I reached my goal of becoming a millionaire, just the last year, which is super exciting.
I am going to share in today's video, my overnight success of becoming a millionaire
and a lot of people really think that becoming a millionaire
really is an overnight success story, but there is a bit more that goes into it.
I am Tiffany Thomas with wealthytiffany.com
and I have achieved financial freedom and became a millionaire.
If you are looking to do those things as well, hit that like button
and hit the subscribe button and we are going to dive right in.
All right. Today's video is my story of becoming a millionaire.
And while yes, some people get really lucky and become a millionaire overnight.
There are actually a few more things that go into becoming a millionaire,
and people also think that millionaire habits are things like,
getting up at 5 a.m. And going to bed at 9 p.m.
I'm not a super early morning person. I'm more of a night owl,
or reading a self-improvement book for 30 minutes every day,
or even eat a certain breakfast every morning like raw eggs,
which I would never do. And while yes,
it is important to eat as healthy as possible.
That is not really something that helped me become a millionaire.
And going along with eating healthy.
They also talk about physical health. So they talk about going for a 5 mile
run every day or something, really specific.
I am not a runner. So I am not going for a run at all.
I personally love doing Zumba and I'm actually Zumba certified.
So that's what I enjoy for exercise.
But again, that is not what really helped me become a millionaire.
Comment below and tell me if you have done Zumba or not.
But in all honesty, it has less to do with those specific habits that you can implement
and it really is more about your mindset and what you are actually doing with your money.
I remember when I was a little girl and I earned my first dollar,
my mom asked me, what are you going to do with ten percent of that money, Tiffany?
And I thought, oh, I'm going to pay my tithing .
So, right away that was the very first thing that I was going to do with my earned money was,
pay my tithing. And then the next thing that I was taught to do with my money was to save it.
I was taught to always have something in my savings account,
and honestly a lot of the times I wasn't saving for anything specific.
I was just saving my money. Tell me in the comments if you are a saver
as well and you just save your money,
but you don't really have specific things that you save for.
I've since changed that habit and now save my money,
but I also invest it but I try to be more goal oriented
and focused in on something that I want to work
toward with my money, whether that is saving up for a trip to Hawaii, or Italy, or Israel.
Israel happens to be my favorite vacation.
Or it could even be saving up for a car or even a down payment on a house,
but it was definitely instilled in me at a young age to save my money.
And when I was growing up, my parents were nice enough to give us an allowance.
I had to do my chores. Of course, I had to clean the bathroom,
clean my room. I had to dust the whole house.
I had to water the plants things like that.
But after I did my chores, I received a monthly or maybe it was even a weekly allowance.
I don't remember for sure.
But my parents gave us that money and I made sure to pay my tithing
and put some of that into savings and then I could spend the rest,
but I just wasn't a real big spender,
but I was just talking to my sister the other day
and she reminded me of when we were younger
and she would ask to borrow money from me and I would say,
okay, I'll lend you this amount of money until this day.
But if you pay me back late, then I'm going to charge you interest.
I actually didn't remember doing that. But as she was telling me,
I thought, you know, I probably did do that because it sounds like something I would do.
So, even at a young age, I knew the importance of money.
I knew that I needed to save money,
and when I was lending my money out,
I needed to get something in return for that.
And I'm not saying everyone should do that. But apparently,
that was on my mind, even when I was younger. And my first actual job was at a call center.
It was at Teleperformance and I was doing outbound calls,
which I did not love. Tell me in the comments if anyone has worked at a call center.
But nonetheless I got a paycheck from that job.
I would of course pay my tithing
and then I would put money toward my savings and then I continue this way for a while.
I was a huge favor for the majority of my life
until I started learning about the power of investing my money.
When I got a job that offered a 401k package.
I was putting a little bit of money into that 401k,
but I didn't realize the full potential of investing
that money. I also later on set up a Roth IRA and put some money in that.
But once again, it didn't click that
I needed to be investing as much as possible, as soon as possible.
And even when I bought my first property back in 2005,
so it's quite a while ago. I thought, okay,
this is good. I know I need to be having my money work for me and I got roommates.
So I was creating even extra income that way,
but it took me until 10 years later until 2015 to buy my second property.
I had a ton of money sitting in savings.
I don't remember exactly how much. It was probably 50 Grand or so,
but it was sitting in my savings account
and I kept thinking I know I need to do something with this money.
So I ended up investing in real estate.
And once I did that, I had my first rental property
and that went really well and I knew I needed to make my money work for me even more.
So I bought another property and another property.
And if you've watched some of my recent videos, you know that
I sold one of those properties recently.
You can check out the video about that.
I'll leave a link above and below in the description.
And as you can see from my new background today,
I have moved into my new place, but honestly,
investing my money has made the biggest difference for me becoming a millionaire.
I could have saved and saved, and saved and saved.
But I honestly would not be a Millionaire right now
if I had left all of my money in a savings account.
And the other thing is, if I would have invested more of my money,
even earlier, I would have been a millionaire even sooner.
And let me share a very quick and simple example
on exactly what I'm talking about, so that you can see how your money can grow
when you are investing it. After I graduated from college with
my bachelor's in 2001 a super long time ago.
I got a full-time job, the next summer in 2002 and luckily I graduated
without any student loans and I was able to live in my parents house,
which I know not everyone is able to do that.
But I was able to save a lot of money that way.
Needless to say my expenses were very low at that time
and I was making about two thousand dollars a month.
So let's say I invested 20% of that.
Since my expenses were super low, which would be four hundred dollars a month.
And if I did that from about June of 2002,
to March of 2007,
let's say I put it in something really simple. Just a fund that follows the total stock market,
my return over that period of time would be 35 thousand,
nine hundred sixty six dollars and seventy seven cents,
which doesn't sound like a ton of money, and in about 2007 my income had doubled.
So I was making about four thousand dollars a month.
Let's look at the example of me doubling
what I was originally investing. So, let's say,
I was investing eight hundred dollars. And then plus my rental income,
which if each roommate was paying me 500,
that would be one thousand dollars. So a total of eighteen hundred dollars per month.
So just taking that original amount that I already had invested, that 35,000
and then increasing my monthly investment to eighteen hundred dollars
and I continue to do that every month
through November of 2021.
My total balance would be one million
one hundred and ninety one thousand one hundred and fifty four dollars and 59 cents.
So you can see the power of investing your money.
If you would have left that money in a savings account.
You would have nowhere near a million dollars.
You would basically just have the money that you were putting into the account.
And, of course, this is a very simple example, my income didn't just double
all of a sudden, at one point, it continued to increase
and even decreased at some point and then come back up.
And then I received raises along the way,
and then other income that was coming in. It doesn't include other rental income.
It doesn't include a 401k, or a Roth IRA, or a HSA any other type of investment,
right? But I just wanted to show you a very simple example.
If you are committed and you just invest each month,
continue to do that over time, you will easily become a millionaire.
And when I had started investing my money,
I wasn't sure where exactly to put it.
Should I set up an individual retirement account and IRA,
or a Roth IRA, or should I max out
my 401k? Or should I save it all
for real estate? There were a lot of questions that I had,
but the thing is, I chose one
and I got started investing. If I would have just continued to
think about where I wanted to invest my money,
then it wouldn't be invested and it wouldn't be growing.
So do a little bit of research and figure out where would be a
good place to invest your money and start investing it. And later on,
if you decided, oh I should have done a Roth IRA instead of a traditional IRA.
That's fine. At least your money is invested and you can switch it over to a Roth IRA over time,
but it's really important that we do not get stuck in the analysis paralysis,
right? So, we aren't just continuing to wonder where we should invest our money
and be doing a ton of research and then not take any action.
I know this is really tricky for real estate.
Since the real estate market has drastically increased recently.
I know a lot of people are wondering, oh, should I wait to buy?
Should I wait for the market to cool off? But honestly,
just run the numbers. If you find a house that works then buy the house
and invest your money. An extra if the real estate market does drop,
that's okay, you still ran your numbers
and you're doing fine and you can probably invest in another property at a lower price.
What helped me the most to become a millionaire was really investing my money
and taking that long term perspective.
I wasn't worried about dips in the short term.
I was more focused on the long-term.
How is this going to perform over five years?
Over 10 years? Will it increase in value?
Yes, all of my properties and my stock market investments
have drastically increased over time.
And just think about it, when you will look back at 10 years ago.
When people were thinking, oh, prices are really high
for investing in real estate or even in the stock market,
but you look at those prices today, oh they are astronomically higher. Prices
continue to rise over time as we are seeing a lot lately,
especially with the inflation rates that are higher.
So the sooner you are able to invest your money,
the better off you are going to be because you can keep that long-term perspective.
Another thing that has helped me become an overnight millionaire is
really trying to take the emotion out of money,
the emotion of money is what makes money hard.
Money is strictly a tool. It's a resource that we can use
and when we realize that we can just let go of any fear,
or shame, or doubt that we have around money then we can realize,
okay. It's a tool. It's a resource. Maybe, I haven't used it
the best in the past, but that's in the past and I can create my new future.
I can let go of that emotion around money and invest my money.
And I get that, that's not always easy. It's not always easy to take that emotion out of money,
especially if you were raised in an environment where it was a scarcity mindset.
And there was great fear around money,
or especially around losing money, or not making enough money.
But if we can just try to take a step back and think it's just a resource.
What's happened in the past, is in the past and going forward,
I can do much better. I was afraid to invest my money.
I was thinking, oh, am I going to lose all of my money if I put it in the stock market?
But once I did a little bit of research and I found out
that's not how it works. The stock market continues to rise over time.
Yes, it will go up and down up and down, but the trend is going up.
Then I felt more comfortable investing my money and I have not lost all of my money.
I've been able to grow it drastically,
and I mentioned this a little bit before,
but being able to focus in on a certain financial goal will be
really beneficial to becoming a millionaire.
It could even be the goal of becoming a millionaire
because once you have that financial goal,
then you can look at the larger picture and think,
okay. What is actually going to help me become a millionaire?
Is it really buying lottery tickets or taking that amount
you would spend on lottery tickets
and investing it in a total stock market fund in the stock market?
Is it really going on shopping trips and buying a whole bunch of new clothes?
Or is it maybe buying one thing that you really love
and then putting the rest in the stock market or toward a down payment on a house?
And that's exactly what I did when I was buying one of my properties.
I was spending a lot of money on clothes that I didn't need to be
spending on clothes. So I took that amount and I saved up for a down payment.
And of course, since I was focused on saving up for that down payment,
I was spending less money elsewhere to put toward that down payment.
By having that one goal,
other things started to fall into place to help you reach that goal
and going along with setting goals,
really spending on your priorities
is something else that has helped me to become an overnight millionaire. Before
I would just spend money on the things that weren't really important to me.
A lot of my friends would go out to eat a lot
and I don't really care to go out to eat that much.
So I would take that money and put it towards something that was important to me,
whether that was a certain financial goal,
like a down payment on a house, or traveling.
That is something that is a priority to me.
I love to travel. So I would much rather spend my money traveling than eating out.
So really think about what are your priorities?
What brings you joy? What brings you happiness?
And spend your money there and then cut back elsewhere.
And when you were cutting back elsewhere you can also put that money toward investing.
Another thing that I want to talk about is keeping a budget or tracking your spending.
This is something that I had done starting at a young age and this really cute
pink graph paper that I would write my budget line items
on and I would keep track of all of my money on this pink paper.
And I use a free app called Personal Capital.
You may have heard me talk about this,
but you can hook all of your financial accounts into Personal Capital.
You can see your full financial picture in one place.
So I would highly recommend tracking your finances
and working towards some type of goal.
And if you're interested in Personal Capital, I'll leave my referral link below in the
description. Being able to see where you're spending all of your money
and how much you actually have coming in.
How much is in your savings in your retirement?
It really helps you have that financial picture and you can start to say,
oh, wow. I spent a lot on eating out this month.
I really need to change my habits and not eat out as much.
Or you may see subscriptions on there that you've forgotten about. You
can cancel those subscriptions and then put that money toward investing.
You won't even miss it. Those are a few things that have
helped me to become an overnight millionaire.
So really focus in on investing
as much as possible as soon
as possible, and focus in on a certain financial goal
and make sure you are aware of your full financial picture,
where all of your money is going. And try to take the emotion out of money.
If you found this video helpful, please hit that like button and share it with someone else
who would like to hear this information.
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check out the videos on the side of the screen. Thanks so much for watching.
I'll see you in the next video.