Don’t gamble! Take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don’t go up, don’t buy it. – Will Rogers.

In my last post, Down the Financial Freedom Rabbit Hole, I talked to you about having over $300,000 in retirement savings. In this post, Part 2, I will talk about the behavior you will need to use to get there.

One of the biggest lessons I learned about life is that you have to give to get. There is no free lunch. Nothing is free. You have to work for everything you have. And don’t let anybody tell you any different.

Even starting out with nothing, you can end with something.

However, it won’t happen overnight.

Little by little everyday you make progress. You have to set a goal. And you have to focus. Much like Obi Wan Kenobi’s Jedi Master in Star Wars said to a young Anakin Skywalker.

So without further ado, here are some of the behaviors that can help turn you into a millionaire. And we’re off…you can now wave goodbye to broke in the camera and say hello to financial freedom.

Learn to sit on a box until you can afford a chair. – money quote

Starting from scratch was not easy. The number one thing I did was make a goal. It does not matter how big or small, you have to start with a goal.

You cannot get to a destination without first knowing where you are going.

My ultimate goal was $1M USD. I then broke it into actionable steps.

Get a job that offers 401k’s with a match was one of them.

I also knew I had to increase my income. Whether it be sales, HVAC School, plumbing, teaching, or college, you have to find a way to make a living and bring some money home.

I took Dave Ramsey’s saying literally in when he says it is not what you are willing to do that will make you rich, but what you are willing to give up. And I gave up a lot. Nights out with friends, parties, vacations, you name it. But the sacrifice was worth it as it moved me closer to my ultimate goal: freedom.

I would spend my nights studying (sometimes up to 8 hours a day!) and doing my college work. Then I would spend my days looking for jobs that offered retirement accounts with matching contributions. Since I chose the college route, I knew that after I got my degree, that I would use that to negotiate a better job with higher pay.

I couldn’t just start in at the top. It’s like what the late rapper Young Dolph said on being wary of helping those who refuse to help themselves (“Million Dollaz Worth of Game” interview, 2021): Everybody wanna start at the top. Everybody wanna start at the top, and everybody wanna ball off the rip.

So true. How can you possibly start at the top? You don’t know anything. You have to put in the work if you want to get ahead and if you want people to respect you.

Dolph sounds a lot like one of my favorite Disney characters, Scrooge McDuck.

So if you find yourself mopping floors, but earning the respect of your fellow workers and the CEO that leads to creating long lasting relationships, getting mentoring from those who played the long-game and won, you climbing that corporate ladder to one day being in the C-suite, count yourself fortunate to work your way up to the top you lucky duck! Pun intended.

Those that try to skip putting in the work miss out on opportunities and experiences that are necessary rungs on the ladder to success that are needed to stay at the top. You have to work late nights, get up early and be consistent. Nobody ever got rich sleeping all day.

Once, I got that magic 401k, I went to work investing in it. That was around 2007. However, my account was increasing too slowly.

I needed to figure out a way to free up some capital to make it go faster. That’s when I figured it out. One of the best ways to start investing larger sums of money with minimal effort. Change my behavior and attitude toward material objects. Namely; cars.

I would pay off my car and then not get into another car payment.

I would instead redirect that money to my investments. I gave up on the desire to having a flashy car in parking lot and focused on financial freedom. I paid off my car in 2009. I have not had a car payment since.

This along with paying off credit card debt, in my opinion, is the best ways to build wealth.

After that, my investments started to take off. I also opened up a Roth IRA around 2011 to invest even more money. I did this because when I did the math, it showed that if you max out your retirement accounts; $23,000 in your 401k and $7,000 in an IRA which are the limits in 2024, with a 10% return, you could hit $1 million in 15 years. That’s less than two decades! It takes the average millionaire about 27 years to get there.

Simple plan: Pay off car payment and max out retirement accounts. I just gave you the magic ingredients to the secret sauce.

Come on, let me get a 5-star rating for that advice like Nora got on Upload.

As of this writing, I am closing in on hitting my next target of $400,000 in investable assets. I was getting closer to my goal of $1M in retirement savings.

Getting so close to my goal made me realize that personal debt is the mortal enemy that threatens to suck the money out of your wallet and the joy out of your life.

I wanted to slay debt like my favorite Marvel comic book character Red Sonja does her enemies.

I wanted to strike first and show no mercy when it came to getting rid of and staying out of debt like Cobra Kai!

I felt like Carmen Sandiego when she meticulously plans her escapes…with style. I was leaving debt behind and flying toward freedom.

You can do the same. By changing your behavior to earn interest instead of paying it by investing. Until next time…