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"A 27-year-old millionaire reveals how he built his wealth"
Old 11-11-2014, 10:26 AM   #21
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"A 27-year-old millionaire reveals how he built his wealth"

I help junior enlisted members with their finances fairly often, so while I'm not too familiar with naval electronics techs, I am familiar with their salaries. I see two ways he could reach $55K/yr. Either he is counting the freelance money he earned ($15-20K/yr) as part of that $55K, or he earned bonuses. Some military career fields offer annual or multi-year bonuses in undermanned jobs. Maybe some combination of the two. As a first year sailor, he was probably earning around $20K in base pay, and depending on his duty location maybe $14-25K worth of housing and food.

Either way, kudos to him!
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Old 11-11-2014, 10:57 AM   #22
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Should be more like $25k IMO, unless he got some crazy bonuses for overseas deployment or the like.

E4 - Petty Officer - 3rd Class (Navy) Salary | Salary.com
My guess:

He was a Submarine ET. He'd be entitled to a few proficiency pay bonuses, and would promote to E4 right away during school. Shortly after that, he could easily make E5, where he'd also be entitled to live off the ship and thus collect a housing allowance. Many E4/E5's collecting BAH live with roommates and are able to save some of that allowance.

E5 over 4 makes $2550 base/month. It doesn't say where he was living, but let's assume Norfolk (largest base in the world). His housing allowance there would be $1200/month. That's $3750/month so far.

He's on sea duty, so he collects sea pay: $160/mo under 2 years, up to $350/mo once he's over 3 years sea duty (usually one tour for the enlisted guys). So let's say he stays at $160...

Now up to ~$3900/mo.

If he's a submarine ET, that's another $155/mo for sub pay... now $4150/mo. That's right at $50,000/yr for an E5 at 4 years of service, which is quite possible if not likely in that rating.

Depending on housing allowance, how much time he had at sea, how long he actually served, he could easily be making $55,000 per year as a first term sailor. If he had a nuclear specialty, he'd have other bonuses even as an E4 that could push him toward that range.

There's nothing wrong with his salary projection.
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"A 27-year-old millionaire reveals how he built his wealth"
Old 11-11-2014, 11:50 AM   #23
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"A 27-year-old millionaire reveals how he built his wealth"

Basically true, but those are 2014 numbers. An E4 under 2 years in 2007 (the highest rank he could have been) was making $1699/mo in base pay, and he wouldn't have promoted to E5 within 2 years. So he wasn't making $55K in basic pay, BAH, and BAS when he first got in. By the time he got out, maybe.


Again, the important thing is he was living significantly below his means and I know plenty of people who would benefit from his example.
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Old 11-11-2014, 12:17 PM   #24
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Again, the important thing is he was living significantly below his means and I know plenty of people who would benefit from his example.
Every single one of these types of stories I have ever seen engage in the following:

Being vague about specifics. hell, they can tell any story they want on that basis

Indicate the specimen person "worked really hard" for something when in fact they did not. They mostly just showed up to a gig that had a good outcome

Indicate the specimen person was somehow really smart of could know things nobody else could know when the reality is they tried this or that based on their situation as many others do and in their case it worked out atypically well. ie they got lucky

Sure, LBYM too. So what?
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Old 11-11-2014, 12:34 PM   #25
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I think LBYM is one of those things they tried that others don't. Unfortunately a lot of people won't even try LBYM, so seeing how somebody else did it is a good example. And I don't begrudge the reporter for leaving out details in a short article. I think of these as teasers to get somebody to do their own research later on.

Would I personally like specifics? Yes, but I'm a numbers person and find reading the minutiae of how somebody changed their financial lives to be interesting. Most people don't.


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Old 11-11-2014, 02:12 PM   #26
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He's counting the car as an asset, and also all the reserves for the rental properties. It's fun to make the numbers come out over $1M, but not how I would determine net worth.
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Old 11-11-2014, 03:43 PM   #27
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Basically true, but those are 2014 numbers. An E4 under 2 years in 2007 (the highest rank he could have been) was making $1699/mo in base pay, and he wouldn't have promoted to E5 within 2 years. So he wasn't making $55K in basic pay, BAH, and BAS when he first got in. By the time he got out, maybe.
The article didn't say he was making $55k right off the bat. It didn't specify. It's likely that he was making $55k or more if he was in for five years. In certain ratings, you can absolutely promote to E5 in two years. Nuclear ETs, EMs, and MMs can do it in less than that through various programs. Even if he wasn't that, he could've certainly made E5 in his first term as an ET, particularly as a submarine ET.

Again, this minor uproar about his supposed salary is silly. Maybe he was off by a little bit, but the better bet is that people on this forum are missing things like Sub Pay, BAH, Sea Pay, maybe nuclear proficiency pay, etc.

If you ask anyone I know in the Navy how much they make, they aren't going to tell you just base pay. Hell, I'd wager most of us don't even know that number. I know my total entitlements from last year and have a rough idea of the breakdown, but ask me how much I make and you'll get the number which includes all special pays, bonus pays, allowances and base salary.
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Old 11-12-2014, 09:32 AM   #28
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It also said he did free-lance work. Maybe that was rolled into the 55K number?

Checking my SSA.org account I realized that sometime this year I crossed the $1,000,000 life time income mark. My net worth is about 20.5% of that... makes me realize I should be saving more. Maybe not as aggressively as this guy, but somewhere between. I think I've averaged about 15%, but I want it more in the 25-30% range.
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Old 11-14-2014, 02:33 PM   #29
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Great young man. More power to him!

The military has been the catalyst that raised a lot of us above the level of our parents.
His 60% savings rate didn't hurt either
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Old 11-17-2014, 07:08 PM   #30
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Whoopsies. It looks like the guy lied about his parents and where he got his money. Will he claim he was young and he was dreaming?
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Old 11-17-2014, 07:20 PM   #31
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Not that we didn't already realize it . . .

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In response to queries made by Yahoo Finance on Monday, Ivanov shut down his blog, Financessful. He had already deleted Twitter and Facebook accounts affiliated with the blog. He admits that he was receiving commissions from several financial websites, including Personal Capital, Credit Sesame, and TradeKing, among many others, for each person who signed up for their services through links on his website. He would not specify the amount.
The personal finance blogs are some of the worst at this sort of thing because the personal finance advertisers pay the most.
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Old 11-17-2014, 07:20 PM   #32
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Yep - the corrections to the story are pretty significant.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/27-yea...184823184.html

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CORRECTION: Since the publication of this story on Nov. 4, new details have come to light which have made Anton Ivanov's claims of becoming a self-made millionaire highly suspect.

Ivanov launched a financial education blog in September called Financessful.com. On the site and in several interviews, Ivanov claimed he was a self-made millionaire who began investing at age 18 after watching his parents mismanage their finances. On Monday, Ivanov admitted to Yahoo Finance that 75-80% of his wealth consists of an inheritance that was left to him by his parents, who died several years ago. He would not specify the dollar amount, but he also said that one of the two properties he owns, which he said is valued at more than $600,000, is also part of the inheritance from his parents.
There's more at the link about things he stretched or lied about.

I find it interesting he claims to have gotten into finance after his parents mismanaged their money - yet $600k or more of his money is from inheritance...seems like his parents "mismanagement" still left him a very healthy inheritance.
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Old 11-17-2014, 07:58 PM   #33
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Busted! Love it. Bet he didn't make anywhere near $55k a year in the Navy either.

Stupid Yahoo Finance.
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Old 11-17-2014, 09:22 PM   #34
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Something posted on the Internet wasn't true?!?!? What?!?!
He lied, plain and simple.
Yahoo Finance didn't check any of the facts....gee, imagine that.
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Old 11-17-2014, 11:36 PM   #35
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Something posted on the Internet wasn't true?!?!? What?!?!
He lied, plain and simple.
Yahoo Finance didn't check any of the facts....gee, imagine that.
As much as I dislike slime like this(the ....at least he had the hutzpah to admit the truth and discontinue his blog (assuming he doesn't try restarting the blog in 5 years when the uproar dies down). Unlike some other 'questionable' bloggers.
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Old 11-18-2014, 08:48 AM   #36
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I read this story when it first came out. My first thought was that it seemed a bit of an exaggeration. It is not unusual for people to amplify their wins and minimize their losses when telling a story. It could be 100% true, but again the odds are against the 100% part in my opinion. I take all these stories with a grain of salt. Of course the point is still valid, LBYM and invest and you come out ahead of those who don't.
Looks like your cynic radar was dead on.
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