Millionaire Milestones: Simple Steps to Seven Figures - Hardcover

Dogen, Sam

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593714709 ISBN 13: 9780593714706

Verlag: Portfolio, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

USA TODAY NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Becoming a millionaire isn’t just for the lucky few.

According to Sam Dogen, the creative force behind the immensely popular Financial Samurai website and newsletter, the vast majority of people who are intentional with their finances can achieve millionaire status.

Millionaire Milestones will change the way you think about money— teaching you a wealth-building mindset and arming you with the facts and figures you need to hit your financial goals, without sacrificing your time and happiness. It’s a progressive strategy that you can adapt for any stage of your journey. In Millionaire Milestones, you'll learn how to —

• Set simple, achievable financial goals by age and income

• Maximize earning potential and avoid common pitfalls

• Allocate your investments and manage risk

• Create a lasting legacy of growing wealth

But here’s the thing: Your goal is not to become a millionaire just for its own sake. Your goal is to become a millionaire so you can do more of what you want, when you want, on your own terms. No matter where you are on your financial journey, Millionaire Milestones will teach you the simple steps you need to reach your seven figure dreams.

Now, let’s get growing.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sam Dogen founded Financial Samurai in 2009 and is the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Buy This, Not That: How to Spend Your Way to Wealth and Freedom. A pioneer of today’s financial independence movement, he previously worked at Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse, from which he retired at age thirty-four to focus on his writing. Dogen graduated from William & Mary and received an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. He now lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children. In his free time, you can find him playing tennis, pickleball, or poker, or trying to hit line drives on the softball field.

Keep in touch by subscribing to the free Financial Samurai Newsletter at financialsamurai.com/news and The Financial Samurai Podcast on Apple or Spotify at financialsamurai.com/apple and financialsamurai.com/spotify.

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Milestone 1

Find Your Why

We all want to be millionaires, but why? Articulating your own unique answer will positively influence your wealth journey and help lay out a road map for success. Start by answering these main questions:

1. What's your motivation to save? In other words, what are the first three things you would do with a million dollars?

2. What purposes would a million dollars serve for you, and how would it change your life from what it is now?

Have you ever sat down and really thought about why you want to become a millionaire? For many people, the main goal is to secure their financial future for retirement. That purpose may not have the zing you're looking for, but trust me, after a lifetime of work, the last thing you want is to feel too financially insecure to actually retire.

Perhaps your reasons for getting rich are something else entirely. Maybe you are laser focused on the now, such as buying a house, paying for a loved one's surgery, affording steep tuition costs for two kids, or funding your own start-up. Whatever the reason, you need to have a clear purpose in mind.

Why a Clear Purpose Is a Fundamental Requisite to Wealth

You'd be surprised by how many people go through life aimlessly and fail to build wealth simply because they lack clarity and purpose. Wanting to get rich simply because adulting is expensive is not specific enough to get you to a million dollars. The general desire to afford more things and improve your lifestyle is understandable, but it's too vague. Over time, vagueness and a lack of concrete objectives tends to induce people to overspend, undercontribute to their savings and investment accounts, and drift significantly from their desired path.

A lack of clear purpose also makes it harder to motivate yourself to succeed. Just think about how many New Year's resolutions you failed to follow through on because your goal was too broad and lacked both direction and meaning. There's a big difference between I want to buy a house and I want to save $300,000 for a down payment on a three-bedroom home over the next five years by saving 40 percent of my paycheck, investing in an S&P 500 ETF, and taking public transit instead of buying a car, because I want a place to raise a family.

When it comes to growing wealth, target explicit, big-ticket expenses and detailed goals that span the coming years and decades. To achieve great success, hold yourself accountable over the long haul. The purposes you identify for building wealth will also influence how you choose to earn, keep, and spend your money. They can also guide you toward an ideal income level that balances your financial needs, happiness, sense of fulfillment, freedom, and time. Just like a racehorse in blinders, stop worrying so much about what everyone else is doing and get laser focused on your own path forward.

List Your Motivations for Greater Wealth

If you don't yet have a clear picture of what you want to do with a million dollars, spend the next five minutes writing down what you would love to do with it. Then, narrow down your list to the three most impactful applications. With the right mindset and specific purposes in hand, you will have the motivation and determination to make real, positive changes toward your pursuit of a million dollars.

Even if you already know why you want more money, chances are there are some other reasons you've overlooked. Here are some examples of various purposes greater wealth can serve in your life. Highlight your favorites and jot down any others you find particularly meaningful.

Lifestyle:

- To do what you want when you want
- To increase life expectancy (e.g., by comfortably affording better foods, health care, and safer transportation)
- To fly in comfort, travel the world, and experience new cultures
- To reveal your true self and be less fearful of judgment

Family:

- To start a family (which may involve expensive fertility treatments and procedures)
- To spend more time with your children before they start school full time or leave home for good
- To give your children opportunities that weren't available to you
- To act as an insurance policy in case your children are unable to make a good living themselves

Career:

- To reduce your stress and work hours
- To have the freedom to say no to an unreasonable work request
- To tell your micromanager to jump in a lake
- To switch careers or work at a lower-paying job that provides more meaning and fulfillment
- To start your own entrepreneurial endeavors
- To retire early

Values:

- To spend more time helping people in need
- To speak up against injustice, bullies, bigots, and racists without fear of financial ruin
- To feel more secure in this brutally competitive world
- To give more to the most important charities

Health:

- To get the best medical treatment possible for a disability or illness
- To pay for a private chef or dietician to improve your nutrition
- To not be afraid of the cost of going to the doctor or emergency room
- To hire personal trainers for any type of fitness goal
- To pay for a therapist

What comes to mind for you? Write down as many items as you can and make them specific.

Once you have a list of purposes in writing-yes, I want you to actually write your answers down or type them out-reorder your objectives, from greatest to least priority, and circle your top three. Now you have the precise motivation to save and invest for your future.

Having, Earning, and Spending a Million Dollars

Once you have a grasp on why you want to become a millionaire and the purposes the money will serve in your life, it's time to consider the differences between having a million dollars, earning a million dollars, and spending a million dollars. These differences will impact the timeline and strategies you use to acquire, maintain, and consume money.

Here's the good news: after a lifetime of saving and investing, if you achieve the milestones in this book, I'm confident you can get to a million-dollar net worth. And, depending on how your net worth is structured, having $1 million could generate $30,000 to $50,000 a year in a low-risk manner.

More difficult than acquiring that first million is earning seven figures a year. Earning a million dollars a year puts you in the top 0.1 percent of income earners in America. Getting to a top income requires longevity, hard work, and, well, a whole lot of luck!

In the next chapter, we'll explore who makes $1 million or more a year. These income earners might seem ubiquitous, but, I assure you, they are not.Finally, spending a million dollars a year is actually the hardest to do of the three. To be able to spend a million dollars, you first need to accumulate a million dollars posttax. To spend a million dollars a year consistently, you need to have multiple millions of dollars (unless you want to end up broke). Anyone spending a million a year likely has a net worth of at least $50 million.

Be mindful of just how different one millionaire can be from the next. People achieve millionaire status in a multitude of ways and time frames. An awareness of the many roads to a million dollars can help prevent you from getting discouraged along the way. The route you take will be unique in duration and direction based on your own goals, choices, actions, and efficiencies (or lack thereof). There's no one right way to wealth and freedom. You get to choose your own path.

Keep in mind that your reasons for accumulating wealth will change as you age.

When I was in high school, I wanted money so I could buy a rich friend's 1990 Mustang 5.0 GT for $12,000. I imagined listening to the engine's sweet rumble while waiting outside my date's...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Portfolio
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2025
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593714709
• ISBN 13: 9780593714706
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 240
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Portfolio; https://www.wetones.co.uk/; ; 105 Golborne Rd; London; W10 5NL; Vereinigtes Königreich
• Verantwortliche Person: M.E.G Cards & Gifts; 443000000000; paula@megcards.com; ; 48 Cloyfin Road; Unit 4, 48 Cloyfin Road; Coleraine; Londonderry; BT52 2NY; Irland