How did you become a millionaire

[sugaraddictwithapinchoffluff]

Go on, make me extremely jealous of how you became a millionaire, what it's really like and is it what it's cracked up to be? What sort of luxury do you indulge in that people like me can simple not afford ...

Take it away...

I have a Birkin that I use every single day 💙 it was a bucket list surprise gift from DH. I can’t recommend it highly enough

My mum probably is on paper in that she has property. As is my uncle for same reason.

They were bought up in a single parent family but they had a tribe of maiden aunts who all had civil service jobs (there were 4 of them plus my grandmother). No kids except my mum and uncle and they lived together so pooled expenses, got good pensions and their idea of a wild spending spree was a new toaster. As they died the money got left to whoever was left. Lived in nice bit of outer London so property grew in value.

Mum/uncle inherited everything between them which included a property which is now let out. So between her house which she bought in the 70s, this property she jointly inherited and a holiday home she bought when my parents retired, that's well over a million. Plus some cash and a good final salary pension scheme. Ok boomer indeed.

My uncle had a good job (worked up from an apprentice) with final salary pension and no kids. Bought btl flats in the 90s in London - he has 3 I think. Plus own house which he's had for over 20 years.

@MrsPetty not extravegent at all! Good luck with your cruise!! Ours was cancelled 😭

Number 1. My husband and myself are baby boomers born in 1950 our first property cost £5,000 in 1974. Sold this property for £7,500
5 years later and bought another property for £11,000 sold this property two years ago for £500,000. Bought another for £750,000 with profit from sale and savings.
Number 2. My husbands company plus my husband put lots of money into his pension which is now worth around £1000,000.
I honestly think the secret of our money is our luck at being born at the right time. (Also for me marrying the right man). I think if we had been born now with the price of property we would have struggled to do this.
We don't spend lots of money on flashy things but when we travel long haul we always travel first class.

I honestly think the secret of our money is our luck at being born at the right time. (Also for me marrying the right man).

Quite sad really that so many people on this thread are only wealthy because of their husband.

@SofiaMichelle I mostly agree with you. Depending on generation, we have had amazing opportunities that our foremothers didn't have.

I made all my own money and I just bought myself a new car which is beautiful.

I chose the right course at university, worked as much as possible in many different jobs as side hustles, I'm not a millionaire yet but I expect to be by the time I'm 45 (5 years).

Let's here from the people who are millionaires WITHOUT just an increase in house prices. Who out there made their money? Not from inheritance. Not from marrying. Not from house price rises. Those are the special ones, those who have worked and earned it!

@Tianna476 you mean 'hear'? We did. Studied STEM degrees, my OH studied for 10 years post school (PhD inc.).

We worked from the ground with no help from parents who are teachers. We have Maths heavy professions. Started own tech business.

Still doesn't make a millionaire via inheritance less of a millionaire; good for them I say.

@Tianna476 me and DH!
Both from council estates, my parents both worked 2 jobs throughout my childhood to ensure we had a comfortable life and my DHs parents never worked until about 15 years ago and that was only for about 5 years.

@Tianna476

Let's here from the people who are millionaires WITHOUT just an increase in house prices. Who out there made their money? Not from inheritance. Not from marrying. Not from house price rises. Those are the special ones, those who have worked and earned it!

DH and I have both had fairly high paying careers. We lived below our means, saved and invested. DH works in tech and bought Apple and Amazon shares in 2009. That's what put us over the top.

Quite sad really that so many people on this thread are only wealthy because of their husband.

But they might have become millionaires with a different husband, or alone, it is impossible to know! Even with the woman as the higher earner or businesswoman, choice of husband will generally have a bearing on wealth - whether they have same financial goals, whether they ended up staying together etc.

DH and I (57 and 58) have, jointly, over £1M in investable assets (ISAs and shares) plus just under another 1M in our DC pensions (SIPPs etc), so almost individual millionaires! We have both contributed to that in different ways. We both bought houses young, so were mortgage free when we jointly bought in our early 30s. We both had graduate technical jobs, although I was PT for many years.

DH became a contractor, so got a good hourly rate but no company pension. Hence he invested for his retirement (including some tech and Amazon shares which have soared) and encouraged me to do similar, even though I also had company pensions. Not having a mortgage obviously gave us a decent amount of disposable income, even with small children.

I got a small inheritance but also a company share scheme payout when my employer was bought out (10k invested in early 2000s became 80k+ 15yrs later). So some sadness involved, also some luck (I regret not buying company shares every year as some did 😂)

We both have a similar attitude to money, not frugal but cautious. We are still in our first joint house, could have moved up the ladder, but it is a nice house, nice area, so we stayed and extended.

I don’t have anything designer, it just isn’t me! But we have always bought newish cars every 5-7 yrs for cash, and plenty of hols with kids (of every sort, long haul, caravan, hotels etc). We have invested for the DC towards house deposits and will probably contribute more when that time comes.

We want for nothing, and buy whatever we wish in supermarket or when out for meals. But we don’t have extravagant tastes or eat in posh places.

I have recently retired, have some DB pensions which will kick in in my early 60s but know that we have plenty until then (and DH still working out of choice).

Would I have the money that I do if I hadn’t married DH - who knows? I had a good career of my own before DC. I might have married someone who earned a lot but spent a lot, didn’t encourage me to invest as DH has done.

PS have name changed as some earlier posts could out me!

Quite sad really that so many people on this thread are only wealthy because of their husband

Why is it sad?

My husband is only as wealthy as he is because he married me.

He grew up in a family that was able to provide him with a terrific education in a fee-paying school, educational support, help to get driving/his first car etc. He now has a six-figure salary (as do I, for what it’s worth) and he’ll inherit (hopefully a long, long time away) so he would have been fine, but I’m wealthier so he reaps additional benefits.

He loves me. He didn’t know I came from a well-off family until we’d been together about 18 months- it wasn’t a factor in our relationship.

I don’t think there’s anything sad about it at all.
It’s just life.

@TheRealAnnabelleBronstein Hope you don't mind me asking... what jobs do you do which have a 6 figure salary? I'm way too old to retrain but it might be good career advice for my son!

[quote Daisy657]@TheRealAnnabelleBronstein Hope you don't mind me asking... what jobs do you do which have a 6 figure salary? I'm way too old to retrain but it might be good career advice for my son![/quote]
@Daisy657

I’m a director in a large and well-known company- think something like Head of Finance/Head of Comms/Head of Customer Services.

My husband is in Finance, also at director-level.

In-laws are wealthy, I’m not sure how much they have exactly, but it’s significant
They are ex hotel/pub/restaurant managers and worked 16+ days, 7 days a week, with
only a couple of weeks off a year (this is a true reflection, as I have lived with them)

They’re now retired, but FIL isn’t well enough to enjoy his retirement. I’m guessing a significant chunk of the money will go on his care (he has a degenerative condition). I find it quite sad that they’ve never enjoyed their wealth

OH suffered as a result of their working pattern, they hardly spent any time with him as a child. He only remembers a handful of times that his dad played football with him, for eg and he feels quite resentful about it. As a result, we’ve adopted a better work:life balance!

Diversifying

Bought a BTL when PIL split up and could not afford to live separately

Bought our house off plan on a wing and a prayer just before we got married

Used redundancy payments to buy more property as we felt job security was not there

Split profits between pensions, shares, ISAs and premium bonds

Became a consultant after last redundancy - it's in the field I am expert in after many years and so get a better wage for fewer hours

Currently our capital is tied up but it is over £1m and will mean I can retire early. DH already retired and does housework etc.

Quite sad really that so many people on this thread are only wealthy because of their husband.

Why do you assume that when I said I married the right man that I meant because he was wealthy. I meant because he was an ambitious hard working man. We started our business with £200 in the bank. We both worked 12-14 hours a day to build it up, we took very little salary out of it just enough to pay the mortgage and food etc. We didnt have a holiday for 10 years although he could see his employees were flying off to Spain for their holls. Our children didnt have designer trainers and clothes. We put every penny back into the business. I kept my own job and worked in the evening and at weekend in the business. Through years of hard work we built up a small building company employing 20 full time people plus providing work for many sub contractors. We are now reaping the rewards of our work. We are in our 70s and my husband still goes to work at 6 am 3 days a week. Our sons have taken over the bulk of the work now. I said we were lucky, funny thing is the harder we worked the luckier we got.

Quite sad really that so many people on this thread are only wealthy because of their husband.

I think mine came across like that too, but I earned a really good London wage over 100K, owned a house, which went up in value significantly.

About 6 years ago DH had a chat over a pint with an acquaintance who had an idea, but needed DH's business savvy to set it up. So, with this guy's industry knowledge (construction) + DH's business acumen the business went stratospheric. DH won a huge national contract with a household name and we performed really well, which meant we were then on boarded with them as one of their preferred contractors. More lucrative contracts followed.

At the same time, DH inherited a large 6 figure sum when his Mum died. So, we used that money to buy a house, used our contacts to renovate it at a fraction of the normal cost and sold it for a large profit. Then bought the next one, renovated it etc. We quickly did this 4 times in a row in the space of 18 months.

DH is now semi retired at only 53 and aims to be fully retired by the end of the year. For posterity, he's tempted to buy the little table in the pub (it's still there) where he first had that pint and a casual chat, and our lives were changed forever.

Lots of husbands becoming millionaires it seems.

We are not millionaires by any stretch but I'd like to hope in a few years things will pay off. DH became involved in a startup which is now valued at 7 million. They are diversifying into AI and things are really starting to take off. Hoping to sell when/if it reaches 20 million (he is 20% shareholder).

DH parents also millionaires (farming). They bought farm off his parents and expanded. It's now worth around 6 million.

My extended family are multi-millionaires (Times rich list rich). They became MD of family business following their father's retirement and then continued to build the business to where it is now.

That's the beauty of being married. It's just as much mine as his.

I'm not a millionaire. But I'm close( in assets) . Luckily I managed to get full custody of both my daughters, which is virtually impossible now days for men. My oldest chose to live with me, my youngest mom killed someone while drinking and driving so this was huge financially.

I make 50 dollars an hour at the mines, I'm home everyday. This is more then enough to support me and my girls. I used to pay about 800 a month in child support. But now that my ex is in jail, I actually get 900 extra a month in family allowance, plus the tax break.

I put the 900 a month directly into stocks, through a friend who owns Manulife location. I've been getting the extra money for about 5 years now. And with my friends investing skills I am sitting close to 200k. My union pension is sitting around the same . About 180k. My annual tax returns have been around 12-15k after purchasing mutual funds. Which I also have 25k worth. And then lastly .I bought my house for 224k and it's now appraised at 450k. Minus what I owe. A rough estimate of my financial assets are about 700k . And I'm only 36. Now with all that being said. Most wealthy people's money is tied up in investments and assets. My life is 1700 dollars a month better now then it was before my ex messed up her life. But the only difference is I'm just not paying child support anymore, all the extra money I don't even see. I guess not completely true. The tax returns I do put directly into my account. But I really don't spend it. It's just a cushion incase another recession happens

Well done, from a fellow American. Make sure to teach your daughters about investing. As soon as they have a part time job, open Roth IRAs for them and match their contributions. We did this for our kids and it got them off to a really good start.

Started out totally poor, dad unemployed. No Bank of Mam and Dad ever! Worked hard, lucky timing buying property. Saved hard, didn’t get in debt. Don’t smoke or drink, or have lavish holidays. No private schools for kids! Employer pensions. Set up a business in my 60s. Now we have around £2.6m assets, got rich slowly, don’t feel rich!