Poll:How You Got to $1 million NW

[Letj]

The option is for only one answer. In my case it was a combination of both but real estate really speeded up the process.

 

[imoldernu]

didn't

 

[MarieIG]

didn't

I have been lurking here for quite a while before joining. With your successful, well lived retirement, beating the big C, your wife, your sons, you ARE rich.

 

[wolf]

+1 Real Estate

 

[hesperus]

Where I now live, like many resort towns in the west, the old saying goes: "How'd you get to a million dollars??"
"Easy, move here with ten million"

 

[fritz]

Saving, investing, bonuses, and managing/exercising megacorp stock options .

This pretty much describes me/us along with a LBYMs lifestyle. Got us out early 58/57 - no pensions. Just starting my 9th year.

 

[Letj]

I have been lurking here for quite a while before joining. With your successful, well lived retirement, beating the big C, your wife, your sons, you ARE rich.

+1000

 

[cooch96]

I'm nto sure I understand the "Professional" option. Whats the difference from being a doctor or a salesman who invests her income to make double commas? What's the difference between a lawyer with his own practice and a fast food franchise owner?

Seems the lawyer/doctor should pick one of the other choices: investing, Real estate, or entrepreneurship.

 

[Meadbh]

I'm nto sure I understand the "Professional" option. Whats the difference from being a doctor or a salesman who invests her income to make double commas? What's the difference between a lawyer with his own practice and a fast food franchise owner?

Seems the lawyer/doctor should pick one of the other choices: investing, Real estate, or entrepreneurship.

There is no fundamental difference between doctoring and plumbing as far as investing goes. I'm an ex-doctor, but I also have real estate investments. But "professional" was the option on the poll that I felt was most applicable, since real estate is only a small fraction of my investments. If I had my own clinic I suppose I could have chosen "entrepreneur".

Designing good survey questions is not easy. Perhaps a market researcher might like to prepare a "how-to" guide for polls on the forum.

 

[FlaGator]

Where I now live, like many resort towns in the west, the old saying goes... "how'd you get to a million dollars??"
"Easy, move here with ten million"

Alternatively, start with 2 million, then invest in a start up.

Or, in my new 'hood, buy a house/condo that is rented weekly during the season.

Funny how many ways there are to lose money once you have a little

Snark based on my new life aside, it was religiously saving via IRA/401k from my job, then taking full advantage of employer-provided savings vehicles as the pay got better - deferred comp, options, restricted stock. LBYM was critical. Lived no different than my school teacher neighbors, even when making money like a dentist.

For the RE junkies, nothing here for you Lived in the homes I owned. Did OK, but didn't match broad stock market returns, even after the deduction for interest and taxes.

Very fortunate to have the career I did, and the wife I had while accumulating. Would be imprudent to discount good fortune, but I'm not too humble to acknowledge I was aware enough to take full advantage of the opportunities.

 

[audreyh1]

IPO

 

[Bamaman]

Lived somewhat frugally. Started 401k at age 22, saved the max allowed and paid attention to stock market--playing equities moderately aggressive. Also invested max in IRAs and played the equities with that money.

Then inherited a chunk of a 10 story office building and sold out to other partners.

 

[pb4uski]

Living below our means, consistently saving more than the average bear, investing in no-load, low-cost equiy index funds before it was fashionable, staying the course through thick and thin.... in theory, easy as pie.... I'll admit since this has been our life for 35 years it is hard to imagine why it is seemingly so rare.

Also, we avoided any big mistakes (divorce, pillaging 401k when we changed jobs, fancy new cars, big investment losses, etc.) and had nice gains on one of our former homes and a piece of land we planned to build on but decided not to and sold.

 

[NW-Bound]

Alternatively, start with 2 million, then invest in a start up.

Or, in my new 'hood, buy a house/condo that is rented weekly during the season.

Funny how many ways there are to lose money once you have a little
...

Indeed it is a lot easier to spend or lose money than to make it.

Hence, I like to count my money every day using Quicken to make sure it is still all there.

 

[Huston55]

I voted 'saving/investing' even though I suppose I could have voted 'professional' since that's where most of the $$$ came from.

Also, lots of LBYM and the very good fortune of not having any financial catastrophes (bankrupt business, divorce, major illness, etc.).

 

[97guns]

I have a buddy that is fixing to turn 60, working retail with a pension, he's been dabbling in bitcoin/virtual coin and has doubled his $2500 into $5000 in 2 months. He keep saying telling me how great it is and I should get in, I would but I don't know anything about it, my investing strategy at this time is to protect rather than seeking capital appreciation


We talked more and I told home that he really needs to lay his neck out there if he wants to hit big, if that $2500 investment was $25k he would be sitting on $50k. A coin he is watching went from $1.50 to $9 in less than an a week, a $15k investment would be $90k now.

It takes luck but also guts to makes moves, luck and guts don't play too much into the monthly contribution type investor

 

[GalaxyBoy]

IWe talked more and I told home that he really needs to lay his neck out there if he wants to hit big, if that $2500 investment was $25k he would be sitting on $50k. A coin he is watching went from $1.50 to $9 in less than an a week, a $15k investment would be $90k now.

Sounds to me like a great way to go broke quickly, but to each his own.

We got to $1M by saving as much as we could but we never really lived austerely. It helped having a household of two professionals and no kids, and always having a lifestyle that could be supported on one net paycheck after maxing out both 401(k)s. We invested the other one. We both started saving shortly after college before we met.

I don't tend to think of the house as part of our net worth even though obviously it is. I think of it more as an expense since you can't eat it or spend it on a big vacation.

 

[calmloki]

Looking back in Quicken I see we topped a million in 2001. At that point we had $31,500 in stock investments and $34,500 in bank accounts. The rest was all real estate equity. Four years later I decided to value the properties not at what we had paid for them, but at what the Tax collector calls "Real Market Value". Our net worth jumped a whole bunch (fr'instance, the house we bought for $12,000 in 1985 had a RMV of $110,000). Now in 2017 we are getting in range of a million in stock type investments, the real estate is valued higher than that, bank accounts and loans are substantial. Yeah, real estate has been very good to us.

 

[ABQ2015]

Mostly by saving over a 32 year career although investing helped some - but I was not a good investor for many of those years. Having a high income for a single person allowed me to max out my 401k early on and later start a Roth. Real estate barely keeps up with inflation in my area - buying my home was a forced savings plan rather than an investment. I just got to $1M NW, not counting my home value, this year at age 61.

 

[Alan]

Savings from W2 income invested mostly in funds in 401k and IRA

 

[Ready-4-ER-at-14]

Am surprised how many here got a substantial amount of wealth from investing. Of course investing here is often different than speculative guessing as it is long haul and many of us are somewhat near traditional retirement age. At 7% a year it doubles about every 10 years so 30 years could have increased our nest eggs 8 times what we originally put in.

Pretty much we did all of the options listed in the survey.

1/4 of net worth Real Estate direct profit at sale
1/4 this RE profit reinvested into REITS
1/4 Corporate income
1/4 this corporate excess invested other equity holdings
Professional income mostly went for child support and modest retirement set asides.

 

[DrRoy]

The option is for only one answer. In my case it was a combination of both but real estate really sped up the process.

I recognize that multiple options can apply, but for simplicity I asked for the primary driver.

I'm not sure I understand the "Professional" option. Whats the difference from being a doctor or a salesman who invests her income to make double commas? What's the difference between a lawyer with his own practice and a fast food franchise owner?

Seems the lawyer/doctor should pick one of the other choices: investing, Real estate, or entrepreneurship.

This was an option that I have seen on the subject before, so I threw it in.
.
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I am finding it quite interesting that so far 80% of votes in the poll are Saved/Invested. That is no where near what I have read in the past about how people built their wealth. I am thinking that it reflects something about the membership of this forum compared to the general population. Other thoughts on that?

 

[Ready-4-ER-at-14]

I am finding it quite interesting that so far 80% of votes in the poll are Saved/Invested. That is no where near what I have read in the past about how people built their wealth. I am thinking that it reflects something about the membership of this forum compared to the general population. Other thoughts on that?

I think there is a distinction between how money is earned and the lineage of the money. Also money is fungible so $ earned by RE and earnings get mixed. Did you buy the stock with RE money, investing money, or inheritance money?

Say I flipped a house and made 50k thirty years ago and put that money into investing indexes and today I have 8x that amount (400k).
Was RE only a 12% contributor to my wealth or a prime mover?

Because most of the people here want to retire, those who are not comfortable having their Real Estate managed by others have to sell to get away from the work.

I sold my RE and have the money in REITs which to me is indirectly sort of paying management to manage RE for me. Some could rightly say reits are investing and should not be counted as RE.

 

[street]

I voted saving from job and investing. I may add that way after the first 1M I did sell a small farm that I bought originally NOT inherited and made 14 times more money then what I bought it for when I sold it. That was a plus in my life but at that time I was well over 1M anyway.

One question for Dr Roy >>> in the poll the category of OTHER was that to beg steal or borrow?? LOL

 

[FIREmenow]

LBYM. Saving/investing 50+% of household take-home for 30 years.