Here’s our latest interview with a millionaire as we seek to learn from those who have grown their wealth to high heights.
If you’d like to be considered for an interview, drop me a note and we can chat about specifics.
This interview took place in October.
My questions are in bold italics and their responses follow in black.
Let’s get started…
OVERVIEW
How old are you (and spouse if applicable, plus how long you’ve been married)?
I am 48 years old and my husband just turned 49.
We have been together for 19 years and married for 17 years.
Do you have kids/family (if so, how old are they)?
We have one daughter who is 15.
What area of the country do you live in (and urban or rural)?
We currently live in suburban Northern California (not the Bay Area). We moved here five years ago when we planned on retiring to get away from crowded Southern California.
We enjoy it here as it is quiet, close to nature, and has excellent public schools. My husband likes to fish and camp in the Sierras.
My daughter is able to join a ski team at her high school. We will re-evaluate when my daughter goes off to college and we are interested in moving to a more walkable city at that time.
What is your current net worth?
Our net worth is $6.1 million.
What are the main assets that make up your net worth (stocks, real estate, business, home, retirement accounts, etc.) and any debt that offsets part of these?
- Real Estate: $725,000 (primary residence fully paid off)
- Cash and Money Market: $90,000
- ROTH IRAs and HSAs: $569,000 (invested in VTSAX)
- Traditional IRAs: $1,568,000 (invested in VTSAX)
- Brokerage: $3,187,000 ($193K in stock of prior company and remainder in VTSAX)
We have no debt as we generally avoid it and have paid for our last house and cars with cash.
EARN
What is your job?
My husband and I are both currently retired.
My husband retired from his software development career in 2020. I retired from my financial analyst career in 2024.
We both made the choice to avoid management and stick to being individual contributors and left at the lead analyst level. I mostly worked for large companies doing budgeting and reporting.
What is your annual income?
Now that we are both retired, our annual income depends on how much we want to recognize. For 2025, it will probably be $120K.
- Qualified Dividends: $45,000
- Interest: $5,000
- Roth conversion: $30,000
- Capital Gains: $40,000
I am trying to get rid of the stock I bought from a former company through a stock purchase plan, as it is underperforming. I am also taking advantage of not having a cliff for ACA this year.
Next year, with the cliff back, I anticipate recognizing a much lower income of $60K.
Our annual income at its peak before my husband retired was about $300K (husband $160K, me $140K.)
Tell us about your income performance over time. What was the starting salary of your first job, how did it grow from there (and what you did to make it grow), and where are you now?
I worked various minimum wage part-time jobs all throughout college, ranging from cafeteria crew to library support. I majored in finance and my first financial analyst job after college paid $35K per year in 1998.
I worked there for three years before going to business school for two years.
After business school, I wasn’t able to change careers to management consulting like I had hoped for, and so I went back to financial analysis. I got a job as a senior financial analyst at $70K per year.
I worked at that company for less than a year before a merger and layoffs were announced. I quickly jumped ship to a different company and worked at that place for six years.
I got promoted to lead analyst a couple of years into that job and was making a little over $110K with a bonus.
I got laid off in 2010 and had a difficult time finding a job during the recession, and being pregnant. I took a 16-month maternity break before finding a lower-level job that paid $95K.
We decided to move to Southern California to be closer to my family a year later, and I was able to get back to a lead-level position paying $120K including bonus.
After that, my salary only grew with inflation as I did not get any promotions and instead chose to stay at the highest individual contributor level. I am an introvert and do not enjoy corporate politics or managing people, and I decided that I was making enough to reach my goals.
I was making about $140K when I left that company after seven years.
My husband had a similar path, albeit a slower ramp-up as his first job after college was in IT help desk support and made under $30K. He was able to transition to a software developer position, and that, along with moving out of the South to Seattle, grew his salary.
He was making $20K less than I was when we met, but he eventually caught up to me and passed me with his last company. He got lucky, as that was the only company he received stock options worth anything.
He ended up cashing out $600K when he retired. So if you include that in his salary, he was actually making $300K per year at that company since he worked there for four years.
What tips do you have for others who want to grow their career-related income?
The best advice is to pick a career path that has good salary potential. Then work hard, network, and be flexible and willing to take on the tough tasks.
Also, be willing to move to where jobs are. I moved to Dallas and Seattle for jobs, even though those cities weren’t on my radar and I didn’t know anyone there.
What’s your work-life balance look like?
I had a fairly good work-life balance at most of my jobs. Only a couple of times a year during the annual planning season would I need to work late.
The majority of the time, it was an 8-5 easy job. I could have made more money if I had gone into management positions, but I just didn’t have the personality for it, and prioritized work-life balance with a young child.
Do you have any sources of income besides your career? If so, can you list them, give us a feel for how much you earn with each, and offer some insight into how you developed them?
We do not have any other sources of income aside from dividends and interest from our stocks and cash.
We never had a desire to be landlords and were too lazy to do any side hustles.
SAVE
What is your annual spending?
Our annual spending ranges from $60-80K. These numbers do not include income and payroll taxes when working.
- 2017: $63,787
- 2018: $55,113
- 2019: $78,375
- 2020: $48,989
- 2021: $60,427
- 2022: $76,161
- 2023: $60,181
- 2024: $67,451
What are the main categories (expenses) this spending breaks into?
Total budget of $70K in 2025.
Essential Expenses ($45K)
- Property tax: $7,000
- State income tax: $3,000
- Federal income tax: $0
- Home insurance: $1,300
- Essential home maintenance: $3,000
- Car insurance/gas/maintenance: $5,000
- Utilities/phone/internet: $5,000
- Healthcare: $7,200
- Groceries: $7,500
- General merchandise: $6,000
Discretionary Expenses ($25K)
- Restaurants: $2,500
- Travel: $12,000
- Optional home improvements: $5,000
- Entertainment: $2,500
- Kid related: $3,000
Do you have a budget? If so, how do you implement it?
Yes, I am a budget nerd. I did it for work as my job, and I’d like to think I am fairly good at it.
I create a budget based on prior year actuals and anticipated changes. I monitor it at the end of each month to ensure we have enough cash in the checking account.
My husband is not into budgeting and does not pay much attention to it. I show him our net worth and budget each January, but that is about it.
We just agree to discuss purchases over a couple hundred dollars before making them. I pay most of the bills, and we use the Empower app to monitor spending.
I don’t worry too much if we go over certain categories now, as we have surpassed our target.
When we were still in the accumulation phase, I set our savings goal based on what we needed to reach our retirement number by 45. The rest was left for us to spend, and it worked for us since we made high enough incomes.
What percentage of your gross income do you save and how has that changed over time?
Overall, our savings rate has been about 35%.
Some years, when we had daycare expenses, were lower but offset by higher savings when those expenses were gone.
What’s your best tip for saving (accumulating) money?
Keep things simple and automate your investments and savings.
You just have to get the ball rolling and once you see the compounding work, it will motivate you to keep it going.
What’s your best tip for spending less money?
Try not to care what other people think. I don’t value name brands, fancy cars, nice restaurants, or big houses, and that has enabled me to spend less than other people.
I value efficiency and minimalism and spend a lot less than the average woman on things like clothes, hair, makeup, and jewelry.
I would also recommend looking for creative ways to save money on the things you love to do. My first job was working for an airline because I like to travel.
Although I had a low salary, I was still able to travel often since I got cheap flights and hotel benefits through my company. My husband is against credit card rewards, but that is another option to lower travel costs.
The key is to control spending on the main three costs (housing, transportation, and food) and then focus on what you value (for me it is travel) and cut out the things that don’t matter.
What is your favorite thing to spend money on/your secret splurge?
We like to spend money on travel. Right now, we are limited by the school schedule to spring break and summer vacation. We enjoy visiting Asia and Europe.
In a few years, when we are empty nesters, we will be able to take more trips and increase our spending.
INVEST
What is your investment philosophy/plan?
We’ve drastically simplified our portfolio in the last ten years to just cash and a total market fund. I don’t want to have to think too hard about it anymore.
We had some foreign index funds in the past that were flat for over a ten-year period that I got super frustrated with and sold. Same thing with bonds, we got scared about the market being overvalued and moved into bonds in 2018 and 2020 when we should have just stayed the course.
Bond returns were horrible during that time, and we switched back into stocks a couple years ago.
Although I know it is not optimal and riskier to hold almost 100% stocks, it works better for us mentally to have a simpler portfolio. I think we are too emotional as investors.
Our budget and assumptions are so conservative that we are able to weather a severe downturn. We can drop down to our essentials budget of $45K if needed, which would be less than a 1% withdrawal rate.
This does not even include Social Security at age 70. If benefits remain as is, we would get a combined $87K.
Even if there is a 30% cut, it would be $61K, which is more than our essentials budget.
What has been your best investment?
We dabbled in options trading for a short time and had some Apple options where we made $100K on a $10K investment in 2007.
What has been your worst investment?
Early on, I was trying to pick stocks and picked a couple of bad ones during the dot-com bubble, like WorldCom, that went bust.
I would also say that my graduate degree was ultimately not worth the cost since I didn’t change careers. I lost out on two years of earnings, along with the cost of the degree.
I could have gotten the same job eventually with a couple more years of experience.
What’s been your overall return?
Our overall return has been below the S&P 500 since we were stock picking early on and failing at market timing.
I would guess it is 8-9%.
How often do you monitor/review your portfolio?
I monitor on a monthly basis to ensure our automated transfer from the money market to checking is enough.
As for liquidating assets to fund our retirement, I do that once a year in the Nov/Dec timeframe.
NET WORTH
How did you accumulate your net worth?
We were able to accumulate our net worth due to careers with high salaries, stock options from one company, and an early inheritance from my generous parents.
My parents gave me $300K to pay for a house in cash when we moved close to them 12 years ago. If you take that $300K and factor in market returns, it would be about $1 million in today’s dollars.
So our net worth would be $5.1 million if you take that out.
My husband got lucky with his last company, where he got stock options as a signing bonus that he cashed out for $600K when he left after 4 years in 2020. He got stock options from another company earlier in his career, which turned out to be worthless.
We actually lost money as we paid for the shares and the company went bust. But the experience he got in that job enabled him to get a job with a more successful company later on.
So the key is to keep trying and learn from each position.
The bulk of our net worth was from careers with higher-than-average salaries, allowing us to save 35%. If you can do this for twenty years, then you should be able to achieve financial independence.
What would you say is your greatest strength in the ESI wealth-building model (Earn, Save or Invest) and why would you say it’s tops?
My greatest strength is saving. This probably comes from the scarcity mindset I developed from childhood.
When I lived in Taiwan, our place didn’t have a bathroom, and we had to go down the street to use the neighborhood outhouse. That stuck with me, and I knew I didn’t want to live like that again.
I have never had any issues with delaying gratification and living simply. I am good with numbers, and saving just comes naturally to me.
What road bumps did you face along the way to becoming a millionaire and how did you handle them?
Our biggest road bump was when I got laid off when I was pregnant, and my husband was at a startup making only $50K. It was very hard for me to find another job while pregnant, so I gave up and decided to take a long break.
It was hard not to make any money and invest during that time when the market was recovering from a recession. Eventually, I found another job after 16 months.
I was able to take such a long break because I was so diligent about saving.
What are you currently doing to maintain/grow your net worth?
We have reached and gone beyond our target net worth and are currently trying to navigate the first 5-10 years sequence of returns risk.
We are doing this by making sure our withdrawal rate is at or below Big ERN’s 3.25% perpetual SWR.
Do you have a target net worth you are trying to attain?
My initial target was $1 million. I got it into my head as a kid that I was going to retire with $1 million at age 40.
I think it was a nice round number and worth more 40 years ago. After growing up and getting married, having a kid, and wanting a more conservative withdrawal rate, our target increased to $2.5 million since we wanted to spend about $80K per year.
We reached our target liquid net worth in 2020.
We were both supposed to retire that year, but then COVID hit. My husband had already given notice, but I hadn’t formally done so.
I decided to hedge and do one more year since I could work remote even though we were moving to Northern California. I then tried retiring in 2021 and failed.
I got bored and found another job six months later, which I committed to for two years. I then retired for the second time in 2024.
I think it is good to do one more year or several more years if you are an anxious worrier like me. The complete peace of mind that the additional cushion gives is worth it for some people.
How old were you when you made your first million and have you had any significant behavior shifts since then?
We reached the first million in liquid net when we were 37 years old. As they say, the first million is the hardest.
After we reached it, I think we have relaxed a lot more and are not worried as much over little expenses. It starts compounding significantly after that, and daily fluctuations can be as much as an entire year of your salary.
The growth since then has been nice to see.
- 2013: $953,637
- 2014: $1,100,373
- 2015: $1,168,009
- 2016: $1,408,484
- 2017: $1,827,635
- 2018: $1,848,877
- 2019: $2,472,143
- 2020: $3,266,692
- 2021: $3,807,080
- 2022: $3,102,200
- 2023: $3,963,316
- 2024: $4,804,735
What personal habits and/or traits have you developed that have made you successful at growing your net worth?
I think not caring about keeping up with the Jones and being able to DIY most things (finances, cooking, household repairs, taxes, etc.) has been the most helpful in growing our net worth.
What money mistakes have you made along the way that others can learn from?
As I mentioned before, we made the common mistakes of trying to pick stocks and timing the market. I think we could have had a couple million more if we had simply invested in index funds at the start and not traded so often.
There was not the proliferation of personal finance and FIRE information when I graduated from college as there is now.
What advice do you have for ESI Money readers on how to become wealthy?
You don’t have to be an entrepreneur or real estate investor or have a side hustle to become wealthy.
You can be a little lazy and unambitious like me as long as you are able to live below your means and choose a decent career.
FUTURE
What are your plans for the future regarding lifestyle?
Once my daughter goes to college in a few years, we will increase our annual spend to $120K. I have saved $80K in a 529, which can cover 2 years of an in-state college.
I didn’t want to save too much in case she gets any scholarships. If there are no scholarships, we will have to contribute $20K per year.
We will increase our travel spend by $20K since we will be able to take longer, more extensive vacations. I also anticipate as we grow older, we might pay for more things like yard service, house cleaning, and business class flights.
What are your retirement plans?
Our financial plan in retirement is to ease our way up to spending 3.25% of our liquid assets. It is a big adjustment to spend money, as I am so used to saving.
Our withdrawal rate this year will be less than 1.5% but we don’t really feel like we are depriving ourselves of anything. But I do realize we will have way more money than we need if we keep at such a low withdrawal rate.
I believe my second attempt at retirement will stick this time. The first time I tried to retire in 2021 failed because there were still quite a few pandemic restrictions, and I wasn’t able to find enough fulfilling volunteer activities and hobbies.
I now volunteer weekly at a food bank and the library. I also joined a weekly walking group as well as walking every day with my husband.
My advice is to make sure you find enough activities you want and are able to do before retiring. You can also test it out by doing a sabbatical first.
Are there any issues in retirement that concern you? If so, how are you planning to address them?
The only big unknowns for us in retirement are healthcare costs and long-term care. We are on ACA plans, and the subsidies could be eliminated in the future.
If that happens, that would increase our costs by $20K per year. As for long-term care, we plan on selling our house to fund if necessary.
I don’t believe paying for long-term care insurance is worth it, as so many of those companies go out of business, and not everyone will need it.
MISCELLANEOUS
How did you learn about finances and at what age did it “click”?
I learned about personal finance from books and the internet, as my immigrant parents did not own stocks. They did not talk about money, and to this day only believe in cash and real estate.
So it was trial and error, and eventually, discovering the FIRE movement in the 2010s when I was in my 30s, that it clicked for me. I was always good at saving money, but finding a community with similar early retirement goals gave me the confidence that my plan would work.
Who inspired you to excel in life? Who are your heroes?
My parents were very hardworking and eventually achieved the immigrant success story.
They came to the US with no money, few skills, no college, and no knowledge of English, but were able to work hard and build a business that enabled them to be multimillionaires today.
Do you have any favorite money books you like/recommend? If so, can you share with us your top three and why you like them?
Some of the money books that I enjoyed were Millionaire Next Door, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, and The Simple Path To Wealth.
I think they show how straightforward it is to become a millionaire and provide a good framework to follow.
Do you give to charity? Why or why not? If you do, what percent of time/money do you give?
I volunteer my time every week at the library and food bank. We haven’t donated a lot of money in the past, as I am wary of the admin overhead of many charities.
But now that our net worth is so high, I do think we will look into donor-advised funds and try to give more in the future.
Do you plan to leave an inheritance for your heirs (how do you plan to distribute your wealth at your death)? What are your reasons behind this plan?
We don’t plan to leave a large inheritance to my daughter, but based on how conservative we have been with our assumptions, I do think she will end up getting quite a bit. We plan on paying for college in full and giving her money for a down payment on a house.
We will also fund yearly family vacations with her and college funds for any children she has. We want to give money to her when she needs it in her 20s and 30s rather than later on.
