How can the average person become a multi-millionaire?

r3p1v said:
Here are my thoughts on investing and becoming a millionaire. Pretty basic stuff.

If you are a normal 9-5 person:
- Focus on your career and try to earn at least $100k/year.
- Spend significantly less than you earn
- Put a reasonable to large amount into stock index funds (or a diversified portfolio) each year in a retirement account or just a normal brokerage account if you want to use the money earlier.
- Buy a house you can easily afford at a time when housing prices aren't overpriced.
- Start a small side business such as AM or real estate investing that doesn't distract you from your career.


If you are a small business owner:
- Focus on growing your business
- Spend significantly less than you earn
- Put as much as you can into stock index funds
- Buy a house you can easily afford at a time when housing prices aren't overpriced.


In both scenarios, if you are doing well, you should be able to save at least a million relatively quickly. Depending on how the market is performing of course. If you keep your money invested in the market for 10+ years and put money in each year you should do extremely well. Also spending significantly less than you earn is extremely important. Accumulating wealth is like making a snowball. If you are just starting out and you are wasting too much money, then it is going to be much harder to accumulate money over the long term. It is much easier to take big chunks out of a huge snowball than a small snowball.

I don't like real estate investing, but that is just me. For me, I will probably only ever invest in my primary residence. I don't like real estate because it is not easy to liquidate if things go wrong, you have to pay insurance, taxes, and fees on a property. You have to manage the people that will live there or pay a company to manage it for you. You have to pay repair costs and fix anything that breaks. There are too many things to manage, too many fees, and too many things that could go wrong.

With a stock index fund you just buy it, pay an extremely small fee, and over long periods of time nothing usually outperforms it. If you happen to need the money for something else (like your business is doing really well and you need the money for better cashflow) just sell it right away and use the money.

Basically: good income/business + saving large percent of income + stock investing + home ownership = easy to accumulate at least a million over about 10 years.
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Im not trying to disagree bro, but you know how hard it is for a reg 9-5 person to hit 100k a year? pretty fucking low chances..

Considering the "avg" person makes about 1/2 less ( actually even less then 50% in some parts ) then that 100k and that the "avg" person is also not a small business owner, your advice only falls on a small set of people.
 


dsiomtw said:
Anyone who makes xx-xxx million and goes broke before they die is a fuckin' moron.
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I think this is the first time Ive called someone a moron on this board, but you sir sure are.

dsiomtw said:
I find this thread interesting. My plan is to just keep hustlin' for another 3-5 years online and I'm done. I'll be "retired" before any of you see any real returns from your rentals.

Making millions online is 10X faster, easier and less risky than making millions from real estate. At least in my world it is ...
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You haven't been in affiliate marketing or Internet marketing long enough to know shit goes up and down have you?

If you already know for sure in 3-5 years your gonna be "retired" from "InTErNeT MoNieZZZ" like you say, you already have fail boat written across your forehead.
 
eliquid said:
Credit checks alone dont mean shit if your talking regular ol' fico and credit score when it comes to how your tenants act.
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Behavior patter is what you're looking for. Generally high FICO means responsible. But you're right its not a sure thing.
 
Rusky said:
Behavior patter is what you're looking for. Generally high FICO means responsible. But you're right its not a sure thing.
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I can see your point for sure.. but Im sure you know, just like I do, that shit happens with tenants all the time..

Left the stove on by mistake, kept dog in the house, let family/kids do whatever they want, cigarettes burn hole in the carpet, etc, etc..

I knew one guy, perfect credit history and all... when he left the apartment he was in, let his dog shit and piss all over the house because the landlord didnt want to do the simple repairs he asked for. You can blame the landlord or the tenant, but like they say.. shit happens
 
eliquid said:
I think this is the first time Ive called someone a moron on this board, but you sir sure are.

You haven't been in affiliate marketing or Internet marketing long enough to know shit goes up and down have you?

If you already know for sure in 3-5 years your gonna be "retired" from "InTErNeT MoNieZZZ" like you say, you already have fail boat written across your forehead.
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This.

Benji49 said:
Sanity check: Have any of you guys been landlords? I have.

You wouldn't believe how many rent a place and then are late paying every frickin' month. Or expect you to do thousands of dollars of renos when they are paying $700 a month rent.

Or bring their friends in who stay for months.

You want to get frustrated with humanity, become a landlord. And oh yeah, in lot of city they have rent controls; tenant advocacy councils. Oh the fun list keeps growing and growing.

Trust me, in AM you meet a nicer group of people.

Fricking' renters....
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Property management company.

The best investment any rental owner can ever make.

...Of course it depends on whether you're a slum lord or not. The caliber of your tenant will always make a difference. But that's something I never worry about. And a few friends, one who just bought out a real estate company that brought along with it 300 units, never worry about tenants.
 
I've been a landlord several times.

After dealing with loser renters you start to develop a knack for getting things done.
For example, in California it's really hard to legally remove (evict) people from their home. It literally costs thousands and takes months.

Not wishing to live with another long ordeal I figured an easier and cheaper way was to get a 400lb leather wearing beast of a man to drive his Hog right through the front door.

New door with installation: $450
Bart's 'Removal service': $500
Watching my deadbeat tenant running out the now-missing front door in his underwear whilst saving me $5,000 in legal fees: ..... Priceless
 
You haven't been in affiliate marketing or Internet marketing long enough to know shit goes up and down have you?

If you already know for sure in 3-5 years your gonna be "retired" from "InTErNeT MoNieZZZ" like you say, you already have fail boat written across your forehead.
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If you only knew bro. I could retire tomorrow if I wanted to. I've made more money online than 99.9% of the people on this forum, or any other forum. But that's not the point ...

The OP asked "How can the average person become a multi-millionaire?"

My belief, as I stated, is that it's 10X easier, faster and safer to make millions online than it is via real estate. As I said before, I'll be retired well before you landlords ever see any meaningful returns from your rental properties.

For most people, investing is best used for wealth preservation - not wealth building. I don't know how much clearer I can make it, but making money online is a shitload easier, faster and safer than making money in real estate. Once you know how to make money online it's literally risk-free, and you can make as much as you want.

Just off the top of my head I know or am friends with at least 25 people who became millionaires from their online marketing ventures in 3 years or less. Can you say the same about real estate investing? Highly doubt it.

Here's how it's working for me. My dream house is paid off, I have all the toys I want, I'm debt free, I have some investments, and I have plenty o' cash in the bank, CDs, etc. In another 3-5 years I'll have more money than I'll ever need. Your mileage may vary.

I can and will continue to invest in various things to help preserve my wealth and fight off inflation, etc. But back to the original question, in this day and age, real estate is definitely NOT the quickest, easiest or safest way to BECOME a multi-millionaire.

You guys sound like you just read that lame book that was popular at one time that basically just says to save all your pennies, buy rental real estate when you can, and by the time you're 55 you'll be a millionaire and have a comfortable retirement. Basically the same stuff that r3p1v said. You can do that if you want, not me.

You also sound like you assume I'm some lame ass affiliate who does nothing but sling berries, in which case you couldn't be more wrong. And those ups and downs you talk about? Not in my world. My online income over any 3 month period has gone up continually for the past 9 years, aside from the 2 years I took off and did no work.
 
eliquid said:
Im not trying to disagree bro, but you know how hard it is for a reg 9-5 person to hit 100k a year? pretty fucking low chances..

Considering the "avg" person makes about 1/2 less ( actually even less then 50% in some parts ) then that 100k and that the "avg" person is also not a small business owner, your advice only falls on a small set of people.
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That's why I said "try" to make 100k. Meaning if you have the time get a college degree and/or good job experience. You can still easily do it on 50k or less, it will just take more time.
 
The average person will become a multi millionare (net worth over 2 million) in 40 years and can do it solely on an average salary if there are able to save $600 a month and get an average annual rate of return of 8% (which is a little under what the stock market has averaged for the last 100 years).

Obviously if you want to do it in < 40 years you need to invest more and / or get a higher rate of return but it still needs to be stated that literally anyone can become a multi millionare in their lifetime given a little financial discipline. If you can invest 1k per month and get 10% average per year you can have your first million in 23 years without doing anything else. At that point you are earning 100k per year doing nothing and paying less tax than salaried people earning the same because of the lower tax on capital gains. So if you can start when you are 20, you can be all done working in your early 40s, or you can keep going and buy all the toys you ever wanted. In this scenario you literally never increase your contributions.

Yes I am ignoring inflation, but thats not the point here.
 
dsiomtw said:
For most people, investing is best used for wealth preservation
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So...what the fuck do you think we've been talking about?

Just because the OP asked a specific question doesn't mean we stayed within those points through this whole thread. Try reading a little closer.

I'm glad you're investing so well. Plenty of cash in the bank, CD's, a few stocks.

...It's one thing to make a lot of money online (which I'll give you the benefit of the doubt). It's another to truly know how to preserve and keep it. Virtually effortlessly.

Good luck though, bro.
 
while we are talking about money, mint.com is awesome. Its fun watching your net worth go up month after month.
 
Benji49 said:
Sanity check: Have any of you guys been landlords? I have.

You wouldn't believe how many rent a place and then are late paying every frickin' month. Or expect you to do thousands of dollars of renos when they are paying $700 a month rent.

Or bring their friends in who stay for months.

You want to get frustrated with humanity, become a landlord. And oh yeah, in lot of city they have rent controls; tenant advocacy councils. Oh the fun list keeps growing and growing.

Trust me, in AM you meet a nicer group of people.

Fricking' renters....
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^This. I went with a friend of mine to one of his rentals that the renters just up and left...with the front door wide open.

They had good credit, references, and both were employed full-time.

It didn't make sense, to be honest. It's like they just decided to lose their minds one day, beat the shit out of the house, and up and leave.

I'm not saying everyone - or even most - renters will be that way. I'm just saying that I couldn't decide who was more angry - him, because he had to fix that mess - or me because I had to deal with him all day after that.
 
1. Have a business making you 100-250k a year
2. Live in Asia where living cost is cheap ($500 per month for everything)
3. Keep hoarding your money
4. ???
5. Profit
 
Dare Devil said:
My experience is that when anyone that feels the need to say that, it means its not true.

Just saying.
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same with me, i met a lot of millionaires on this forum ( i guess a lot is relative to each person ) and none of them had the attitude that they made more then 99.9% of WF members.
 
95% of my money is just sitting in a 1.05% savings account right now. i don't know what else to do with it :-/
 
So...what the fuck do you think we've been talking about?
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I've read the thread and from what I can tell *most* people are talking about using real estate for wealth building.

My experience is that when anyone that feels the need to say that, it means its not true.
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Whatever. Just stating a fact. It was a logical response to eliquid's stupid assumption that he knows anything about me, how long I've been marketing online, and what I do or don't know. Forget I said it if it bothers you that much.

Or better yet, if you're not just another keyboard warrior, meet me in either the DFW or San Diego areas and I'll show you I'm not making shit up. You make it worth my time if I'm telling the truth, and I'll make it worth your time if I'm full of shit. PM if interested.

Turning this into an argument is stupid. I stated my opinions, feel free to respond to them and explain how or why you still think real estate is a "better" wealth building vehicle than online marketing.
 
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