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 March.
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 fifty-seven and my spouse is seventy-two. We are both in our second marriages and have been married for nine years.
We feel so lucky to have found each other after a time of grief. We met through church after the death of my first husband.
Do you have kids/family (if so, how old are they)?
I have two children, ages twenty-five and twenty-nine, from my first marriage. My husband has three children from his first marriage, and they are all in their forties.
We have five AMAZING grandchildren, from five years old to fifteen years old. We love spending time with the kids and the grandkids (especially the grandkids!).
Our kids/grandkids are in Texas and Utah, so we spend a lot of time traveling back and forth.
What area of the country do you live in (and urban or rural)?
We live in Texas on rustic acreage in the middle of the suburbs. It is a little island of paradise surrounded by the hustle and bustle – we live in the “country” but are a two-minute drive from Home Depot!
We have a small house on three acres and live next door to my aging parents on their four acres. We bought land before it got crazy expensive in our town; however, as the value of raw land has gone up exponentially in our area, so have the property taxes.
What is your current net worth?
Our net worth is approximately $4,360,000. The main assets that make up our net worth include $1.6 million in real estate, $2.52 million in investment accounts and about $240k in cash/CD ladder.
We owe about $54k in a mortgage on a condo at a low interest rate and about $12k on vehicle loans with 0% interest rates.
EARN
What is your job?
My husband and I are “retired” from regular work. We have a few side hustles that pad our spending a little.
I substitute teach occasionally and together we travel through Texas by car as secret shoppers. We love traveling to small towns and meeting the nicest people.
Texas is a beautiful and large state! My husband retired from upper-level management upon reaching Social Security age.
I “retired” from a corporate job when my children were young and started a boutique photography business that let me set my own hours so I could wrangle kids and eventually homeschool. I started my career as a public school teacher and have always had a job or volunteer work teaching/mentoring in some way or another.
What is your annual income?
Our annual income is on the lower end. We have Social Security income, money from our side hustles, some rental income and interest income.
It totals about $50-60k.
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 pulling weeds for neighbors at about age nine because I was too young to babysit. My husband’s first job at age seven was picking raspberries and selling them at the local grocer.
Both of us have always worked and hustled. We currently have a large garden, so we have really come full circle! Ha ha!
What tips do you have for others who want to grow their career-related income?
Training, training and more training! The more you learn, the more you can offer the company you work for or improve your own company.
Finding a mentor and being a mentor is important. I think curiosity and risk-taking is also very important.
What would happen if I changed jobs? What would happen if I moved across the country to find a better opportunity?
What would happen if I started my own company? Bought this real estate? Etc.
What’s your work-life balance look like?
It’s all work-life balance now! We work at our paying jobs when we want.
We are always working, though. Lots of hard physical labor around the house as we do most home improvement projects ourselves.
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?
The majority of our income now is from investments in real estate and the stock market plus Social Security.
SAVE
What is your annual spending?
We spend way too much! We have always been the savers in the family, so this is new territory for us both.
We spend below the 4% withdrawal recommendation and the money in the investment accounts keeps growing (for now). I know this is a matter of the stock market doing well, so we are cautiously spending on things that improve our home, our health and our joy while we are still young enough to enjoy them.
We try to keep our annual spending below $80k – some years are better than others.
What are the main categories (expenses) this spending breaks into?
- Home Improvement Projects 50%
- Travel 20%
- Groceries 15%
- Regular Bills 15%
We know that as we complete many of the major improvements on our home that these categories will shift. We also know that as we age, our spending will decrease in some areas and increase in others.
We don’t buy expensive clothes. I own one purse that I never use. We own high mileage and/or used cars.
We splurge on healthy groceries, tools that make home improvements easier and travel. I have a goal of visiting all US National Parks before I die, and we are well on our way by visiting 2-3 per year on average.
Do you have a budget? If so, how do you implement it?
I currently work with a budget through YNAB. I have always used some form of cash budgeting a la the Dave Ramsey envelope system or YNAB’s categories.
I have had a credit card in the past and it was a disaster, so now I have not had a credit card in over twenty years. Sometimes it is a pain to rent a car, but it’s a sacrifice I make for my own self-control.
My husband puts all of his expenses on a credit card and pays it off each month in order to earn miles. He is much more self-disciplined than I.
He monitors his spending by looking at the statements. I monitor by looking at YNAB. In my previous marriage, I was the “nerd” budget maker and my husband was the “free spirit”.
In this marriage, we are both the “nerds” and we pool money for bills and purchases but keep separate accounts. It’s not the Dave Ramsey way, but it works for us.
What percentage of your gross income do you save and how has that changed over time?
We are in the spending years now, but historically, I have always saved. I started a 403-B account my first year of teaching.
The district finance guy came into my classroom and drew a chart explaining compound interest on my blackboard, and I was hooked. My first husband maxed out his 401K every year and said one of the reasons he married me was for my 403-B.
We both agreed that saving for our retirement and college for the kids was non-negotiable. We used Etrade outside of our company 401Ks and tried to max out our savings there as well investing primarily in QQQ.
As we learned more, we diversified a little and bought mutual funds per the Dave Ramsey strategy. We dabbled with single stocks and wasted a couple hundred bucks (0/10 do not recommend).
Once my investments reached over one million and the stock market became too volatile for my taste, I switched over to a managed account through Schwab. I know I pay too high of fees for this account, but I sleep better at night knowing I have someone else to blame besides myself if things go sideways. Haha!
What’s your best tip for saving (accumulating) money?
The best tip for saving money is to spend less than you earn. Duh. The best tip for practical saving is to have money taken out of your paycheck before you touch it. Put your money into mutual funds and don’t ever touch it, letting compound interest over time work its magic. I have never made more than $50k a year in salary. My first husband rarely made over $100k. We just saved like crazy and got lucky in real estate.
What’s your best tip for spending less money?
For me, having a credit card was a disaster. Having a debit card is a little bit better, but not as good as using cash for purchases.
Unfortunately, COVID put quite a damper on cash usage. I still use cash occasionally, but using a cash based budget helps me manage my debit card purchases. I can not spend what I don’t have.
I have always tried to avoid debt, because interest payments eat into everything. When we have borrowed for a house or car, we paid off the loan as quickly as possible.
I have always budgeted, whether through Quicken, Google Sheets, Excel or now YNAB. It keeps me (mostly) honest.
As I mentioned before, we don’t spend a ton of frivolous money. When we do spend, we try to max out sales or buy off-season.
I am the queen of budget travel. I took my two kids to Disney World for a week and spent less than $1,000.
Granted that was fifteen years ago… I shipped food and snacks to our Disney hotel, used miles for flights and went off-season. It was amazing!
When we travel, we do not spend money on expensive hotels or ultra-fine dining. This summer we will go to Europe and I booked Premium Economy flights.
Hopefully, it will be worth the extra $$. We will be spending our money on tours throughout the region, maxing out our experiences over sleeping in an expensive hotel.
What is your favorite thing to spend money on/your secret splurge?
My not-so-secret splurge is hosting my extended family and friends for Sunday dinners. Our grocery budget expands to feed more people throughout the month.
With that, I want the food to be good so everyone comes back! I love spending money on my family.
INVEST
What is your investment philosophy/plan?
My investment philosophy is to start young and let compound interest work its magic. Buy and hold, baby!
Also, I think knowledge is power. Read and learn about what you are investing in. If you don’t understand it, don’t buy it.
What has been your best investment?
Our best investment has been in real estate. This is not due to market increase – although there has been major market increase.
I think it is our best investment because owning a little slice of heaven brings us joy. The home improvement projects get us out of bed in the morning.
The sunshine and fresh air keep our mental health steady and strong.
I have been lucky with real estate. We bought our first home in 1996 for $98K and sold for $135k five years later.
Our 2nd home was bought for $135k and sold for $165k two years later. The third home was bought for $300k, paid off and sold for $675 fifteen years later.
Our current home was purchased with cash for $270k and is worth about $550k. We have since purchased a rental home for cash and a condo for mostly cash. We didn’t time the market, we just got lucky.
What has been your worst investment?
My best investment has definitely not been in my career! I graduated from a high-dollar private university with very little debt (fortunately) with a degree in English Literature.
This highly marketable degree (LOL) was more valuable in the 1990’s than it is now, but hardly worth the money. I have never made much in salary, but having a degree in liberal arts does allow me to think rationally and creatively, ponder, weigh, and move thoughts into action.
From this standpoint of being broke early on, I am a much more cautious person with money, but also understand the importance of money=freedom.
What’s been your overall return?
I think we fall into the normal rule of seven.
I used to track this meticulously, but looking at my finances all of the time was giving me anxiety!
How often do you monitor/review your portfolio?
I do check my investment account frequently, especially if I hear good or bad news about the stock market. I am not invested entirely in the stock market, so it’s not huge panic or elation.
Mostly, I see my investment account as pretend money. It is just zeros and ones until I need to start cashing out in a few years.
I have other accounts that I completely forget about until I do an annual review with my money guy.
NET WORTH
How did you accumulate your net worth?
The majority of my net worth is from saving into mutual funds starting and finding good deals in real estate. We started early in both areas.
We never made huge salaries. My first husband, also with a degree in English literature from another costly private school, owned a third interest in a manufacturing business that he helped grow from the ground up.
My father-in-law gave us seed money from a $50k annuity he had purchased for my husband when he was a child. The blood, sweat and tears were all ours.
After my husband’s death from cancer in his mid-forties, I was able to sell my inherited shares of the company. I also received a life insurance payment.
I used part of this money to pay off our home and purchase two rental properties and a condo. I discovered that I was not landlord material, so sold one of the rental homes for a large profit several years later.
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?
My greatest strengths are saving and investing. We have always prioritized saving for retirement even when money was tight.
Since we started in our very early twenties investing a small amount and later investing a lot more, we have let compound interest work its magic. We have never carried a huge debt load, as I am very debt averse.
I do believe that if you can’t afford to buy something with cash, you shouldn’t buy it at all (with the exception of an affordable primary home). For the past twenty-five years, I have paid cash for almost every purchase, large and small, including two homes and several cars.
Of course, the cars depreciate, but the homes’ appreciation has beaten the stock market.
What road bumps did you face along the way to becoming a millionaire and how did you handle them?
Starting our own company in our early 30’s was scary. I worked a regular corporate job at the time, so when my first husband was skipping his own paychecks in order to make payroll or buy new equipment, I could make the mortgage payment.
If we had been debt/mortgage-free at the time, I would have slept better at night. At several points in the entrepreneurship journey, we had to dig into our emergency food storage and shop for kids’ clothes at thrift shops because our money was so tight.
Fortunately, for us, entrepreneurship worked out well.
What are you currently doing to maintain/grow your net worth?
I hope that the stock market will continue to grow and that I can weather this current volatility. I have said that numerous times over the years. Haha!
2001, 2008, 2020/21, etc. So far, buying and holding has worked out well for my portfolio.
Do you have a target net worth you are trying to attain?
A few years ago, I read Die With Zero by Bill Perkins. That and losing my first husband at an early age has changed my philosophy of spending to YOLO (You Only Live Once).
We are not frivolous by any means, but I do spend money on experiences and helping others. Travel, hobbies, education and charity are where we spend.
My target net worth is one hundred bucks when I die at one hundred years old.
How old were you when you made your first million and have you had any significant behavior shifts since then?
I was in my early forties when we had accumulated assets worth one million. Because most of the balance was in retirement accounts and our primary home, my behavior did not change at all.
The retirement accounts I have always psychologically seen as monopoly money. Owning a home with no mortgage is what is tangible to me and that happened at age 47.
I have also embraced the philosophy that any accumulated money is not mine. I am simply a steward to what God (or karma/higher power/vibes/whatever your belief system) has gifted. I do sleep better at night being debt-free.
Currently, the amount of debt we carry (small mortgage, small zero-interest car loan) could be paid off today with cash if we wanted.
What personal habits and/or traits have you developed that have made you successful at growing your net worth?
Debt aversion is my superpower.
What money mistakes have you made along the way that others can learn from?
If I had it to do all over again, I would have gotten a college education/training in something more lucrative.
I also should have dialed in to Dave Ramsey earlier in life.
What advice do you have for ESI Money readers on how to become wealthy?
I do like the Dave Ramsey quote, “Live like no one else, so later you can live like no one else.” It’s easy to fall into peer pressure to live beyond your means, especially with the advent of social media.
Be weird – save money and pay with cash. Live in a smaller, more customized, mortgage-free home. Don’t spend money on Instagram-worthy vacations when you have credit card debt.
FUTURE
What are your plans for the future regarding lifestyle?
We are living the lifestyle we want right now! We work when we want for a little extra pocket change.
We have a huge list of home-improvement projects. We have more hobbies than we have time. It’s awesome!
Are there any issues in retirement that concern you? If so, how are you planning to address them?
The main issue that concerns me is healthcare. My husband is able to use Medicare.
I am technically unemployed so must use the Healthcare Marketplace for the next eight years – basically for catastrophic coverage. Fortunately, our health is very good.
But I know that good health can change instantly to bad. I am thankful for the Marketplace for offering insurance to folks not working W-2 jobs, the entrepreneurs, gig workers, etc.
However, it is not great insurance. I could see burning through a lot of cash if there was a chronic issue.
I also have concerns about caring for my parents and helping out our kids. I am in the sandwich part of life right now.
I am thankful that I don’t have to work a regular 9-5 job so that I have the opportunity to help care for my parents when they ask. I am worried that caring for my parents will become my full-time job.
MISCELLANEOUS
How did you learn about finances and at what age did it “click”?
Discovering compound interest and investing – The financial planning guy from the school district – age 22. Reading The Wealthy Barber and understanding that “normal people” can become wealthy – age 24
Becoming debt free by discovering Dave Ramsey – mid-thirties.
Who inspired you to excel in life? Who are your heroes?
My heroes all come from my immediate family and my in-laws. I learned both what to do and what not to do with finances from them.
My father-in-law and my grandfather-in-law both retired in their fifties. That was always the goal for my first husband and me, but unfortunately he didn’t live to enjoy it.
My immediate family has been my biggest cheering section, although with some head shaking sometimes at my financial weirdness. They have always inspired me to excel. Most importantly, though,they taught me how to live a fulfilling and love-filled life.
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?
The Wealthy Barber by David Chilton and The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J Stanley – both books taught me that normal people can become wealthy by living below their means.
Also, that wealth should not look like wealth to the outside world. It’s ok to live in a small house, drive a high-mileage, practical car, wear clothes from Costco, stay married to the same person, etc.
Die with Zero by Bill Perkins – I liked this book because it fits in with my thoughts about enjoying your wealth while you can through experiences like travel and charity.
Do you give to charity? Why or why not? If you do, what percent of time/money do you give?
We have given to charity since our early twenties. At first it was sporadic upon some type of windfall.
For the past twenty years it has been a solid 10% or more of income. We give a lot of time to our church as well, volunteering primarily with working with youth.
I feel like substitute teaching is also giving back as the pay is very low for the hours put into doing a good job. I sub at the same school, so I know a lot of the kids. It is fulfilling for me, and, I hope, good for the kids as well.
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 hope that I can help my family right now as opposed to helping them upon my death. I would love to be able to help kids/grandkids with down payments on homes.
Property ownership is one of the best paths to wealth accumulation, and the current environment makes this dream very difficult. I invest regularly into 529s and ESAs for grandchildren and great nieces and nephews.
If I were to die today, I have a will and a trust for my assets. I have the trust set up so that my children/grandchildren won’t be able to blow it all on fast cars and trips to Vegas.
I do have one child that will possibly need help their whole life, which is why I established a special needs trust for them. The trust allows for expenses to be paid as needed by the trustee, but the assets are never in their name and they can never touch the money.
This allows them to keep any government assistance they are receiving and allows the money to be protected from any predatory behavior by others. My other child will receive distributions at certain ages.
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