Where I'm Coming From

I'm going to write a lot about myself and my family. I'm not revealing this information to say my life is hard or because I want sympathy from anyone. I'm writing about my life to give a reference or starting point to this project and to show that I'm not anybody special. I'm a regular guy who has many of the same struggles in life like other people do. I actually love my life and I am happy. I've been through several trials but I'm an extremely optimistic person and am happy most of the time. I'm lucky because I don't suffer from any depression, I am generally healthy, and I have a great family life.

My financial situation is I'm really starting this project with nothing. However, because I'm tired of having nothing I have to try something. It's January 2010. I started the year and this project with no money to my name. I had no savings and my checking account was wiped out by Christmas and a short trip to visit my wife's sister. I owe about $2,500.00 in medical bills and I'm 6 months or more behind on them. I have $7,000.00 in credit card debt. I have a car loan I owe $7,200.00 on. I owe $30,000.00 in student loans. Of course there are the monthly bills I have to pay and I struggle just to keep up with those. My credit score is low 600's. Pretty pathetic but that's how I started 2010.

My wife and I have 4 children together. We have both been married before and divorced. We both have children from our previous marriages and 1 child together. Each of us has custody of our children from our previous marriages so they live with us full time. We receive $700 per month (combined) in child support from our ex-spouses.

My wife works providing customer service for a multilevel marketing company. She is able to work from home most of the time and she doesn't mind her job too much. She would rather not have to work and be able to be with our children at home full time. She makes $1,700.00 per month after taxes are taken out of her paycheck.

I make about $2,000.00 per month. For work I'm a graphic designer and a printer. I've been in this career for about 15 years. I started out as a freelance graphic designer and I ended up buying a printing company just over 10 years ago. The printing company was a bad financial decision. I filed Chapter 13 bankruptcy a year after I bought the business. I've wanted to get out of the printing business ever since. I struggled through it and through the help of relatives was able to pay off the bankruptcy a few years later. By then I had fired all of my employees. I sold as much equipment as I could and moved the business into my garage where it still is today. Initially I decided to stick with it because I didn't want to walk away from it and not pay off my debts. After the debts were paid off I felt like I couldn't leave it because that's what was paying my bills. I went to work for another company for a year but didn't like working for other people. I like being my own boss, I only wish I made more money and enjoyed what I do. So, I've stuck with it so far. The business has grown over the past 2 years despite the really bad recession the country is going through. I went back to school several years ago and finished my bachelors degree in fine art. I've been pursuing a career change to become a fine artist and to get out of the printing and graphic design business.

In all of the decisions I've made concerning my career and making money I have decided one thing. It doesn't matter what I do for a living or if I love it or hate it. Painting fine art and loving it will not make me a millionaire any more than printing and hating it. I don't believe making more money would necessarily cause me to become wealthy. It might help slightly but I don't believe more income is the answer to the problem. Almost everyone I know makes more money than me and my wife combined but they are no better off than I am. They have more debt than I do and none of them have any savings either. The only thing that will put me on the path to becoming wealthy is to change the way I manage the money I make.

Since I have decided to start this project January 1st, 2010 I have been saving 10% of my income. Today is January 26, 2010 and I have saved $303.00. I have paid off $50.00 in medical bills and $200.00 in credit card debt. That's not a tremendous amount of money saved and I still have over $46,000.00 in debt. I don't believe I'm going to be a millionaire tomorrow. This will not be a quick and easy way to become wealthy. This is not a get rich scheme. However, I will follow simple steps and see how the process plays out.

The Process

Years ago I read a book about becoming wealthy. I've read many books about wealth since then however, none of the other books I've read has taught me anything that the first book didn't. That first book is called The Richest Man in Babylon. The book is simple in what it teaches. On my journey to becoming a millionaire I'm going to follow that book and see if it works. I have come to believe that all of the other books I've read have tried to teach people how to become wealthy but they miss the basic points of wealth and make the process complicated.

It's been over 15 years since I've read the book so I'm going to read it again as I start the process of wealth building. Some of the basic principles I seem to remember are saving a certain percentage of your income and deciding never to spend it. Another principle is having no debt or getting out of debt. So that's where I'm starting as I read the book again. I'm saving 10% of my income and I'm paying off my debts. For me that means I'm going without a lot of things while I get out of debt. However, I'm hoping that by going without and saving while I pay off my debts that when I'm finished my debts will be gone and I'll have a nice cash reserve. In my next post I'm going to post specific financial details about my life to show where I'm beginning.

I'm not a millionaire so why am I writing about it?

I'm not a millionaire. In fact I'm not even close to being a millionaire. I'm writing this blog because I have decided to take a 5 year journey to becoming a millionaire and I want to document my process of getting there. I've been studying "millionaire secrets" for about 15 years and none of them have worked. So either I'm a complete idiot or the secrets don't really work. I should say that many of them might work if I was unethical and did not care about becoming rich by taking advantage of other people. The problem is that I can't bring myself to take advantage of other people because I feel like the other people are people just like me. My hope is that by documenting my journey to becoming a millionaire other people just like me can also find a way to make the journey.

So what kind of journey am I on if I don't have any "millionaire secrets" that work? I have decided that becoming a millionaire should be quite simple. Therefore I'm going to follow a simple path for the next 5 years and see where the journey takes me. If I succeed then I'm right and becoming a millionaire is not as difficult as everyone wants you to believe. If I'm wrong then I'm no worse off than I am right now.