30 People Reveal How They Became Millionaires In Honest Online Thread

When I was 15, I started doing a lot of random jobs in my Hometown in Mexico. After a year, i accumulated about 40k, and decided to start flipping tractors and agricultural equipment. I'd try and make about 5k every machine, until I finally hit the 200k mark in 6 months. (I wasn't doing amazing in school but was making really decent money as you can tell). At that point, I bought a piece of land for really cheap. Story goes the owner was in seriously desperate to sell the land cause his wife or kids had been kidnapped, so I basically bought this land and instantly doubled my money. I couldn't buy all the land though, as it was a 1.2 million dollar total sale, so I begged my parents to sign so that the banks would lend me the other 800k.

Once I bought the land, within the year the land was worth 2.5ish million as the violence in the region had died down a bit. Now I was a 17, almost 18 year old kid with a really big farm, which was bringing in about 200-250k in profit a year. I decided I wanted to go to college, and paid my way thru college and saved up as much as I could. I sold the land in Mexico at 2.4 M, and had about 3M in the bank, and I have now invested in more farm land and am looking into investing in an apartment complex or a start up bank.

I wish I could say that I was amazing at business or some of the other cool things people have posted here, but honestly I've just been very lucky.

This will be a boring, but hopefully honest answer. I am not a millionaire, but my mother is. The answer is simply hard-work. She was born in Chicago in the 1960's to a pair of Irish immigrants with less than $300 to their name when they came to this country. Neither of my grandparents had more than a high school education, but they worked damn hard for my mom to go to college.

She got a degree from a very good school and went into journalism. Not a career that's usually associated with high earnings, but she busted her a*s in a time when women were really just getting into that field. She's also made the most of her money as a single parent as my father died of cancer when I was 11. She worked really hard and now, before taxes and after her bonus, is a managing editor at one of the most prestiegious newspapers in the world making close to 300k a year. Now, she makes great money, but she easily works between 60-80 hours a week.

The other answer is investiments. My grandfather, although not edutcated, was always investing in the market and made a good deal of money and so did my mother. She has a guy who, despite a slip-up that cost her over 200k, has earned that for us many times over.

So, I'm not trying to sound like a "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps" kind of guy, but, in my mother's case, she came from very little and is now very wealthy. I fully admit that a lot of that was luck; my grandparents were able to enter the country because my grandfather charmed the man who would sponsor them while he was a waiter on a cruise ship, but a lot of it is also hard work.

Sure, there are people born into great wealthy and prestige, but a lot of them work damn hard for it

Sorry for any formatting issues, I'm on my phone.

Started work in IT at age 22. My manager told me to take some time on my first day to open a 401(K) and open an account at the local credit Union with its free checking and general lack of ripoff fees that most banks have. My husband did pretty much the same thing. Saved 15% off the top of my paycheck for 30+ years so far.

My husband and I avoided debts other than a mortgage. We bought it home in 1995, a small house on a small property, borrowing way less than the bank wanted to lend us. We bought it for $255,500 (NYC 'burbs). It's worth around $550,000 today. We've always paid cash for our cars, and until our children came of driving age we only had 1 car. Today we're driving a 2003 Subaru Outback.

Through all of this, we also set aside money for our kids' college education. They were able to get good scholarships and my son, at least, made it through debt free. I think my daughter will too, especially if her plan to graduate in 3 years works out.

Between my husband and I we have about $1.7M in savings and cash and our home is all ours. I'm also fortunate enough to have a pension. If I work to age 65, that will be another $700K, but not sure I want to work that long. So that might be about half.

The net is that we never spent a lot on a house or car. We took some vacations but even when we did that we went places where we cooked for ourselves. We just oversaved, underspent and underborrowed.

I sold 18% of my company for a large sum of money and we worked together to expand.

Millionaire in my 20s here. A combination of things, but mostly number 4:

* Working in software. This field tends to pay very well for good people.
* Being frugal. I don't act like a pauper, but I don't have a cable subscription (I'm a gamer, TV doesn't interest me) and I prefer to cook my own meals than eat out.
* Being single. Kids are expensive, or so I hear.
* Stock options. I joined my company a couple of years before IPO, and at the time I felt they showed a lot of promise and could do really well in their market. I was right: the stock price has been rising steadily since IPO and the majority of my wealth is in stock options (on a steady diversification schedule).

A million dollars was never my goal, I was actually surprised when I hit it a few months ago. I don't think it has really changed me though, it just means I don't have to worry about money and I can afford to take long distance flights business class (I got a free upgrade once and now I'm sold!) Still, most people will want to retire on at least a million... people live a long time now and if you're planning on taking 20 years retirement, that's $50k a year which is a fairly modest salary depending on where you live. The trick there is to save, invest, and not think yourself rich with that retirement account sitting there full of money.

Self made... Cracked the first $1m just after 33 sometime. Then the next few came quickly. The best advice is to build capital early. I scrimped and saved and had my first car till I was 30 and it totally shat itself. Didnt waste money on holidays or any expenditure that wasnt 100% necessary. Holidays consisted just of time of work and going to beach or doing fun free things

So once I had a little nest egg $10K I got a house and everytime I had a spare $50 put it against the motgage. Then everytime I got a pay rise the difference went to the mortgage, not to increase in lifestyle.

Im 45 now and saving becomes less of a priortity as the BASE capital is there. I can spend every sent I earn and my base will still increase.

SUMMARY:- Get saving early. What Car and what clothes you wear dont change who you are.

Started buying multifamily Real Estate in central Chicago in 2011. Have been selling since last year. At one point I had 15 buildings with 65 apartments in them. The few buildings I have left are worth about $2 million and I have over a third of a million in cash in my savings.

Prices were so rediculous in the recession that I was able to turn $5,000 in savings and a lot of sweat equity into what I have now. I bought my first building with an FHA loans for $130k in Logan Square. It was 3 units and I put $5000 down. It's now worth $400k. Then is saved up the income from that property and bought a six unit for $50k that's now worth $350k. I then picked up another six flat for free because the city was going to force the bank to demolish it, borrowed against the equity in my other properties to do a total gut rehab of it, now the building is worth $1.1 million and generates $10,000 cash flow every month.

I live frugally as well, when my old car died I bought a two year old Honda with 25,000 miles on it. I still live in the first property I bought. My hobbies are ones that are only expensive if you don't have the time to take advantage of them. I buy a ski pass and ski four weeks a year. The pass costs $600, but I can get thousands of dollars worth of skiing out of it since my "job" is mainly collecting passive income.

I'm only 29 so my plan is to just slowly add to my portfolio while letting the few buildings I haven't sold off burn off principal. I'm basically semi retired and have been for three years.

Well I'm 30. Landed a decent job during the recession right after college and committed 35% of my income to investment since then. I am very close to the million.

Through hard work and perseverance I established a reputation for honesty and competence. I was slowly promoted to increasing positions of responsibility and remuneration. I saved prodigiously and invested wisely. I married well to someone with similar values.

STEM degree + minimalism.