Are You On Track to Becoming a Multi-Millionaire? (2026 Edition)

Are You on Track to Become a Multi-Millionaire? (0:00)

Brian: Are you on track to become a multi-millionaire? Let’s find out.

Bo: Brian, I am so excited today because we’re going to share the crucial checkpoints on the way to financial independence so that you can know exactly what to aim for and what to celebrate.

Brian: If you didn’t know, I’m Brian, he’s Bo, and we’re financial advisers showing you the milestones to hit on the way to becoming a multi-millionaire. And with that, let’s jump right in.

Bo: So Brian, over the years, we’ve come up with a lot of milestone markers that we want to share in order to help you guys stay on track with your financial wealth. Because we know that building towards financial independence is a marathon, not a sprint. But a lot of times we don’t want to just wait for that one finish line. We like to have small little markers, small little wins along our path to get there.

Brian: Yeah. I mean, like you said, our people are achievers. And what I like about this is that there’s no time frame. This is going to hit certain people at different times. There’s no right or wrong answer. But what I do like is that on this journey, as you said, a marathon, I think you can get overwhelmed if you’re trying to figure out how do I reach this successful point. It is so important if you can add milestones so you kind of know right where you are or what you should be aspiring to next. And these milestones are going to help out.

Bo: And these milestones don’t happen in a specific order. For you, they might happen in the order that we’re going to share them. But for others, it may happen differently, and that is okay.

Milestone #1: Reaching Zero Net Worth (1:33)

Bo: So, let’s start Brian with what I think for most people is at the very beginning. And this one, it seems interesting, but it is a milestone that’s worth celebrating. That’s actually reaching a zero net worth.

Brian: Well, think about it. A lot of us come out with a lot of weight on top of us, whether it’s student loan debt or maybe you made some bad consumption decisions when you first got that credit card opportunity. So to reach zero is a big milestone to actually celebrate.

Bo: Yeah. There was actually a study from Credit Karma that found that as many as 31%, one out of three Americans, have a net worth of zero or less. And if you’re in the younger generation, it might actually be a little bit higher. Gen Z, 41% of Gen Z’s have a negative net worth, and millennials 38%. So almost 40% of millennials, just getting to zero is an accomplishment in and of itself.

Brian: So why is it specific that younger people have a higher rate of zero net worth? Well, first of all, you just don’t have a lot of assets yet.

Bo: They’re likely early on in their career. They don’t have a lot of margin for investing. There’s not a lot of money left over to actually be able to save. And in addition, they’re young. They actually have not had a lot of time for what little they have invested to actually begin working for them just yet.

Brian: Now, I feel like our job, when people are in this place, because yes, you haven’t had a lot of time for your assets to grow, you haven’t had a lot of time to even start saving and building these assets, but I don’t want you to get down because you need to recognize you are literally a billionaire of time. And for all those that are ahead of you, when you look at people in their 30s and 40s and go, “Man, I wish I had what they had,” I promise you, they’re looking at you and saying, “I wish I had the time that they had.” And let us give you some illustration on this. If you start thinking about what you would have to save monthly to reach a million dollars, look at what a person who is 45 years of age would have to save and invest. They would have to save greater than $1,800 a month to be a millionaire by the time they reach retirement at 65. For the 30-year-old, they would have to save $340 a month to reach millionaire status. But if you are in your 20s and you have just $95 a month, less than $100 a month will make you a millionaire.

Bo: The earlier you start, the easier it is, the more powerful your dollars can be. But obviously starting out at these smaller sums, you stay at a negative net worth for a while. It takes a number of $95 a month payments to likely get you into positive territory because a lot of young folks coming out right now have a lot of debt. Maybe you just graduated college and you had to take on student loan debt or maybe you went to buy your very first automobile and didn’t have cash to pay for it in cash. You had to borrow money. So, it’s not uncommon for folks starting out, especially those in the younger generations, to start with a negative net worth. They’re just trying to crawl up to get to a dead zero starting place.

Brian: Well, and look, I want everybody, even though you might be starting out with debt and you haven’t had a lot of time to build assets, I still want you to stay motivated because this is the reality. Give it some time. You are fresh. You’re still trying to figure out how the career is working out. You’re trying to figure out what you believe and understand about money. We’re hopefully going to help you out with that. But it is one of those things where you need to focus on what you can control. And in the beginning, what you can control is your consumption. What type of car do you drive? How much debt? How do you use credit cards? These things are important and you definitely can shape your future.

Bo: And there are rules in place that will help you with that. When it comes to buying a car, we want you to follow the 20/3/8 rule. When it comes to taking on college debt, we want you to follow the first year financing rule. And if you can do those things, you’re going to put guard rails around the financial decisions that you’re making. And then as you begin to do that, we want you to track it. We want you to be doing an annual net worth statement. If you’re not doing that, you’re missing out. Even if you’re starting in the negative, because you will not believe how much ground you can cover in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 years. And as you start to see it slowly start moving, whether you’re going from really negative to slightly less negative or from less negative to zero or from zero to positive, tracking it every year might be that motivation you need to stay on the path.

Brian: It’s also going to be a fun thing to celebrate in the future. I started tracking my net worth annually when I was 31 years of age. Bo, I think you started it in your 20s. It is definitely something, even if it’s negative, that is a very healthy habit. Start now. And then once you do that, you’ll get excited because when you hit your second milestone, your first $100,000, you will be able to look back and see how much ground you covered that allowed you to get there.

Milestone #2: Your First $100,000 (6:28)

Brian: So look, we like milestone number two, that first $100,000. When we talk about the first $100,000, we’re talking about what does it look like when you add up both your emergency reserves, your Roth IRA, your 401(k). These are all your financial assets. Guys, it is amazing when your army of dollar bills starts doing some of this work for you.

Bo: Now, they say the first $100,000 is the hardest. And that may be true, but it’s also likely the most important money you will build. And why is it the most important? Well, one, it shows that you have begun mastering the behavior of deferred gratification and building for the future. Most people do not accidentally stumble upon having $100,000 of liquid assets at their disposal. They made the active decision to defer some of their income for tomorrow. They allowed that money to be invested to grow, and it is a sign that you are making decisions that are going to make your future financial life better.

Brian: Now look, I don’t want to make this something it’s not. Reaching $100,000 is not full critical mass, meaning you have not launched, your money is not making more than your day job yet. But I got to tell you, it is starting to work for you. And we actually have a great illustration to show you how powerful this first $100,000 is. Now, if we’re being honest, if you were saving $10,000 a year, that’s about $833 a month, and you’re making a reasonable 8% a year rate of return on that, it is going to take you about 7 and a half years, 7.6 years specifically, to get to that first $100,000. But Bo, that’s not where the magic is. That’s where the hard work was. Show them the power of compounding growth. Where is the magic?

Bo: Yeah. If you continue contributing just that $10,000 a year, do you recognize that in that same amount of time that it took you to go from zero to $100,000, you will go from $500,000 to a million? What took you 7 and a half years to build up $100,000, by the end of the journey getting to a million, that same amount of time will create five times the wealth. The bigger your dollars get, the bigger the dollars get and the faster the money grows.

Brian: So, everybody who’s seeing this out there on YouTube, you see the graphic we put up, but for our podcast listeners, Bo is describing going from $500,000 to a million dollars in the same amount of time, actually less than what it took to build that first $100,000. So, this is not fully critical mass, but man oh man, is it a powerful milestone to celebrate. And what’s great is your behavior can impact how quickly this moves.

Bo: Let’s talk about if your goal were to save $100,000, how long would it take you at different savings rates? We already said if you’re doing $833 a month, it would take you about 7.6 years to build up to $100,000. If you can save $1,000 a month, that number drops to 6.4 years. If you can save $1,500 a month, it’ll only take you about four and a half years to get to $100,000. If you can save $2,000 a month, it will take you right at three and a half years to build up to that $100,000. That means that you could not only reach milestone one, but also milestone two in three and a half years if you have the shovel that allows you to do that.

Brian: I love the quote we put on the slide: wealth building can feel slow, but you do have control where you can actually speed this process up. And by the way, this is an echo of what we talked about even under milestone one. We want you to be active and track your net worth. And there’s no better way to do this than with our net worth tool. If you go to learn.moneyguy.com, you can see the exact net worth tool that Bo and I are using for ours. And what I love about this tool is it’s got a great dashboard that actually tracks some of these milestones so you can be the perfect CEO or field general for your army of dollars.

Milestone #3: Your Investments Save Harder Than You Do (10:23)

Bo: All right, Brian. So, we’re tracking these milestones. And the first two, getting to zero and then getting to $100,000, require that you do a lot of work. But the more work that you do, you now create an environment where your money starts to do some work. And milestone number three is a pretty exciting one. It’s where your money, your investments, are actually saving harder than you save.

Brian: You guys know when you start out, I remember starting out, I was excited when I got to $100 a month. And then as my wife and I got some promotions, we got to $500, and then it was a go-out-and-celebrate-by-going-out-to-eat moment when we got to saving and investing $1,000 a month. And what’s really cool about that is you’re thinking about how hard you’re saving. But there will be a point, just like when we were talking about that first $100,000, where your money, because of the hard work of saving, will start to see a return on that investment that starts to exceed what your savings rate is. And you’re like, “Whoa, this is what I’m talking about. My money is actually starting to do more than what I had to do just through discipline.”

Bo: Yeah. Think about this math. If you have a portfolio worth $93,750 and you earn an 8% rate of return on that, your rate of return would generate $7,500 per year. That’s the max contribution for a Roth IRA. So, if you’re putting money in your Roth and you have $93,000, it’s like your money made an extra Roth contribution for you. If you have $306,250 saved and invested and you make 8%, well, now your portfolio made $24,500 in a year. That may be more than you’re putting in your 401(k). That would actually max out a 401(k). And what you’ll see is as your portfolio grows and as the dollars get bigger and bigger, you’ll start to recognize your portfolio will get to the point where it likely has the capacity and the ability to actually save more dollars per year, actually add more to itself than you can save by exercising deferred gratification.

Brian: What I like is when you start reaching these milestones, it’s not like you stop doing the good behavior. You’re actually getting two Roth IRA contributions that year. Your money’s saving this much and you’re still contributing your $7,500. Your account gets to $306,000, you put in $24,500 into your 401(k), and your account puts in $24,500. I can’t tell you how many clients, when I have review meetings and we’ve been working together for a number of years, I show them the partnership of what the assets are growing while they’re contributing. It truly is a partnership of letting your money work just as hard as your discipline.

Bo: And if you want to see this in real time, if you want to play with some numbers, go to moneyguy.com/resources and play with our compound interest calculator. You can put in your numbers, your information, and you can see just how quickly the numbers begin to stack. You can see just how powerful your army of dollar bills become.

Milestone #4: Crossing Into the Two Comma Club (13:23)

Bo: And if you’re doing these things, playing with the compound interest calculator, saving for the future, and tracking your net worth, if you do it long enough, you’re likely going to hit milestone number four. And milestone number four, it’s a big one. It’s when you finally cross into the two comma club. It’s when you get to say that I have a $1 million total net worth. Now, you’ve got to think about what we’re saying by total net worth. This is inclusive of everything. This is yes, your investments, but this might also be your real estate or your primary residence. And for a lot of people, especially if you bought a house pre-2021, you might very well have experienced almost a 50 to 100% appreciation in your primary residence. That’s going to give you a huge boost towards reaching millionaire status in total net worth.

Brian: But I think it’s worth recognizing that when you look at your net worth, it’s everything that you own minus everything that you owe. If you look across the entire United States of America, only 9% of folks can do that math, add up everything they own, subtract out everything they owe, and that difference be over a million dollars. Only 9% of folks cross into that category. So, if you are a millionaire, you’re already in pretty prestigious, pretty elite company. But a lot of folks, what has happened might be less because of your behavior, less because of your savings, and more because of what has happened that’s somewhat outside of your control. Because when we look at the median net worth of households in this country and how much of that is represented by financial assets versus non-financial assets, you can see that since 2020, since the pandemic, since we’ve seen the runup in real estate prices, a lot of folks, the reason they’re now crossing into millionaire status, the reason that they’re now actually able to say, “I’m a millionaire,” is because their primary residence has gone up so much in value that it’s created paper equity for them on their net worth.

Bo: Yeah, this is one of those things I remember when this research came out and it was talking about how net worths of US households had gone up like greater than 30%. That at first the headline was so exciting, but then when I looked at this chart and you look at what the Federal Reserve was actually tracking, they have financial assets separated from net worth, and you see unfortunately the financial assets line is flat. So from 1989 all the way through 2022, it’s kind of flat, meaning Americans are not necessarily creating the separation of their army of dollar bills. And that’s why I felt like it made sense if we laid out the pros and definitely the cons of what it means to cross into millionaire status or the two comma club as you said, counting your home equity. So what’s the pro? Number one, you’re a millionaire. And we don’t want to take that away from anyone. Even if the reason you’re a millionaire is because your home equity has increased, you still made the decision to buy a home. You still did the hard work of being able to put down a down payment and cover the mortgage. So, it is something worth celebrating. You are in fact a millionaire even if a lot of that is comprised of your home equity. And because you have a lot of equity in your home, technically you can access that equity. You could potentially take out a home equity line or do some sort of cash-out refinance. It is wealth that is there that if you had to, you could access it. Or if you’re someone whose retirement plan later on in life is to sell your home and downsize and then capitalize on the increase in value, that is a viable strategy. Those are all net positives to being a millionaire, even if a lot of that’s equity.

Brian: But it’s not all positives when it comes to this millionaire status. And I don’t mind breaking the seal on the negatives here because you should celebrate that you’ve crossed into millionaire net worth, but you live in this house. This is your shelter for your family. And you should know that when you cross into this milestone and you’re trying to figure out if you’re truly financially independent, unfortunately, you can’t eat the house. The only way you can actually use the equity in your house is you either have to borrow off of it, which is far from building financial independence, taking on debt when you need it is less than ideal. And the only other way is to sell the house, which as we just covered is your shelter. More than likely you’re going to have to replace that shelter. So, you either have to downsize or you just are losing the ability to really maximize how this is going to serve or feed you in retirement.

Bo: And then another financial con that we see is that oftentimes this can give you a false sense of security. You’re doing your annual net worth statement and because you’re marking your primary residence at what you estimate the market value to be or what Zillow says, it makes you feel like, oh, I’m doing really good. I’m building wealth. I’m bettering my financial circumstance. When in reality, it might not be because of your behavior at all. It might just be because of some perhaps accurate, perhaps inaccurate estimate of what your real estate is worth. We want you to be careful. We want you to celebrate, but we don’t want you to celebrate too much on this milestone because we think where you really want to celebrate and where you can really get excited about behavioral decisions that you’re making is in milestone number five.

Milestone #5: Becoming a Liquid Millionaire (18:48)

Brian: That’s when you actually cross into the two comma club and become a liquid millionaire in net worth. This is a big distinction. And when we talk about liquid millionaire, now of course take into account your emergency reserves, but this is where that Roth IRA, your 401(k), all of your investment assets, even your retirement accounts, when you add those up, now you’re crossing into the seven-figure status or two comma club with your investment assets. And guess what? You can eat off of these. These are true, easier access to liquidity in retirement. And why does this get exciting? Because as your assets grow, you begin now reaching what, Brian, what’s the point? What kind of point is it that you reach when your assets get to that point?

Bo: Boiling point. That’s the one you reach. Because look, you realize if you have $1,000 saved up and you make 10%, you make a hundred bucks. That’s great and it’s wonderful, but it’s not life-changing. $10,000 saved up, you make 10%, you make $1,000. $100,000 saved up and you make 10%, you make $10,000. But once you get to a million dollars, once you get into that seven-figure realm and you make a 10% rate of return, well, now your portfolio has grown by $100,000. That is likely more than you save in a year. That may even be more than you make in a year. It is a substantial sum of money. The bigger the dollars get, the bigger the dollars get and the more impactful your rate of return becomes on your overall financial situation.

Brian: I know the trolls, because we’ve done this type of content before. When we talk about millionaire status, a lot of them are quick to tell you, “Hey man, inflation has been just something horrible. A million dollars is not what it used to be.” Okay, there are some valid points to that. But let me tell you, just like we shared earlier on that first $100,000 that took eight years to get to but then we could build from $500,000 to a million in the exact same time, but it’s just fivefold. What do you think when we’re on our journey to building $2 million to $5 million? Guys, your army of dollar bills gets really powerful. The compounding growth is doing magical stuff once you reach this boiling point. And you get to have some control over this in terms of how fast you do it. If you can invest $1,000 a month and let’s say that you earn 8% on average, it’ll take you about 25.5 years to make it to a million dollars. But if you can invest $2,000 a month, now you cut your time frame down to 18.4 years. If you can invest $3,000 a month, it’ll only take you about 14.5 years to get to a million. And if you can invest $4,000 a month, you could build up a million dollars in 12.3 years.

Bo: Well, how does this work for most people? Most people start by saving $100 a month and it increases to $200 and then to $500 and then to $1,000. If you can start today and you can save and be consistent, and then get slightly better through time, what you end up doing is stacking. You get to the first $100,000, that hundred turns into a million, and then you get a little bit better at saving and the million turns into two million and the two million turns into three million. And it becomes this unbelievably powerful snowball that as you continue to build it and as it continues to gain momentum, now you reach the next milestone.

Milestone #6: Your Money Works Harder Than You Do (22:13)

Bo: Milestone number six, where not only is your money saving harder than you can, but now at this stage your money can actually go out and work even harder than you do.

Brian: Look, you guys know we’ve shared in content before that a lot of the research shows it’s going to take 20 plus years to reach that first millionaire status with your investment assets specifically. I’m beyond that age now. I’m in my 50s. And I’ll tell you, one of the things when you get to a certain age and you’re around other successful people, this is one of those milestones that I will tell you is a fun little thing that I’ve talked with friends and neighbors about. You will open your quarterly report and you’ll look at your investment statements and you’ll be like, “Holy cow, my money has now reached a level.” Now, this is not full financial independence because this is just a moment in time, a snapshot at this moment. But when you look at that quarterly statement and you say, “Wait a minute. How much did my account go up? How much did I make? My portfolio made more money for me than I did going to work.” That’s an indicator. You’re not at full financial independence because we have to stress test this, we’ve got to figure it all out. But it is a pretty strong indicator that something’s going right because in this moment in time, maybe it was outside performance or good things that were going on in the market, it did more than you can with your back, your brain, and even your hands. That is powerful and that’s very motivating.

Bo: Yeah. Let’s put some numbers to this. Let’s assume that you have a salary or an income of $60,000 per year. Well, once your portfolio hits $750,000, if you can earn an 8% annualized rate of return, that rate of return would generate for you $60,000 a year in growth. If you make $90,000 a year, a portfolio of about $1.125 million earning 8% would make $90,000 a year. If you make $120,000 a year, $10,000 a month, but you can build up a portfolio to a million and a half dollars, a million and a half dollars earning 8% annualized grows at a clip of about $120,000 per year. At this threshold, your dollars, your portfolio can actually work and generate more income, more return than you can on your own. Right. You’ve already alluded to this. It’s not financial independence yet, but it is indeed moving in the right direction.

Brian: Well, think about it because this is just a snapshot in this moment in time. There’s still inflation you have to take into account. There’s sequence of return risk. There’s your specific needs in retirement. Are you going to be debt-free? Are the kids out of the house? There are lots of things that go into it, but as I said earlier, still a really strong indicator that you’re moving in the right direction.

Milestone #7: Financial Independence (25:07)

Bo: And once you’ve done that, as you continue moving in that right direction, you do hit milestone number seven. And milestone number seven is exactly what we have been describing: financial independence, where now you have solved the money problem. You get to do what you want to do, the way you want to do it, on your own terms. And you’ve built a portfolio that can sustain and provide for you not only today but also for the rest of your life. Now, for a lot of you who consume personal finance content, you’re going to want to do the napkin plan to see what that number might be for you. And something that a lot of people talk about when they’re doing napkin planning is the safe withdrawal rate. The 4% rule is really popular. So we figure why not? Now look, there are some nuances to this. There’s even potentially you could increase this beyond 4% depending upon what age you decide that you’re going to retire. But for just conversation’s sake, if you need $50,000, you would need a portfolio of about $1.2 million. If you want $100,000 in retirement, you would need right around $2.5 million. And for $150,000 in retirement, you would need $3.7 million.

Brian: Now, again, this is back of the napkin math. This is very rudimentary planning. When it actually comes time for you to reach financial independence, we want to make sure that you have a portfolio that is at a number that can provide for the specific life that you want to live. And it should factor in expenses that you have on a normal and ongoing basis and then irregular expenses and account for inflation and sequence of return and Social Security and different retirement income sources you might have.

Bo: And we want you to actually stress test that plan. Not just to make sure that you have a generalized plan that generally 4% would work, but no, I know specifically what my cash flows are going to look like from the time I retire. If I retire at 60, I want to answer the question from 60 to age 95. What are my base level living expenses? How am I going to pay for health insurance? How often am I going to replace my cars? What do I want my travel budget to look like? How am I going to help my kids? And you have actually modeled that out and stress tested it to make sure the pot of assets you’ve built up can actually sustain with a high probability of success that lifestyle that you want to live. When you’ve done that and you’ve reached a high probability of success, that’s when we would argue that you are actually at milestone number seven, financial independence.

Brian: I love this type of content because guys, we’ve just taken you through seven key milestones where we literally took you from just baby bird status to you leave the nest and now you’re trying to figure out, do you own the nest? Do you get to be financially independent? Where are you at in your journey? And all these milestones are going to be building experience, are going to be building wisdom. But I think you’re going to probably get close to financial independence or maybe you’re approaching it in the next 5 years, and part of wisdom is looking at the situation going, man, I just don’t know what I don’t know. And you start going, holy cow, I have come so far, but I’ve never done this before. I’ve never managed a multiple seven-figure portfolio. What happens if this thing goes down 20 or 30%? Do I have enough? Am I structured right from a tax standpoint? Man oh man, do I not like giving Uncle Sam more than I should? All these things are going to be playing out in your head. Instead of you trying to figure out how you go about this all alone, we’ll leave the porch light on. We can help you with this. We’ve literally helped thousands of people build financial independence. We know where the blind spots are. You do not have to figure this out all by yourself. All you have to do is go to our website and consider becoming a client. Remember who started the abundance cycle and planted all the seeds of knowledge. I’m your host Brian, joined by Mr. Bo. Money Guy Team, out!