alright today we're gonna talk about how to become a millionaire and we're not
gonna talk about the get-rich-quick stuff that doesn't work but we're gonna
talk about the long slow and steady process of becoming one and if you don't
want to take the slow and steady process the easiest way to do this is to marry
one now in my case the woman of my dreams didn't come with a seven-figure
net worth so if you find yourself in that similar situation then we need to
do it the old-fashioned way now before we get too deep into this I want to
address something real quick so money by itself is not inherently good or evil it
is just a tool just like a hammer and it can be used for good or it can be used
for evil and as a Christian I believe the reason to desire financial success
isn't just to spend money like we're in some rap video or something but instead
I believe those of us who are blessed financially have a responsibility to use
our resource to be a blessing to other people and I like what Luke 12:48 says
about this when someone has been given much much will be required to him and
when someone has been entrusted with much even more will be required simply
put I believe that we are blessed to be a blessing to other people and that
should be the primary motivation behind building wealth
so much of success in life is rarely a case of luck but rather a matter of
cause and effect and so if you do A and you do B then you're going to get C and
if you want to learn how to build a chair you ask a chair maker how he built
a chair you become an apprentice and you learn how to build a chair or maybe you
watch a youtube video on it and so it stands to reason that if you want to
learn how to become a millionaire you should ask a millionaire how they did it
and that's what I did and that's what led me to seeking out this interview
with a guy named Bill and he was a friend of a friend who I'd never met
before but was very excited to just kind of chat with me and my other friend and
just kind of share some of his wisdom and let us know what he had learned in
his journey now going into our meeting I was expecting that he would be
explaining some investing techniques or just way over my head and things that
would take me years to understand but in truth the things that he taught me were
really actually pretty simple and pretty easy to understand and so giving you a
little background on my mentor Bill he had been a high school teacher for most
of his career and he hadn't invested a single penny until he was 35 years old
and this was really encouraging to me because at the time I was in my late 20s
this was about 10 years ago and he had built this huge net worth on a teacher's
salary and so once we sat down to meet he spent the first part of a meeting
just explaining to me the vital importance of telling your money where
to go rather than seeing where it went and so this is the idea of using a
budget and this is the idea of specifically saying 10 percent of my
money is going to go here 10 percent of my money is going to go here and I am
going to live on the rest and I'm not gonna turn this into a budgeting video
but the bottom line is that budgeting works there's a reason that every large
successful business does this it's because it works and if you want to take
action on this right now up above I will be linking to a video with a whole bunch
of free budgeting spreadsheets that you can download so you can check that out
and then Bill went on to explain that there were two big areas that most
Americans were just in bad financial shape because of and first on this list
was that most Americans make very poor car buying choices and he argued that
most of us in the US are gonna have a hard time building wealth because we're
spending so much money on cars and as you probably know the car payment is
just one small piece of this puzzle so you have to pay for insurance you have
to pay for maintenance you have to pay for gasoline
and the list just goes on and on with maintaining a car and so Bill had a
really simple formula that he followed to minimize the amount of money that he
spent on his car and so basically it was this he bought used Japanese cars that
were at least two years old normally they were two to three years old and
then he would drive them for a decade before he got a new one
and the reason he used Japanese cars is because generally they're very reliable
cars and so these are Toyota's and Honda's and they're just known for being
super reliable and so it's gonna cost you less because you're not going to fix
it as often as some other cars and the reason he wouldn't buy it brand new is
because the car loses so much in depreciation in those first couple years
so if you buy a car that's 2 or 3 years old the new car smell might be gone but
you still have a pretty new car and a lot of that depreciation is already
reduced for you and then to add to that he would drive them for a decade and the
idea behind this again is that he's reducing the amount of depreciation
expense that he is going to be responsible for now hearing this I began
to feel pretty sheepish because I had just pulled up in a car that happened to
be a few years newer than his and so I was feeling a little bit embarrassed
about all this but I was in my process and I was seeking to learn and Bill didn't
and make fun of me too much for it now the next thing on Bill's list surprised
me as well because he said that this one thing saved him thousands of dollars a
year by making this one switch and it was to cook most of his meals at home so
instead of going out and even fast food they chose to cook almost every meal at
home and so yes it took them a little bit more time but he estimated that
saved them thousands of dollars a year and if you do look at the lifestyles of
most Americans most of us are going out to eat way too much and especially if
we're not paying attention to where our money is going it's probably costing us
way more than we think now personally like one of my favorite things in the
world is a meal prepared by somebody who's just passionate about it a chef
who is just fanatical about creating something great like I love good food
but this is an area where I've had to sacrifice a little bit but the end
result and the benefit of this is just far better than that small sacrifice
that I've had to make in additionally going out to eat feels a little bit more
fun and exciting when I'm not doing it every night you know what I mean it
becomes a little bit more of a special occasion it becomes a little bit more of
a cherished thing that I can actually create memories from and so I'm not
person who would suggest that anyone stop doing something that they love
forever but the idea is is that if we can make some small sacrifices now that
can have a huge result down the road it's probably worth considering and it's
fascinating to me that Bill said that these two sacrifices eating at home and
driving a used car were two small sacrifices that he made that he thought
were the biggest components of his financial success and he said that the
challenge is that most people are unwilling to delay their gratification
he went on to explain that everybody wants it now and they're unwilling to
wait for and this is why most people won't be able to build a million-dollar
portfolio until they overcome the obstacle of self that will be stuck
where they are all right now moving on to Bill's investing strategy Bill had
grown his portfolio with mutual funds and for those of you don't know a mutual
fund is basically just a basket of stocks or bonds just a whole bunch of
other investments all rolled up into one big package and then it has a fund
manager who is responsible for the performance of that mutual fund now
generally I don't really like mutual funds and I much prefer an index fund
and the difference being that an index fund is not really managed and so it
generally just has a basket of stocks that are in it but they're they're
locked in index funds typically tend to be a whole lot cheaper than mutual funds
and oftentimes they actually perform better in many cases as well and so that
tends to be what I lean into but regardless of whether you're using index
funds or mutual funds Bill's strategy still applies and basically what he did
is he went to the library once a month and he would read over some of the
different mutual fund magazines and articles and different investing
newsletters to try to find the best ones that were out there and then he would
just invest in those and even though we did go to the library and research them
a lot he actually did not buy or sell them very often he took a little bit
more of a Warren Buffett approach to where he would hold them for oftentimes
in decades and he had no desire to sell them unless there was a very strong
reason to sell them and over the years he had also invested in a few stocks
mostly really big companies but he made it very clear that the vast majority of
his success was based just on consistent long term mutual fund investing and
after we finished up talking about the investment strategy he went on to
explain how much he was opposed to debt so he very much had a Dave Ramsey
approach where he just didn't believe in debt at all and he said that once they
had a large enough portfolio built up he and his wife sold a big chunk of
investments in were to pay off their house and then once their house was paid
off that just freed up an extra couple thousand dollars a month that they could
add to their investments each month in our meeting he didn't go into specifics
about the exact mutual funds that he was using and additionally is it's probably
ten years ago so it's probably not relevant anymore but if you are looking
for some specifics I recommend checking out this book this is Tony Robbins book
it's called Money: Master of the Game and this is a fantastic book with a lot of
really specific stuff that I think can help you so I ended up leaving this
meeting with Bill really encouraged and I had read a few books on investing at
that point in my life and I was at least familiar with almost everything he had
talked about but my main encouragement came from the fact that I now had met
and talked to somebody who actually did what the book said to do and it had
worked and it suddenly had translated from a theory that I knew should work to
substantial evidence that I was on the right track to reach my financial goals
now if you found this helpful and you want more content like this you can let
me know by leaving a like down below and I'll leave you with one last thought
here now wealth is a very powerful tool and it's really important that we make
sure our heart is right when we're seeking after wealth
1 Timothy 6:9 even says this those who want to get rich fall into
temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge
people into ruin and destruction and in my experience most of the wealthy people
I know became that way by working hard and by serving others it wasn't because
they were focused on becoming rich they weren't chasing money just for money's sake
so I encourage you to pray and ask God to show you your heart and show you
what the reason is it what the motivation is behind you wanting to grow
your wealth and I'll leave you with a quote from John Wesley that I think sums
up the proper heart perspective behind all this and he said to make all you can
save all you can and give all you can and I think if we're doing that and if
we're truly understanding our role as stewards we're gonna be able to do this
the right way and if you're new to our channel welcome so glad to have you here
and what we do on this channel is we talk about a lot of practical money
stuff and how to put more money in your pocket but then we also talk about
biblical financial principles and how to manage our money wisely so if that
resonates with you definitely consider subscribing so you can hear from us as
you create more content like this all right in this next video we're gonna be
talking about how to get started investing with only a dollar and
actually even less than a dollar and so if that's something you want to get started doing
check out this video and I'll see you over there