Millionaire Interview Update 71

Today I have an update for you from a previous millionaire interview.

I’m letting three years pass from the initial interviews to the updates, so if you’ve been interviewed, I’ll be in touch. 😉

This update was submitted in June.

As usual, my questions are in bold italics and their responses follow…

OVERVIEW

How old are you?

I am 44 years old.

My wife of 21 years is 43 years old.

Do you have kids?

I have two kids; my daughter is 18 and graduated high school in May 2025. She was active in the arts throughout high school, playing clarinet in the Wind Symphony, spinning flags and rifles in the color guard, and singing, dancing, and acting in a multitude of theater performances.

She is enrolling in a local community college and will work towards a career as a radiological technologist (rad tech). She just started her first W2 job working in a thrift store-type warehouse for our friends who own a “junk hauling” franchise.

My son is 11 and is entering middle school in the fall. He is following in his sister’s arts footsteps as an actor in three elementary school musicals (plus a cameo in one of the high school productions in 2024), including the lead role in his fifth-grade year.

He will also play the tuba in the middle school band. He is active in sports, playing basketball for a club team year-round and spends three days a week training at a local gym doing Olympic-style lifts – and thinking of joining the competitive team at some point.

What area of the country do you live in (and urban or rural)?

We live in a suburb outside of a major city in the southeast.

What was your original Millionaire Interview on ESI Money?

I was Millionaire 309.

Is there anything else we should know about you?

I enjoy cooking (and eating) as well as fine wines and bourbon. I have begun to amass a small bourbon collection and look forward to one day visiting the bourbon trail.

I also began aging wine in late 2024. It will be at least 2029 before I sample any of it, but am looking forward to the time when I can taste it.

I enjoy hosting dinners at my home, and little gives me more pleasure than spending hours cooking a meal and having all who eat enjoy it. I love to smoke meat (my brisket burnt ends are legendary), sous vide (I haven’t grilled a steak in almost 10 years), make homemade pasta, and cheesecakes – my baking specialty.

NET WORTH

What is your current net worth and how is that different than your original interview?

As of today, I’m a couple bucks over $2mm net worth – if the market goes down 0.5% tomorrow, I’ll likely be below $2mm. My original interview we were at $1.3mm – a 53% increase in 3.5 years.

That feels pretty good to me.

What happened along the way to make these changes?

Shortly after my interview in January of 2022, the market took a dive, and it took 14 months from the time we hit $1.3mm to get to $1.4mm. Since then, the market has been better, except for a brief time earlier this year, so my assets have continued to appreciate.

At the time of my last interview, I had just under $100,000 in debt (most of it in the form of a mortgage). On May 15, 2023, on our 19th wedding anniversary and a month shy of 14 years in our home, we paid off our mortgage.

We enjoyed a debt-free life until November of 2023, when we bought a new car, but a year later paid it off and have been debt-free since. We have no plans to acquire any new debt anytime soon.

What are you currently doing to maintain/grow your net worth?

We are trying to not allow the extra $2,000 a month in mortgage savings turn into lifestyle creep. We are limiting big purchases and projects at the moment to build up a larger cash balance and will invest that cash periodically into a brokerage account to help make retirement arrive as soon as possible.

We also are continuing to max our 401ks and invest those in index funds. Previously, we had the majority in target funds, and I realized that was a mistake as they were more expensive and underperformed the index funds.

We moved out of those several years ago and our returns have been noticeably better since.

EARN

What is your job?

I am an individual contributor at a Fortune 50 financial services company in the corporate real estate function. My corporate title is Vice President, but I’m two-down from anyone who would be consider an executive.

My wife is a regional controller for a large food services company.

What is your annual income?

For 2025, our joint income is just over $362,000. My income will be $216,200 – $178,200 salary and $38,000 cash bonus.

My wife will earn a little over $146,000 – $125,000 salary and $21,000 cash bonus.

How has this changed since your last interview?

3.5 years ago, our combined income was $260,000 – a 39% increase is something that feels pretty good. Since the original interview, I have been promoted twice, both times by the same manager.

The first promotion came with a 20% raise, and the second with a 10% raise – in a year when raises weren’t very good.

My wife received steady raises each year between 3.5% and 6%.

In my original interview, I talked about my approach to work and how I always made it my number one priority to make my boss look good and not to worry about getting any credit for myself. Ironically, this was one of the few things I wrote that received a comment, and it was a skeptical comment about the effectiveness of my approach.

I still believe it to be the case. I’m not saying it works for everyone, but in the 21 years I’ve been in the corporate workforce, it hasn’t let me down.

When I focus on doing a good job, and not caring about who gets the credit, good managers reward that. It has worked for me throughout my career, and I intend to continue to embrace it.

Have you added, grown, or lost any additional sources of income besides your career?

I didn’t have any additional sources of income before and I haven’t added any new ones since – unless you count my daughter finding a job.

It may not go to my pocket, but she asks me for money less often.

SAVE

What is your annual spending and how has it changed since your interview?

This is a tricky question for me. In my original interview our annual spending was $160k. While I have always been attentive to my finances, it wasn’t until about 2.5 years ago that I recorded our monthly spending to see how it trended.

I look at my spending in 3 ways.

• I look at the average annual spend since I began recording the data.  That number shows an annual spend of $173k (which includes a lump sum ~$40k to pay off mortgage).
• I look at the most recent 12 months of spending.  That number is currently $142k annually.
• I look at the most recent 3 months and annualize it.  That number is $117k annually.

Clearly, we are trending in the right direction. As I mentioned above, we paid our mortgage off in May 2023, so spending has been down since then.

We also bought a car in 2023 and paid for it in full within a year, so the last 6 months have been better than the 6 months prior. We also spent money on some deferred maintenance projects around the house last year, things that we’re not doing this year.

My goal is to have our annual spending under $125k. I do think this number will decrease as my children grow up and move out, and my hope is that when we’re ready to retire, we can live comfortably on around $100k/year.

What happened along the way to make these changes?

The primary thing is the payoff of our debt.

We also do not give as much money as we did previously. For the original interview, we had just finished a $50k pledge to a church building campaign.

Since then, I have left the church (another story for another time), and while my wife and kids still attend once or twice a month, we don’t give at the level we once did.

I would say our spending levels on other items are consistent (adjusted for inflation) as they were 3.5 years ago. It will be 3 or 4 years until we purchase another vehicle and while we will likely try to do a bigger vacation ($10k+) at some point, we don’t currently have any plans to do so.

The only other large expenditure I foresee is additional home improvements, flooring/kitchen remodel – but again no timeline on that.

INVEST

What are your current investments and how have they changed over the years?

We each have a 401k and I have both a traditional and Roth IRA. We also have a couple of brokerage accounts; one is managed and the other is self-directed.

• My 401k is $167k – up from $21k
• Her 401k is $418k – up from $265k
• My traditional IRA (all 401k rollovers) is $545k – up from $469k
• My Roth IRA is $89k – up from $76k
• Managed brokerage is $43k – no change
• Self-directed brokerage is $46k – did not exist at original interview.

I don’t consider my home an investment, but it’s currently worth around $636k – up from $522k. We also have a small HSA currently worth around $11k (up from $1,200) – I’m maxing it out each year, but we pay all our medical bills out of it.

My goal is that it hits $100k by the time I’m 55.

What happened along the way to make these changes?

The magic of compounding is, by and large, why these numbers are up. We do contribute more to our 401ks than we did 3.5 years ago.

The managed brokerage is flat because we pulled money out to pay off the mortgage. The self-directed came to be when I had FOMO from the meme stocks craze.

I only put $2,500 into that, and then when the market dipped in March, I bought in and have seen excellent returns on that.

As I’ve read many of these millionaire stories, what I’ve learned is that becoming a millionaire and then a multi-millionaire is pretty boring. You take money and invest it regularly, and over time it becomes more money.

If you do this long enough and consistently enough and don’t let your emotions cloud your judgment, you can end up with enough to never work again. That’s the path we’re on, and time will tell when we hit it.

MISCELLANEOUS

What other financial challenges or opportunities have you faced since your last interview?

We really haven’t faced any significant challenges. We have been lucky to all be relatively healthy and not experience any significant financial loss.

The growth in our net worth is due to time passing and growth in our income. I wish it was more interesting than that, but it’s just not.

Overall, what’s better and what’s worse since your last interview?

I can’t think of anything that is worse than the time of my original interview. We are all happy and healthy.

My life is less stressful than it was back then, and I have a little more discretionary money than I did.

I have the same lovely wife, and my kids are older and happy in their lives. I’m also 3.5 years closer to retirement than I was before. HA!

What are your plans for the future?

In my original interview, I quoted the great sage, Joe Dirt, when I said we plan to “keep on, keepin’ on”. That’s still the big picture today.

In the last 3.5 years, I have moved the goal line for retirement from age 60 to age 55. I think 55 is very doable, and we may be able to do it even sooner.

The number I am targeting is $4mm – unless something changes drastically, that should be enough to live the lifestyle we desire and have a healthy buffer to deal with the unexpected things life throws our way.

I don’t intend to work one day more than I absolutely have to. Life is short, and while I enjoy my job, my co-workers, and my paycheck, I value my time and the ability to spend it how I want more.

I’m not sure what retirement will look like – I’d like to hope it contains a renewed interest in golf, perhaps some pickleball, and some time volunteering with organizations I like. Who knows what my kids will be doing or if there will be a new generation to spend time with – the bottom line is my time, will be mine.

Given that you have a bit more wisdom and experience, what advice do you have these days for ESI Money readers?

I have learned a lot these past few years, more from the MMM forum than anywhere else. My first piece of advice would be to join the forum.

I received no compensation from ESI for this advice – I truly believe it. As I reflect on my original interview, I realize I didn’t know as much as I thought I did and in 3 years, I’ll probably have the same opinion of this interview.

My second piece builds on the first – never stop learning. No matter how certain you are on a topic, give yourself the space to be challenged and open to new and different ideas.

Give yourself the grace to admit that you are wrong and that maybe there’s a better way – not just in your finances, but in all aspects of your life. I struggle with this a lot – I like to be right, and when my wife reads this, she will wholeheartedly agree, but when you open your mind to alternatives, you give yourself the chance to be better than you were before.

Don’t deny yourself and those around you those opportunities for growth.