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 January.
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 52 and my wife is 44.
We have been married 15 years.
Do you have kids/family (if so, how old are they)?
We have three kids, ages 7, 9, and 9.
One boy and twin girls.
What area of the country do you live in (and urban or rural)?
We live in Rockland County, NY, on one acre of property just south of Harriman State Park. We get all sorts of visitors from deer to bears and foxes.
I’m about an hour drive to the city and 20 minutes to NJ.
What is your current net worth?
It fluctuates, but currently, my wife and I have a combined net worth of $3,265,000.
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?
There are a few assets that make up our net worth.
We each have a 401k which total about $2.5 million and make up the bulk of our net worth. There is also my after-tax, liquid brokerage account, which I have named my freedom fund.
I use E*TRADE, and I have had the account for about 7 years now. It’s what allowed me to bridge the gap between full retirement and the part-time work I do now.
My Freedom Fund is about $350,000.
(I have recently negotiated a sweet pull-back on my work responsibilities that allows me to work only 25 hrs a week on my terms. I draw from the Freedom Fund to cover the gap from my old salary. More on this later.)
We also have equity in our home, which is not fully paid off. I don’t like to include that as net worth because it’s not really liquid until you sell the house and pay a bunch of fees and stuff, but the equity in our home is about $400,000.
Finally, we have the emergency fund, simple savings and checking accounts, and some physical silver I keep in the safe. These can range anywhere between $15k to $30k at any given time.
EARN
What is your job?
I spent the last 30 years working in a leadership role in retail. Since March of 2025, I have worked part-time for the same company Monday through Friday 9:30am to 2:30pm.
This allows me to be home any time the kids are not in school.
What is your annual income?
My annual income in 2024 was $125k. 2025 will be about $45k.
My wife makes about $115k.
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 feel like I have worked my whole life. When I was 10, I delivered newspapers.
When I was 15, I washed dishes at the local Pizzeria. I guess my first real, on-the-books job was pushing carts at ShopRite. I made $5 an hour and worked nights and weekends.
From there, I worked several other jobs that didn’t last more than a few months each. I started working for my current company in 1994 while I was in college.
I pushed carts there as well and eventually became a cashier. As college was coming to an end and I still had no idea what to do, I decided to enter leadership and start working towards promotions to make more money.
Before I knew it, I was a salaried manager working my butt off for way too many hours and ridiculous, inhumane times (I’d often wake up at midnight to go to work).
I can’t even begin to count how many 15-hour shifts I worked (12 hours was the norm). Over my career I have worked 24+ hour shifts, I’ve woken up at every hour imaginable to go to work, I’ve driven into Harlem sitting in George Washington Bridge traffic on my hour and a half each way commute just for the pleasure of getting home at 2 am to 3 kids in diapers as my wife was waking up to go to work.
When I look back, I’m not even sure how I did some of it, but I guess you could say fear of failing combined with a sense of responsibility, good work ethic, grit, determination, and hard work all combined for me to succeed. (Until I completely burned out).
In 2024, I started to feel physical pain like I never did before in my left elbow and decided after several weeks to get it checked out, and since I was there, I had my nagging left shoulder checked as well.
Turns out I needed surgery on both, which was quite possibly the best thing that could have happened to me. It gave me a much-needed break of 7 months off of work, at which time I was able to come to the decision that I would step back and work only part-time.
This also gave me the opportunity to be home for my children every morning before school and every day after school to get them off the bus. This wouldn’t have been possible if not for the hard work and sacrifices I had made for 30 years prior.
What tips do you have for others who want to grow their career-related income?
If you want to grow your career-related income, I would say there are a few things you should do.
- Work your butt off. Build the skills and experience required to become an expert at whatever you do.
- Do what others are not willing to do. I was never the smartest, but the fact I could be counted on to come in at midnight and get stuff done and still have energy to be productive 15 hours later, well, there weren’t many people doing that, and I was rewarded for it with promotion after promotion.
- Stop complaining. Nobody wants to hear it. Your boss just wants results. Be the person they can rely on to get them, and they will remember it when it’s time to pick their replacement.
I know this sounds contradictory, considering I mentioned earlier that I burned out, but I think I ran faster than most and certainly faster and harder than my body could carry me.
Also, I did it for over 30 years. But if you want to succeed where others aren’t, then you are going to have to do the things they aren’t and sacrifice where they won’t.
What’s your work-life balance look like?
Today, my work-life balance looks like this. I basically work whenever I feel like it. I am extremely fortunate in that I have built up enough good will with the people I work for that they allow me to work a schedule that mirrors my kids’ school schedule.
That means Monday through Friday (No Weekends). That means I use my sick time and vacation time to be home for holidays, winter break, half days, and any other time needed.
If one of my kids gets sick, I’m calling out. As mentioned earlier, I spent decades sacrificing my work-life balance to get to this point, but it also made me a millionaire so there’s a tradeoff.
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 can get into this more in the invest section, but I used my downtime while sitting home after surgery to learn options trading.
Last year, 2025, I earned almost $80,000 selling puts and covered call options on stocks I already owned or planned to buy in my freedom fund.
SAVE
What is your annual spending?
Ok, so keep in mind I spent many, many years sacrificing driving crappy cars and eating Pop-Tarts for dinner, but last year as a family we spent almost $175,000.
What are the main categories (expenses) this spending breaks into?
Monthly Regular Expenses
- Mortgage and Property Taxes – $2500
- Car Payment – 500
- Oil – $400
- Utilities – $300
- Insurance – $500
- Gas and EZ Pass – $600
- Phones and Cable $350
- Subscriptions – $50
- Trash Pickup – $65
- Kids’ Sports (soccer, Karate, Lacrosse, etc.) $500
- Groceries and Toiletries – $1000
Additional large spending throughout the year:
- $12,000 downpayment on car for my wife
- $15,000 on vacations
- $8,000 health and wellness, mostly PT and some dental work I had done
- Home repairs and new furniture – $15,000
- Unexpected costs, entertainment, Dining out, $20,000
The rest is miscellaneous stuff like gifts, clothes, parties for kids, etc.
Do you have a budget? If so, how do you implement it?
We do not really follow a strict budget anymore. Everything is run through the credit card, so it’s all tracked for us; we just make sure at the end of every month the balance is zero or close to zero.
All of our savings are automatic, and we pay ourselves first and then just kinda spend whatever is left over. It’s really nice to be here, from scrounging for change to buy gas so I could work another day, 25 years ago.
What percentage of your gross income do you save and how has that changed over time?
I was fortunate enough to have my company enroll me in my 401k with an increasing match each year. They did this at a time when I was younger and not very responsible.
Certainly not thinking about the future.
So basically, 30 years ago, I was enrolled in the 401k with a company match, and every year it was increased by 1% unless I went in and manually changed it, which I did a few times as money got tight.
Once I realized my 401k was self-sustaining and would grow big enough to easily outlive me, I decided to lower my contribution to the bare minimum required to get the maximum match, and I would invest the difference every month in my Freedom Fund. I also quit smoking around this time and put that money towards my freedom fund every month.
As time went on, I found other areas to cut, and at my max was saving somewhere in the 20-25% range each month.
My wife contributes 15% to her 401k pretty consistently. She rarely makes changes, and although she is 8 years younger than me, she is catching up to me and will probably pass me by.
There were times we over-saved and blew up the credit card higher than we would have liked. The good thing about saving is that you now have the money to pay that right down.
So it’s a balancing act at times. How much can I save without tipping the boat and flooding us with debt?
What’s your best tip for saving (accumulating) money?
I guess it depends on what you are comfortable with. For me, this has evolved over time.
The best advice I ever received is to automate your savings so you don’t even know it’s happening. Take $100 a month and pay yourself before everything else.
Tony Robbins said you treat it as if the government raised your taxes by that amount.
What would you do? You’d pay it! So pay yourself.
Accumulating money, I would say you need to invest in the highest yield lowest risk investment you are comfortable with. For me, in the beginning, it was index funds.
When I was first starting my E*TRADE account 7 years ago, I made quite a few costly errors investing in individual stocks, and I learned hard lessons.
Ever heard of a company called Tattooed Chef? Probably not because they went belly up. Well, I thought I could make a quick buck there, and it didn’t quite work out.
What’s your best tip for spending less money?
Put it in units of time instead of money.
How many hours do you need to spend at work in order to have the top-tier Netflix subscription, the latest iPhone or a new pair of sneakers? Can it wait? Do you want it, or do you just want to know you can have it?
I find a lot of times, just knowing I could have the thing is enough satisfaction, and I move on and save the money. I haven’t owned a new car in 2 decades.
Last car I bought i walked into the dealer, pointed and said “that one, here’s a check.”
Most people are spoiled and don’t even realize how much crap they waste money on. If you want to spend less money, spend less money. It really is that simple.
After I bought my first Condo and realized, after the fact, I probably couldn’t afford it and the lifestyle of going out every night, I decided to cancel cable. No tv, no internet, no Xbox. None of it.
What is your favorite thing to spend money on/your secret splurge?
I love a good steak. Some top picks in no particular order are Capital Grille’s Dried Porcini Rub and Balsamic Bone in RibEye, Ruth’s Chris Filet Mignon (the sweet potatoes too), BLT Ribeye, and you gotta get the popovers. X2O Xaviars on the Hudson has an incredible Ribeye for 2 which has a brown sugar rub with cayenne pepper that’s pretty awesome with bearnaise sauce.
I could go on and on, but yeah, a good steak is priceless. I think everyone should try Peter Luger’s at least once, also.
INVEST
What is your investment philosophy/plan?
Slow and steady wins the race. Becoming a millionaire in most cases is very boring.
It’s socking away small sums of money regularly and investing in safe investments and then waiting a long period of time for compounding to work its magic. It’s not really all that hard; anyone can do it, but most don’t have the patience.
Compounding should be one of the top lessons taught in math classes in schools across the world. It should be in every curriculum, every year, over and over until it becomes ingrained in our everyday culture.
It pisses me off that it’s not, and it’s one of the reasons I decided to start a blog, Early Retirement Earl, and eventually a 48-Lesson Financial Literacy Course, which I give away for free. Someone tried to teach me about compounding 20 years ago, but I didn’t listen.
I got lucky with my 401k and eventually I learned the hard way that you can’t just keep running through walls at work to earn money. Eventually, you need to plan for the future.
So now If I can reach even just one stubborn person like I was 20 years ago, I will feel better about my own lack of foresight.
Just to drive home the point on compounding, my own 401k today is valued at $1,356,725. I have contributed $74,686, my employer has contributed $160,882, and the difference of $1,121,157 is all gains.
This is just my 401k. My wife’s 401k has a similar trajectory as well.
This not only demonstrates the power of compounding but also the importance of capitalizing on the company match.
What has been your best investment?
I just doubled my money in 8 months in AMD in 2025. That was pretty awesome.
Also, I mentioned earlier I own some silver, well I was buying it in the $20 range, now it just passed $80. I may have been earlier, but I wasn’t wrong on that one.
By far my best investment has been my 401k which has been a consistent growth over the last 30 years. It consists of mostly general market funds. It has yielded an annual average of 10.29% per year for 30 years.
What has been your worst investment?
I mentioned it earlier, Tattooed Chef. I lost about $15k on that one.
I was also foolish enough to buy a marijuana stock called Planet 13 that floundered slowly for years until I finally gave up on it. I think I lost about $10k on that one.
What’s been your overall return?
On my 401k, I can go back and look and see exactly. It’s 10.29% annual for the life of the account.
If I estimate everything, the houses that my wife and I have owned, our 401ks, my E*TRADE account, the silver, I’d say it’s well over 12% annually. We both owned condos before we purchased our first house, and we sold all 3 for profit.
How often do you monitor/review your portfolio?
Every day. I’m obsessed.
When I finally made the decision that I was going to take control of my early retirement and lowered my 401k contribution in lieu of my after-tax liquid brokerage account (my freedom fund), I invested mostly in index funds. Then I learned some hard lessons with bad stock choices and slowed down a bit.
When I got bored during my surgery recovery and learned to trade options, it became a daily requirement.
I trade options in the QQQ every day. If I own it today, I sell covered calls.
When I get assigned, I sell puts. It’s called the wheel strategy, and it’s producing income for me I wouldn’t have imagined.
I collect premiums selling options on stocks I already own or stocks I am preparing to buy anyway. Instead of just buying AMD at its market price, I sell put options at a price below the current market price.
I get paid the premium immediately, and if the stock is below the option strike price I chose at the expiration date I choose, I will accumulate the shares at that price, which is lower than the market value the day I made the decision to purchase. It’s a win-win.
Then once I own the shares, I can go and sell covered call options at a strike price that is higher than what I purchased the shares for. Again, I collect premium, and if the stock goes up, the shares get called away, and I get paid the price I set when I sold the covered calls.
Again, it’s a win-win.
My only risk is if the stock goes down, which is why I only use this strategy for shares of companies I would have invested in anyway.
This is a very simplified explanation of how this works, and I know I entered at a time when the market was on a nice high, but this has breathed new life into my freedom fund this year. Instead of just drawing down on it to pay bills, I am now earning income to pay bills, and the principal doesn’t need to be touched.
In fact, I’ve earned so much that my balance at the end of the year is actually higher than it was at the start of the year, despite monthly withdrawals.
NET WORTH
How did you accumulate your net worth?
As I mentioned earlier, I got lucky with my 401k and it is the bulk of my net worth. However, I also made a very well thought-out decision to lower my contributions to the bare minimum so I could start building a liquid fund that I could have penalty-free access to in order to retire early.
My Freedom Fund sits at $350,000 now, just 7 years after I opened the account and began building it. I made sure to sock away at least $1000 a month, and I also saved any extra income from Bonuses at work or any surplus after bills were taken care of.
I also refinanced my home in 2020 when interest rates were at their lowest (2.75%), and I was able to access $100,000 cash worth of equity which went directly into the Freedom Fund.
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?
I would say my greatest strength is Saving. It’s something I learned the hard way.
I grew up poor. In fact, I was homeless twice. My mother raised us alone, me and my 3 siblings.
When I was in the 3rd grade, we were kicked out of the house we lived in because the landlord failed to pay his mortgage and got foreclosed on. For several months, my family was broken up and lived with friends of the family or family members.
I lived with a friend, my mother lived with a relative, and my brother and sisters were somewhere else. It was not a good time.
When I was 19, my mother passed away due to cancer, and again I found myself with nowhere to live. I tell you these things not for sympathy but to demonstrate 2 points.
The first being why I became such a good saver. I really had no choice but to figure out how to sacrifice certain wants in order to survive.
And the second reason is to let you know that I am living proof that anyone can become a millionaire. I came from literally nothing.
Yes, I had some good people help me along the way, but I also scratched and clawed and sacrificed every step of the way.
And that’s basically what saving is: It’s sacrificing certain things you can live without in order to have a better life later. Dave Ramsey describes it this way: “Live like no one else now, so you can live like no one else later.”
What road bumps did you face along the way to becoming a millionaire and how did you handle them?
Well, again, my 401k aside, I was a late starter. I was a late starter in saving, I was a late starter in investing, and I was a late starter in life.
First Condo at 30, Married at 36, Kids at 43 and 45. I spent a lot of years making bad decisions.
I once took out a personal loan to buy a motorcycle before I even had a Motorcycle License. And a year later, that motorcycle was stolen.
The path for me wasn’t always that I’m going to be a millionaire someday. In fact, the opposite, I never thought it would be possible.
That is, in fact, one of my big regrets: that I didn’t start sooner. Having 3 kids in diapers in your 40s and staring down the barrel of a career that was slowly killing you while trying to stay awake on 2 hours of sleep to chase around three little ones was a huge wake-up call.
I knew it was time to take control of my finances, or I couldn’t be the father my kids deserved. Once I realized it could be done, I stopped fooling around.
I quit smoking, I buckled down on my finances and saved everything possible while always making sure we had the quality of life we worked so hard to earn. Frugality can be soul-crushing, too, if you let it.
Living with no cable, no TV, no internet, and eating Pop-Tarts for dinner was not fun, trust me.
My focus now is to reap the rewards of my prior sacrifice by giving my children the life I never had. Not only by being present and maybe spoiling them too much, but also by creating generational wealth for them and their kids.
My goal is to be the one in my bloodline who turns this train around for every future generation after me.
What are you currently doing to maintain/grow your net worth?
Currently, my 401k will continue to grow until I start to draw down. My current plan is to use the rule of 55 in a few years to gain penalty-free access.
I mentioned earlier I am still working, and I will continue to do so as long as they continue to allow me to work the schedule I need. But it’s good to know the rule of 55 is there when I need it.
In the meantime, I’ll continue to take my 10% growth every year on my 401k plus the company match, which is less now than it was when I was on salary, but it’s still free money.
My other investments will continue to grow with the markets.
As for my Freedom Fund, I plan to continue using the wheel strategy to sell options and collect premiums for income. If the next few years are as good as 2025 was to me, I should be able to not only use this strategy to pay the bills, but I should have excess income to continue to save and grow my little empire of dirt.
Do you have a target net worth you are trying to attain?
$10 Million is a nice round number that should be attainable.
This should give me a cushion against inflation, insurance against rising health care costs and a nice legacy to leave behind for future generations.
How old were you when you made your first million and have you had any significant behavior shifts since then?
Honestly, I couldn’t tell you the exact date. I’m sure it was earlier than I was paying attention.
If you take into account my 401k, my wife’s 401k, and our home equity I would say probably 2017 or 2018. That would make me about 45 years old at the time.
It wasn’t hitting the million that did it, but I would say I am a lot more relaxed about money now. Meaning I don’t worry about how the bills will be paid.
I worry about my kids’ future as I’m sure all parents do, but I don’t get anxious about spending money. If the water heater breaks, it just gets fixed, whereas I can remember having my car break down 25 years ago and feeling like it would lead me back to the poorhouse.
I can’t overstate how bad things were and the feeling of helplessness when you can’t afford basic things like just transportation to work.
What personal habits and/or traits have you developed that have made you successful at growing your net worth?
Patience.
It’s a slow, boring crawl up that mountain.
What money mistakes have you made along the way that others can learn from?
Sometimes I think I wouldn’t do anything differently because all of my experiences have led me right to where I am now, which is a pretty good place.
As for what mistakes people can avoid, I think the first thing is they need to realize they are in control. I felt like a victim for so long, and all that does is give you an excuse to not try.
What people can learn from this is, if you change nothing, nothing changes. A lot of the decisions I made, I had to make out of necessity to survive.
However, once I got past survival mode and realized I could write my own story, that’s when everything changed.
What advice do you have for ESI Money readers on how to become wealthy?
Stop complaining or making excuses and get to work. Audit your finances.
Are you an over-spender? Are you an under earner? Do you need to spend less AND make more?
Whatever it is, figure it out and go out there and fix it. Nobody is going to do the work for you.
FUTURE
What are your plans for the future regarding lifestyle?
I already negotiated a sweet self-demotion at work, so I guess you could say I’m sorta semi-retired now. I am 52 years old, so in a few years, I can access my 401k using the rule of 55.
Not sure if I will actually do that or not. I don’t think I will need to, but it’s good to know it’s there.
For those who don’t know, the Rule of 55 allows you to take penalty-free (though still taxed) distributions from your current 401k if you leave your job in or after the year you turn 55. Since I plan to hit that milestone in 2028, it’s a huge part of my ‘Late Starter’ strategy.
My kids are still young and I’m really enjoying being able to be home all the time to watch them grow up. I never miss a recital, a soccer practice, or a dentist appointment.
It’s pretty awesome for a guy who grew up without a father to be able to do this.
I have thoughts of treating myself with a new car or one day buying a castle, so who knows.
Right now, I picked up a little hobby of watch collecting. They aren’t very expensive watches; my most expensive one costs $600.
One day, I’ll go out and buy a Rolex. Or maybe I won’t.
That’s the beautiful thing, I can do whatever I want now.
What are your retirement plans?
Once the kids are older, I’d like to get in the car and travel. Nothing beats a spontaneous road trip.
We take vacations every year now, but I feel it will be a lot easier to do spontaneous stuff when they get a little older and more self-sufficient. It will also be easier to do things like that once I am fully retired.
My wife still enjoys working, so I’m not really sure what the future holds as far as moving to the beach or sitting on a park bench all day. Time will tell.
Are there any issues in retirement that concern you? If so, how are you planning to address them?
Yeah, getting old sucks. I’ve had 2 surgeries in the past year, and new aches and pains pop up every day and I’m only 52.
What’s my body going to do at 62 or 82? I’ve changed my eating habits, and I try to exercise and stretch more to combat this, but as the saying goes, Father Time is undefeated.
I’m just glad I got a chance now to stop and smell the roses.
MISCELLANEOUS
How did you learn about finances and at what age did it “click”?
Well, school certainly never taught me. I learned just by getting sick of the idea of working til I die.
I started to Google stuff, discovered the FI/RE community, and down the rabbit hole I went. It really clicked for me when I learned about compounding and started to play around with calculators.
It became real for me when I began noticing the compounding of my own money in my 401k. That’s when I decided I should take this stuff more seriously and actually be intentional about it.
Who inspired you to excel in life? Who are your heroes?
My mother. Strongest human being I ever knew. She never let her circumstances tear her down, and she had some tough ones.
She was able to raise 4 kids alone, and although she didn’t have much money she somehow managed to give me a very memorable and special childhood.
I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for her, but she never let it show. At least not to her kids.
She never gave up, even when it would have been understandable if she did. I owe my work ethic and my resolve to her.
She sacrificed her own happiness to provide the best life for her kids that she could, and I will never truly be able to express my gratitude for her impact on my life.
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?
Unshakable by Tony Robbins. And really every one of his books. He is a remarkable person.
If you don’t know anything about him, go look him up on YouTube and check out some of his stuff. I promise you will be better off after.
This one won’t help you become wealthy, but holy cow, what an eye opener… The Creature From Jekyll Island by G Edward Griffin. It is about the creation of the Federal Reserve, which sounds incredibly boring, but go read the first chapter and tell me it’s not better than any suspense novel you ever read.
The Richest Man in Babylon by George S Clason. Just good, solid advice for beginners.
Do you give to charity? Why or why not? If you do, what percent of time/money do you give?
We do. We contribute to a program at work.
We also contribute to the children’s miracle network, and with 3 kids, you could only imagine the amount of clothing that gets donated to Goodwill and Salvation Army each year.
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?
I currently have custodial accounts for all 3 of my children. I am not sure exactly how the wealth will be transferred from us to them.
That is something we will still need to work out. I’m still a spry 52 years old, so there is plenty of time.
I’m thinking we will probably need to set up trusts soon in order to make the transition as smooth as possible. Maybe once I decide and go through the process, I’ll write a blog post about it.
