Ready to make your first million? Let's talk about the eight steps
Brian K Kuderna used to make his first million dollars.
He's the author of Millennial Millionaire The Guide to Becoming a Millionaire By 30.
I am Tiffany Thomas with wealthytiffany.com
and I achieved financial freedom and became a millionaire myself.
So, if you're looking to do those things as well,
hit that like button, and hit the subscribe button and we're going to dive right in.
All right, here are the eight steps, a 20
something year old took to make his first million.
The first step he took was to graduate college fast.
He said, even though he switched colleges, he was still able to graduate within his
goal of four years with a Bachelor of Science in finance
and a minor in economics. By graduating college fast,
he avoided accumulating more student loan debt.
He makes a really good point. If you are taking out loans to go to college the less time
you are attending college then the less you are taking out.
And for me, I did the exact same thing. I graduated college fast. I did it in three
and a half years instead of the four years and I didn't even go during the Summers.
I don't want to spend more money than I had to on going to college
because I was paying for it myself.
Yes my parents helped me I think just with the first semester paying
for half of the tuition because I had a scholarship for the other half.
But I paid for the remaining amount of my college. By graduating a semester early,
I was able to save more money. The second step that Brian took to make his
first million was to become an entrepreneur.
Brian says, without an advanced degree,
the most common way he has seen to generate a high early income is
through sales and or entrepreneurship. Only three days after graduating college,
he jumped headlong into a position as a financial sales representative.
The first two years were a real struggle. They were long hours and low income
based 100% on commission. Coming from a family that relied on a steady paycheck.
His parents couldn't understand why he was working crazy hours studying
for so many licenses and then hardly getting by.
But and here's the key. He believed that his hard work would pay off and it
did. He started building his own practice right out of the gate.
He made those sacrifices of working long hours in the beginning
so that it would pay off later for him.
The third step he took was to live at home.
He says that a financial plan becomes feasible by either earning more or saving more,
but a combination of the two provides
the best odds, he talks about if you land a great job out of school,
but then you have to pay a lot in rent.
Then you are not saving as much money
as you could be. He lived at home until age 25 which made a nice income seem enormous.
And I also lived at home for a while while I was going to college.
I was able to live at my parents
house and it really did save me a lot of money and I am so grateful to my parents
for that. The fourth step he took was to save his money for the first six months of his career
he did nothing but put money in the bank.
It allowed him to zero out his credit cards.
Every single month. One of his proudest achievements is never paying a penny of interest.
While collecting some nice rewards along the way.
And Brian and I are very similar in this regard. I have also
never paid any interest on my credit cards,
but I use them all the time. I put everything I possibly can on my credit cards.
And then I pay them off before I have to pay any interest on them.
He says, by age 24, his income generated by financial advising began to surpass,
most of his peers. And from there it snowballed almost month by month
as he accumulated more clients and bigger accounts.
He put those earnings into the same investments and financial planning
strategies that he was teaching his clients and he watched his wealth grow.
He also added to his income by writing a book and doing speaking gigs.
I have also done those same things and I am currently working on my second book.
So look forward to that when it comes out.
And then he also decided to invest in some real estate,
which I also invest in real estate.
So we are very similar in a lot of different ways and he did that during his second half of his 20s,
and then he was able to make his first million in his 29th year. So when you
combine all of these things together, they can help you make a million dollars.
The fifth step that Brian shares with us, to him
making his first million was to get the 401K match from his
employer after his first year of employment
he was eligible for a 3% company match on his 401k contributions.
He immediately began investing that
3% and then it quickly went up from there and he also mentions that he chose the Roth option.
I also chose the Roth option when I had my 9 to 5 job.
And if you're wondering about the differences between a Roth,
and a traditional I do have a video for you. I'll leave a link above and below,
but one thing he mentions is that when he was investing in his Roth 401k.
He put all of it into equities, he put it all into stocks.
He knew he wouldn't be taking that money out soon.
So, he wanted to build his wealth and we build our wealth by investing in stocks.
Not in bonds. And then he says, with his three percent investment
he was putting into his Roth 401k it eventually
went to the maximum because of the next three steps that he took. Step number 6
that he took was to buy individual disability insurance.
He says knowing that income is the engine which makes any financial plan run.
I purchased the maximum amount of true own occupation disability insurance.
And he has since added a second plan to that which makes him feel invincible.
Step number seven, that Brian took to make his first million was to invest in real estate.
And once again, we are similar in this aspect.
He says with capital at his disposal and the leverage of a conventional mortgage.
He bought his first property at age 25.
I also bought my first property at age 25.
He says such a large purchase was frightening but like anything else in
life you adapt and continue moving forward. Two more properties
have since been added which yield additional rental cash flow while paying off
the mortgages and I agree with Brian on this one. Investing in real estate has made a huge
difference in me being able to become a millionaire and become financially free.
And I honestly wish I would have purchased more properties
when I was younger, but since I didn't do that,
I'm not staying stuck in the past wishing that I had,
but I actually moved forward and I purchased more properties.
And if you are curious about investing in real estate,
I do have a video for you. I'll leave a link above
and below in the description. And step number eight
that Brian took to make his first million was,
to open a brokerage account
and I love that he talks about this
one because a lot of people open a Roth IRA or traditional IRA or even invest in their 401K.
But I feel like the brokerage account is highly underrated.
And since I have such strong feelings about this,
I created a video about that. So if you want to learn more about of having a brokerage account,
then I will leave a link above and below. You can check it out later on.
Brian says, once he had home ownership and his rainy day fund,
he knew he needed to invest more of his money.
So any extra money that he found quickly found his way into his brokerage account.
And I myself am really glad that I have a brokerage account. And that I was putting
money into the brokerage account because that actually helped me purchase my fourth
property. I took money out of my brokerage account to put toward the down payment
for that property.
And honestly, having a brokerage account, gives you a flexibility,
that a retirement account doesn't give you.
So, I do like putting extra money into that brokerage account.
And if you're wondering, oh, well, how do I know if I have extra money to invest?
You want to make sure that you have a really good view on your full financial picture.
I like using Personal Capital. It is a free app.
You can hook all of your financial accounts
to that and see your full financial picture in one place.
So you can see how much you have sitting in your savings account and in your checking
account and in your 401k and in any other retirement accounts that you might have.
Plus, you can see all of your credit cards. You can see your income that's coming
in and all of your expenses,
everything that you are spending money on and that way you can see,
oh, I do have too much sitting in my savings account.
It is way over my emergency fund amount,
so I can put that money into a brokerage account,
if that's something you're interested in. I will leave my referral link below.
You can click on that and set up a free Personal Capital account.
If you found these eight steps to making your first million helpful.
Definitely check out Brian's book, Millennial Millionaire.
Comment below and tell me which step you are going to be working on to make your first million.
And if you found this video helpful, please hit that like button and share it with someone else
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the side of the screen. Thanks so much for watching. I'll see you in the next video.