. We’ve also been to a handful of foreign countries, including New Zealand.
As we’ve gotten older, our favorite thing to do now is help people financially – mostly my former students.
My secret splurge is going out for ice cream and occasionally buying cookies when my wife isn’t looking.
My wife splurges on personalized license plates – she gets a new one every year for her car and has a collection that decorates the garage.
INVEST
What is your investment philosophy/plan?
Put the money in and leave it.
The only way for regular people like us to invest is in low-cost index funds. We have dabbled in individual stocks, but we lost more than we won most of the time.
Then one day you realize that it’s only your ego that makes you think you can predict the future. There are so many things out of your control – as Ben Graham explained beautifully with Mr. Market – that you should simply invest and leave it alone.
Also, don’t look at it, the roller coaster ride is not for the inexperienced, or those without high risk tolerance. We came to that philosophy the hard way.
In about 2015 we thought things were looking bad and would collapse so we put our money in mostly money markets. We missed out on so much money. In the end, we don’t know what’s going to happen and it’s foolish for us to try. So just put it in index and leave it. History has shown those investments still win.
We contributed to our work 401k’s, and some years contributed the full $6,000 to both of our IRA’s but have not been as diligent in that department as we could be. We have focused on buying real estate instead of putting money in the IRA. We also have state employee retirement funds which provide plenty of cushion in retirement.
What has been your best investment?
Easy – my wife. Picking the right spouse and investing love/support in them is extremely important to building wealth.
Otherwise it’s our rental houses. Most years we make between +9% to +11% and have only had one property that has lost money in any calendar year. They also provide a great inflation hedge and some tax benefits. When prices and/or property taxes go up, you can simply raise the rent. We don’t always do that, as we keep our rents slightly below market value as that prevents tenant turnover.
What has been your worst investment?
Allowing emotions to get involved in our retirement accounts and transferring them into cash for long periods of time. We did it in 2008, in 2012, and 2015 (see above). My wife can barely talk about it, but it does help my students to learn from our mistakes.
Sadly, I’ve watched enough students lose money in get rich quick schemes, pyramid schemes, and other “investments” to last two lifetimes. Someone with even a cursory understating of investment history — like the tulip bulb nonsense in the 1600’s – can avoid a lot of pain and pitfalls.
Never underestimate human fear and/or greed, especially your own.
My wife did lose some money in U.S. steel stock one year, but we only invest what we can afford to totally lose in individual stocks.
What’s been your overall return?
Our real estate has averaged +10% for the decade we’ve had them. Our investments have been average at best.
I would guess around +8% for the first decade of marriage, then maybe +6% before we stopped trying to predict the future.
We have had some good years since we went almost entirely to Index Funds, even some +20%, including this year (2023).
How often do you monitor/review your portfolio?
I only do a total review once a year. The wife on the other hand is too scared to look and is just trying to save as much as possible.
I might check in on it occasionally when I’m bored, or to show former students a real-life example of an investment portfolio and performance. I’m quite close with a lot of former students, who see me as a father/mentor figure – or perhaps a weird uncle.
———————————-
What a great start, huh?
For the rest of the story see Millionaire Interview 401, Part 2.
What a great interview, well done! Refreshing to read a story of folks reaching millionaire status without making six figures!
Your story is an inspiration and demonstrates that with discipline, anyone can become the Millionaire Next Door
Thank you for the kind words. Yes, it can be done on ‘regular’ salaries.
Thanks for the kind words. Yes it can be done on ‘regular’ salaries.
Thank you for the kind words. That’s right, people with ‘regular’ salaries can be just fine financially.
My goodness. So many excellent teaching points in this interview. I especially like the advice that regardless how much one makes, there’s always an amount one can save. There has to be a strong commitment to saving something.
I also find the idea of teachers being millionaires along w doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc, fascinating. Based on earning power alone , it’s no contest. But every time a study comes out about occupations w the most millionaires, teachers are among them. Incredible. You and your wife are examples of the “can do” spirit of being an American . Well, thank you for your service to your community and thank you for doing the interview. I learned a ton.
Thank you for the kind words.
Some teachers do know what they’re doing financially — sadly many others do not though.
as a numbers guy, an engineer, I tend to operate in ratios. I Generally dont look at networth in terms of just sheer numbers. I look at networth relative to income. It is incredibly impressive to me what you guys have accomplished with so little income. Now that’s impressive.
How do you go about teaching your students about personal finance? Is it integrated in the school’s curriculum, or is it you who introduce it to them on your own? Most schools don’t have a formal course in personal finance. Thank you for serving your community . I cant wait for part 2.
Hello,
When I first started, I just introduced it to fill some time at the end of a school week. I quickly noticed how the students were VERY interested, even those who didn’t like the subjects I teach. You’re right, many states do not have a formal course. I requested it for the new school I teach at and got it.
Thank you for the kind words.
I love this interview. You guys , quite simply , are better off (more wealthy ) than most people on here.
That is – your passive income of around $36k through rental property almost floats your budget.
When we factor the depreciation on your properties , you’re AT close to $50k.
And that is “wealth”.
Thank you for teaching our kids. Biggest influences – good and bad – were teachers I had and that my son had in public schools. Good public schools saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars and set my son up to succeed.
You both are great examples on many levels. Keep going !
Thanks so much. I have always said I will teach as long as I can reach teenagers. When I can’t, it’s time to go. There are good public schools out there — just not enough of them.
One of the best things about these interviews is the variety. Thanks for sharing your story, you’re proof that you can work a job that aligns with your priorities and values and not give up your goal to become a millionaire. It’s not always about working high-stress or high income jobs.
You’re making future generations better in your career, and enjoy your life. I also hope to teach community college or at-risk youth at some point to inspire them to make something of themselves. Probably easier said than done.
Thanks for the kind words.
Teaching does have it’s trying moments, but worth it if you’re in the right school environment.
I can’t wait to read the rest of the story. I agree with the other commenter, it’s great to read people reaching these goals without being an engineer, dr or CEO – those are fun too, but this is was a fun read.
Congrats on your success!
Like you, my parents were teachers who never earned huge salaries but invested steadily into the stock market and also into real estate. And they are the proverbial “millionaires next door.” As MJ wrote, we are fortunate to live in a country where people with “regular” incomes can achieve great things through dedicated saving and investing!
Best wishes!
MI-388
Thanks so much for the kind words.
According to the book “The Millionaire Next Door”, you are a PAW (Prodigious Accumulator of Wealth), i.e income to wealth ratio is at the top. Congratulations and great job! I’m really impressed!
Thanks Sam
More PAW than most, I suppose. Lol
However, wealth is a relative thing. While some would call us “rich”, compared to a Decca-Millionaire we’re just little peons.
Congratulations!
What an inspiring story! It shows that slow and steady will
get you to the finish line. I can’t wait to read the rest of the story.
Steady plodding brings success.
Slow and steady wins the race.
Keep doing the above as your story is a positive example for many to follow!