I promised to be a millionaire when I was very young!  Here is my millionaire promise story…

My grandparents were in business, and in particular my grandmother was very business and finance oriented. As a young child (maybe 5 or 6 years old) I made a millionaire promise to my grandmother that someday in the future I would become a millionaire. She said surprised at my sudden “out of the blue” millionaire promise and said good and told me that she believe that I could do it if I tried hard enough. I remember her encouragement making me happy back then!

My grandmother enthusiastically encourage me in my new goal and steered me towards creating a target age for my new potentially elusive goal. So after some thinking, I decided on the target age of 25 years old. To me at that time, it was 4 to 5 times my current age, which naively seemed possible to me at my very early age. I was a little off guard when my grandmother chuckled a bit. I started to question my goal and thought that perhaps it’s not possible after all. My grandmother then tried to explain to me that 25 years old was too young to reach such a status. Instead she suggested an age range between 45 to 55 years old, and even then she said it would be hard but doable. Back then, those ages seemed way too old to me. I reluctantly agreed to her proposed age range with the 55-year-old target date being the limit. She has since passed away, but I still intend on keeping my millionaire promise!

Now with some real world experience under my belt, even the “55 years old max age” seems hard to reach, but a millionaire promise is a promise so now I better hop to it! The problem is with the path that I’m currently on is that it doesn’t seem likely that I’ll reach that elusive millionaire status even when I’m ready to retire at 67 years old. Time to rethink the path that I’m currently on. The path that I’m currently on is a good path and should enable me to reach the goal, but not soon enough.

So what can I do to meet my becoming a millionaire promise in the given age range?

• Work both harder and longer at multiple sources, then investing the money earned so that it will grow passively and hopefully right quick!
• Invest smarter.  With three brokerage accounts, I can experiment in each one to flush out the optimal investment strategies.
• Save more money by purchasing more frugally. Instead of spending money eating out for breakfast and lunch, I should pack both (and I have done this in the past)!
• Use credit card rewards more intelligently. I’ve done okay with my credit card rewards points, mostly buying house computers for the family, etc.
• Think about finances more. The more you think about it, the more focused you are, and the more opportunities will be seen.
• Buy Real Estate. If I borrow money for the purchase, in theory, this should be good debt and doesn’t hurt my current finances, at least if I can rent the property out.
• Watch TV less, watching TV is a huge time and life waster in my option (except “Mad Money”). An occasional movie or maybe 1 or 2 shows a week is okay though.

Starting next month, if I really focus on the points above, I have a good chance of reaching my long ago promised goal of obtaining millionaire status.

We’ll see…

Don