3 Decisions That Made Me a Millionaire by 40 (Copy Me)

At 25, I had almost nothing invested. My salary was $31,000 a year. I had car debt, student loans, and zero financial plans. But today, I'm a millionaire. And it didn't happen from picking one perfect stock. It came from three simple decisions anyone can make. If you're in your 30s or 40s and you feel behind, watch this because by the end of this video, you'll have exact steps to turn your financial life around or add even more greatness to your current financial plan. I think we're all sold a certain dream when we first enter the workforce. Get a nice house, a high paying job, and eventually become a millionaire. But then we're faced with student loan debt, credit cards, and car loans. And that high paying job only starts at $40,000 per year. If you felt any of this, this is exactly what happened when I was starting off. In fact, my first salary out of college was a whopping $31,000 per year. By some accounts, that's a lot of money. But by other accounts, it's not much at all. We racked up debt, we bought new cars, and I was consistently feeling the pinch at the end of every single month when I was doing my finances. So I'm going to transparently share this with you. And I don't think people share their money details enough, which is why we should start to normalize this so we can all succeed with our personal finances together. Here we have my budget sheet. And this is back from March of 2009. Oh yes, back in 2009. I was also an Excel nerd. But this is before we started our debt payoff focus. And what I'm about to share with you in today's video. You know, as I was preparing for this video, I look back and I'm like, Oh my gosh, look at how old school this Excel document looks. I got a point one out really quick. Look at this Wachovia. Do you remember the bank Wachovia? If you do, drop me a comment down below. So I'm not the only one that feels old right now. Because as I opened this, I realized how much I'm dating myself, right? This is how we started, right? So our income was not that great. I mean, we're looking at that's $1,825 and 1400. That's only $3,225 after tax that we got into our bank account. Actual payments $3,317. That is things like paying a little bit on the credit card. It looks like we had debt from Mattress Giant. Miscellaneous credit cards. We had a car payment. Oh, a second car payment. And by the way, we don't even own those cars anymore. So we're paying $198 for a Dodge Neon and $330 a month for a Chrysler. And we don't own those cars anymore because they got too old and we had to trade them in. Man, what a waste, right? But look at this, we also have a student loan payment. We have a big mortgage payment. We have all of these expenses, but it doesn't add up. That means, as you can see here, I put total profit, but that's kind of a joke. At the end of the day, my actual payments compared to what we were bringing in was short $92. Now, I don't remember how this worked back then in 2009. Where did I come up with the extra $92? Let alone the fact that I was not even investing or saving any money at all. Again, if you feel this, this is why I'm showing this because I want to show you how I started, where I was. Because if you're here, I can tell you, look, I got to a point where I became a millionaire in the three decisions that we're talking about in today's video from this. You got this too, I promise. Now, I truly think that if I would have continued on the path I was on back in 2009, I wouldn't have been able to make this video in the first place. I mean, even if I got promoted, made more money, et cetera, I'd just be as poor today as I was back then. And with that comes stress, anxiety, and financial crunch. But don't worry, there is a way out of the anxiety. In 2013, a couple of years later after that, I spent a lot of time thinking about and adjusting my personal finances. This year in 2013 started the journey for the three major decisions that made me a millionaire. Let's get right to it with decision number one, what I'm going to call the no matter what factor. I knew that many people who became wealthy invested money. So I knew at that point I had to start investing no matter what. But the issue, well, there were two issues. You just saw my budget sheet where I barely had enough money to invest. I mean, I didn't actually, I mean, I was negative, right? So how the heck was I going to start in the first place? And second, this still stuck with me. See, back when I was younger in my early 20s, I tried to get started with investing. And I'm just going to share this transparently because it's just how things worked back then. I gave a call to TD Ameritrade and I wanted to start investing. So I remember this. I remember exactly where I was. I was on the phone with them and I'm like, hey, I want to start investing. Their answer to me was this. Okay, great. You need a minimum of $25,000 to get started with your investment account. That moment alone almost stopped me from investing before it even started. I had no way of getting $25,000 to start investing. So I figured investing was a far off dream. Today, you can start investing though, thankfully, because we've come a long way since then, with very small amounts, even just $5. And that one change alone has opened the door to millions of people to begin their investment journey. And that's exactly why I talk so much about investing $5 a day here on my channel. And now I wish I had this option when I was younger, but who cares at this point? The best thing we can do is to get started today and stay consistent. The goal is to invest as much as you can, whether it's $5 a day, $1,000 a month, or even $10 every three months. The point is, start a plan, stay consistent, and as you make more money, scale up your investments. But I made a pledge to myself that anytime I would invest any money, I would not need that money for at least five years. Once it's invested, I treat it as it's gone. No taking it out. No withdrawing. It's locked in. And this is a big moment because you have to keep this mindset. And I don't care if the market crashes. I don't care if I need extra money for my expenses. I don't care if there's an emergency. I'd figure out another way and never, ever touch that invested money because you need it to grow. And there are two charts that make this very powerful. First is the compound interest point of view. The crazy thing about compounding is that it looks boring for years and then suddenly it starts looking unstoppable. So let's say we start investing $10,000 a year and only at a 7% interest rate, a 7% rate of return on your investments. It takes 7.84 years to reach your first $100,000. That feels like forever. But then to reach from 100,000 to 200,000, look at that, 5.1 years. It's less years. Why wouldn't it be another 7.84 years for another 100,000? Well, it's because of compound investment interest. And look at this from 200 to 300,000. Now you're compounding, your snowball is growing, right? 3.78 years from 300 to 400, 3.01 years from 400 to 500,000, only two and a half years. And it keeps compressing as time goes on. Considering a 7% interest rate, if you go up to the average, which is actually 10%, oh, it gets even better. But that's why I didn't want to touch my money. You got to let it go. Once you put it in, let it alone so the thing can grow. If you withdraw too early, you're avoiding this opportunity from happening in the first place. See, if we don't apply the rule to let our money stay invested for the long game, we're going to miss out on the most magical compounding effect. So the longer you have until your freedom date, or some people like to call it retirement date, the faster you'll grow your 100,000 as we saw on that chart. The second chart that makes us powerful is the one that keeps me calm during market turbulence. Everyone wants to predict the next big market crash. Sure, it's scary to see the portfolio you saw yesterday, let's say $400,000, go down to maybe $358,000. But this chart right here will help you stay the course. If you look at it from an annual perspective, the S&P 500 performance from 1943 until 2023, in fact, look at this, there's some really bad years. We're talking about like the good old days of 2008, 2020, things like that, where the market went down. But look at the five-year. See, this is where things are interesting. A five-year period can still be positive. Look at 2008. Would you believe that that in that five-year period was actually positive? That's what makes things interesting and why it's so important not only to just invest money in the first place, but to stay invested over those rocky periods. It gets scary when you see these reds year after year. But when you compress them into a five-year period that I mentioned early in this video, let it in for five years, this is why. Because of this chart right here. So the no matter what factor is this. First, invest whatever you can start with, no matter what. Second, keep it invested for the long term, no matter what. And three, never stop your plan, even if the market is up or the market is down, no matter what. The beauty is that the no matter what factor paid off really well as I invested during 2020, 2022, and most recently, April of 2025. These were three times, the super recent times that the market was down. And thanks to my no matter what, I was able to keep on investing while taking advantage of the market being down. In fact, if you look at this investment I made in April 2025, when the market dropped, look at that. Today, that one particular trade is up 36.04%. Look around it. I mean, we're looking at 26, 28, 29, 33%. All of that is up. It's positive. And that's even today. And as I'm recording this video, we're going through a lot of market turbulence. In fact, the market is down quite a bit because of the most recent shenanigans with Iran and things like that. But back then, look at that. I'm still positive even today. And that's the critical period of being able to invest when things are down. That's beautiful. Looking at March of 2020, check out this particular growth. While it's not a lot, here in my Stash account, I have a total of $3,586 currently invested with the Apple stock. But I was buying this back in 2020 and a little bit throughout. But look at that total return of 94.66%. The reason that is so high is because I invested when things were scary. But buying when the market is down is like planting the seeds for future growth. That is the power of no matter what. But before we jump into decision two, we need to talk about the millionaire crossover moment. See, something interesting happens when your portfolio crosses right around $100,000. Once the portfolio grows, 100,000 times 8% return is $8,000 a year. Eventually, $500,000 at 8% return is $40,000 a year. So think about it that way. Eventually, your money starts working harder than you do on your job. And if you're a dividend investor, your dividends alone could fund your lifestyle. And guess what? You now have optionality that you could work or not work. And that's something that people can only dream of. That's the power. And that leads us to decision number two. Now, decision number two is the engine that powers decision one. And that is buy great assets and hold them forever. My plan was to avoid hype and constant trading. In fact, when I was old enough to invest and no longer needed that $25,000 minimum requirement, I made a mistake here. I decided to buy single stocks that really went nowhere. My biggest regret, if you haven't heard it, is the single stock Circuit City. As a young and dumb investor at the time, I only bought that stock because I would go to Circuit City, you know, to buy DVDs and computer stuff. And I thought it was a cool store. I didn't realize that in a few years it would be out of business. So that stock literally went to $0 and was worthless. Interestingly, I guess I'm not alone, as research concluded that behavioral basis cost people a lot of money. So if you invested $10,000 into Circuit City in the year 2000, today, you'd have $0. But if you invested that $10,000 into the S&P 500 in the same year, today, you'd have $170,000. Man, and here's the crazy part. I thought I was making a smart investment. One of the most famous studies in finance comes from Professor Hendrik Bessembinder. I hope I'm saying that right, from Arizona State University. He analyzed every U.S. stock since 1926. The findings are honestly shocking. More than 50% of all stocks produced a negative lifetime return. More than 50%. Most stocks did worse than simply holding treasury bills, which is basically cash. Only about 4% of stocks created the entire net wealth of the U.S. stock market. In other words, the stock market's long-term gains are driven by a tiny minority of companies. Companies like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia. These few giants alone offset thousands of companies that went to $0, just like Circuit City. But that doesn't mean rushing to buy things like Amazon and Nvidia with the majority of your money. Because looking here, you see that while Nvidia, Apple, and Google are the top three companies in the S&P 500 today, a mere 30 years ago, the top companies were not Nvidia, Apple, or Google. So a mere 30 years ago, going back to the year 1996, was it? Yeah, so let's go back here. I don't see any of those companies. Look at this. The top three companies are Coca-Cola, ExxonMobil, and Intel. Sure, Microsoft held on. Good for them. But I don't see Apple, and I don't see Nvidia in the top 20 largest S&P 500 companies. That is powerful, is it not? And that is why today my portfolio is just over 80% in index funds, tracking the total stock market, S&P 500. This lets compounding do its magic. It's a simple three fund portfolio. It focuses on general United States growth, more aggressive growth, and then income and stability through dividends. This takes the guesswork out and continues to be the primary fuel behind my millionaire lifestyle. But none of this is possible without decision number three, which may be the most important to becoming a millionaire, which is decision three, increasing income without increasing your lifestyle. I continued to focus on my career while also maximizing every side hustle in existence. From the early days of my $31,000 salary to making multiple six figures, it didn't all come from just one job. I had a master's degree. And because of that, I immediately started teaching kids at an online school. So I found out that this side hustle was kind of demanding. You had to grade papers and teach, but it paid pretty good considering it was only one class and semi-part time. This helped me to start paying off my student loans. Then I started doing odd jobs here and there and internet affiliate sales. I had no clue what I was doing. Honestly, I didn't when I started, but I insisted that if I keep learning and keep pushing through and just continuing to fail so I could learn, I would eventually make money. I honestly feel that one of the biggest opportunities out there is to not let scary things hold you back. If you have no idea how to do something, but you have even a slight bit of passion or interest in doing it, just get started, fail a bunch of times. And in between all of that failure, you're going to learn so much. I mean, honestly, to fast forward a bit, in 2021, I ended up making more money from my side hustle than what my then executive level career was paying me. That blew my mind. But it was because of the years of 2012, 2013, 2014, when I was failing and trying to figure all this out to be able to build up to that level. But here is what people mess up. Even if they only focus on growing a single career without any side hustles, they end up getting trapped by lifestyle inflation. Here's the tale of two actual people. Both are 25 years old and they have a salary of $80,000 per year. John, person one, focuses on paying off his debt and optimizes his life where he can afford to take nice family vacations and enjoy certain things that bring him joy. He does not spend more money than he brings in though and continues to budget to have an awesome life without debt. Brian, person two, gets caught up in lifestyle inflation, keeping up with the Joneses. Well, with that in mind, in 2020, both John and Brian get promoted to senior managers. That comes with a $20,000 per year raise. Now they both make $100,000 a year. Now, since John is already enjoying his life with the $80,000 a year, you know, he gets to travel and all that, he decided to take that extra raise and invest it fully. Now, I'm going to assume that they're both taking the standard deduction, which allows them to enjoy the extra $20,000 without getting hit with extra taxes. Just to make this example as clean as possible. This means that John can now invest $1,600 extra per month out of his paycheck. That's that $20,000 that he got in a raise divided by 12 months. $1,600 extra. Brian, on the other hand, he gets excited and he decides to get a luxury car. I'm thinking about something like an Audi, a BMW, Mercedes, something like that. You know, have you ever had that issue? Comment below if you have, if you upgraded your car because you got a raise. This comes with debt because he didn't have enough money to put cash down on that Audi or BMW or whatever. And that comes out to $800 a month that he has to pay in a car loan. But Brian's fine with that. He thinks, heck, I can afford that. I mean, I make $1,600 a month more thanks to my shiny new promotion. So that's cool. But he also upgrades his house. And that upgrade increases the monthly mortgage payment by $400 more per month. Okay, but that's still good because he got the raise, right? He then has $300 left over and then he decides to invest that money every month. But here's the part that punched me in the gut. John invests $1,600 a month. Brian invests $300 a month after 20 years at 8% growth. John now has $940,000. Brian only has $176,000. The difference is $764,000. See, the point of this story is to showcase the symptom that I feel holds so many people back from lifestyle freedom and it's lifestyle inflation. Instead of upgrading everything just because you make more money, be more intentional with your money. And that is exactly what I did. Now, I almost got trapped. I did upgrade to an Audi, believe it or not. But I actually ended up trading that in for a Honda Accord because I realized, oh my gosh, I fell victim to lifestyle inflation. And because I traded that in, I was able to pay off the Honda Accord and have a debt-free car. I mean, that was amazing. I almost got trapped though. But because I increased my side hustles, got those promotions at work, and I balanced my raises to invest much more money and only upgrade things when I had cash and not go into debt, it helped accelerate my investment journey. Now, this doesn't mean that you need to be a miser and go into a corner and hoard your money like Scrooge. This is far from it. I'm talking about optimizing your life expenses. Remember, it took me from 2013 to about 2021 to get there. I mean, it wasn't like an overnight success where I'm like, oh, I have money. Everything's good. There was a lot of pain in between there. A lot of, is this ever going to work out? But look, this happened. If you want me to do more videos to show you how transparently I did all this, please comment below. If there's enough interest, I can share it with future videos. But these three decisions are what separate millionaires from just good savers. Make sure you continue your financial journey by checking out this video right here next. Keep building your sharp money and we'll see you on the next video.