How to Be a Millionaire

I love saving money and I love investing money. That doesn’t mean I live a total frugal lifestyle. It just means that I weigh up the pros and cons of my purchasing decisions.

If I was preparing for a job interview and I was presented with an opportunity to buy a top of the range black tie for $100 versus an average tie that gets the job done for $20, I’d choose the $20 tie.

Some of you are saying “of course you would choose the cheaper tie! Who wouldn’t?” While others of you are saying “are you serious? You have to look your best for a job interview!”

The thing is that difference of $80 actually gets me two and a half weeks closer to becoming a millionaire.

I believe that anyone in the western world today that is under the age of 30 is pretty much guaranteed to be a millionaire at some point in their life. Because of constant inflation of the dollar, being a millionaire is definitely not what it used to be. It’s just SO EASY to be a millionaire now.

In fact, I’m going to show you how to become a millionaire by saving and investing as little as $5 a day.

Here’s how.

How to Be a Millionaire

 

How Investing Just $5 a Day Can Make You a Millionaire Faster Than You Think

Think about your daily expenditure. How much do you spend each day? How much do you pay for coffee? Lunch? Dinner? Snacks? Transport?

I know people that pay for 4 cups of coffee a day or more! That’s at least $10 in Australia (in fact, I honestly don’t know any coffee shops that do a coffee for only $2.50).

Now, what if I told you that you that if you just halved your coffee intake and instead, invested that extra $5, that you could be a millionaire in 32 years from now?

You might be thinking that 32 years from now is a long time. Well, if you’re 30, you’ll only be 62 and you will still have a long road ahead of you. Plus, how would an extra million dollars in retirement sound?

But not only are you a million dollars richer, I improved your health and wellbeing by making you cut down on your coffee intake each day 🙂 That’s a double-whammy!

Now, this strategy is an aggressive strategy which provides consistent returns of 15% per annum. However, these kinds of returns are not uncommon for those savvy in the financial markets. This scenario also assumes that you don’t have any other wealth or investments other than just $5 a day. Pretty cool, right?

So, let’s take a more conservative approach.

What if you invested just $5 a day at 8% return?

  • After just 10 years, you’ll have $26,449
  • After just 20 years, you’ll have $83,539
  • After just 30 years, you’ll have $206,792

That’s a pretty simple way to make some great income isn’t it? Just by simply putting $5 a day into investments rather than consumables.

 

Strategic Ways to Save That $5 a Day

Now, you might say that “there’s no way I’m cutting down on $5 a day! I need it all!”

Ok, so if that’s the case, let me throw some other suggestions out to you:

  1. Reduce your rent by $35 a week. Try negotiating a cheaper deal with your landlord to save you that $35 a week or perhaps consider moving to a cheaper accommodation. A simple change in rent could mean you don’t even have to think about saving that extra $5 a day.
  2. Cut down on expensive meals. Do you really need to have that $50 meal every week or can you get by with sometimes having a $15 meal?
  3. Negotiate prices. So many things for sale can be negotiated. I recently purchased a new tyre for my car and negotiated it down from $165 to $125… that is the equivalent of 8 days of saving in just a 1 minute conversation! That means I could spoil myself with a coffee a day for over two weeks and still not feel guilty 🙂
  4. Buy a cheaper car. Do you really need a $35,000 car or would the $30,000 car be just as good? That $5,000 saving is the same as one and a half years’ worth of daily $5 savings.
  5. Get a cheaper haircut. Do you really need to pay $150 for a haircut? Crikey! It amazes me how people spend this much. You know what, I just get my family to cut my hair :)… it saves me about $400 a year and 80 days of savings (nearly 3 months!)

There are a million different things you could do to find that extra cash… perhaps that’s a post for another time.

The other alternative is to MAKE an extra $5 a day. And you know what, it’s REALLY NOT that hard to make an extra $5 a day. Perhaps you don’t even have to make a sale every day. Perhaps you just make one sale a year that is worth $1,825… if that’s the case, you’ve got your $5 a day covered! Pretty simple, don’t you think?

 

Why Becoming a Millionaire Won’t Take You 32 Years

The thing is, as you can see there are MULTIPLE ways to save and invest that $5 a day and they are all so SIMPLE to do. In fact, a lot of the decisions you make won’t reduce your quality of life AT ALL. It will in fact INCREASE your quality of life because you will develop a stronger sense of confidence and self-worth knowing that you are disciplined in investing, you’re setting yourself up for your future and you’re progressing towards a meaningful goal.

Imagine combining all of the elements above. Reducing your rent slightly, cutting down on expensive meals, negotiating prices, buying a cheaper car, getting a cheaper haircut. And we’re just getting started…

If you did all of that, do you think that over the course of a year you could average a saving of at LEAST $10 a day? That’s only $300 a month… It could change your life.

 

Over to You

The message is that the little things DO add up.

Do you have a budget?

Are you keeping track of your income and expenditure?

Where are you throwing money around and what opportunities are there for you to save $5 a day?

Leave a comment!

Good luck!

 

Related Posts:

The SMARTER Way to Goal-Setting in 2014

Why 92% of Goals are not Achieved and How You Can Join the 8%

5 Strategies for Delaying Gratification and Why You Should Do it

Money Can’t Buy Happiness… But Happiness Can Get You Money!

 

About the author 

Brendan Baker

Brendan Baker is Australia's leading personal development blogger and and helps people build and grow online businesses based on their passions. He has created the Launch Your Life Academy and Your First 1000 Subscribers. Connect with Brendan: Twitter, Facebook, Google+

Brendan Baker is Australia's leading personal development blogger and and helps people build and grow online businesses based on their passions. He has created the Launch Your Life Academy and Your First 1000 Subscribers. Connect with Brendan: Twitter, Facebook, Google+

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    1. The S&P 500 had a 13% year onbyear return on 2016… so pretty much most companies can give better than that 8%. Take your pick or simply invest in the average for reduced risk and diversity!

  1. I wish I can invest more than that.. great article Brendan.

  2. Hi there..great article and I read your comments as well .. Most of which have responses except for the question that a few people had that you didn’t answer.. Just wondering what kind of account you can invest in at 8% with only $5 per day? Do you wait until the end of the year and take the lump sum? Is it a bond? An IRA? A little more information would be helpful. Thanks

    1. This is the same question that I had, but I don’t see it answered anywhere. Would love to know so that I could be on my way to financial well-being.

    2. Hi Samantha and Dennis,

      In this scenario you wouldn’t actually invest $5 every single day… because you get charged a transaction fee that would eat away at your money.

      Instead, you would bank it up. Say, instead of literally investing $5 a day, you instead invest $1,825 per year ($5 x 365), once per year into a good funds management account. This way, you would pay a single transaction fee.

      In my example, you’re aiming for just 8% returns year on year. If you take 2016 as an example, if you just invested your money in the S&P 500 index, you would have made a return of 16.80%… so it’s very doable!

  3. Great article I’m currently 19 years old and I already use some tips you wrote there for example my Haircut only costs me 10 $ and it doesn’t look bad at all I can’t imagine how people can spend up to 150 $ for a simple Haircut kinda baffles me. Anyway what I will do for sure now is to negotiate prices seems like a cool way to interact with people and also to safe some money. So thanks for the tips.

    Cheers,
    Timo

  4. Discipline.. That’s the real key here.

    great read- thanks : )

  5. Hi Brendan what you think about this .Make and upload 100 free ebooks with affiliate offers to Amazon build a landing page of all 100 books.Go to fiverr to look for a twitter gig to promote the landing page.All it takes is time,research and pay $5 a day on fiverr for promotion.

  6. Brendan,

    Enjoyed your article. Where do you invest 5 dollars a day at 8% without an initial investment into an account? What kind of investment account do you recommend

  7. What’s cool about this is the discipline of being a good steward of your money. I do think it’s dangerous to spend too much emotional energy nicking and diming all the time. But I also know that we do what we tend to do each day. Be willing to give…and receive. Cool article, Brendan!

    1. Hey Larry!

      Thanks. Absolutely right. It really comes down to discipline. It’s the matter of creating the successful habit of saving a portion of money every day.

      First you create your habits then your habits create you.

      1. Hi Brendan what’s the name of the company and their contact info, so I can start a $5 a day account with them?

  8. Brilliant idea, Brendan. This is something that most people who have a job can do 🙂

    1. Exactly… even if you’re just flipping burgers you should be able to manage just $5 a day 🙂

  9. Brendan, you are so on the right track. It starts with small steps. I teach quality of life above THINGS. Don’t be sold into financial bondage. Debt doesn’t serve anyone. Everyone has to start somewhere. Be willing to think outside the box. Do today what others won’t so you can have tomorrow what others don’t. Consider bartering its a lost art. You’re futures bright!

    1. Hey Toni! I love that quote: “Be willing to think outside the box. Do today what others won’t so you can have tomorrow what others don’t”.

      Thanks for the awesome comment!

  10. Alex Gastel says:

    Hi Brendan,

    I like the idea of negotiating more – I practically never do it besides of flea markets. Do you have any tips for me? How do you ask for a lower price in a more professional setting than a flea market – like when you bought your car tyres?

    Thanks for the great article!

    1. Hi Alex,

      There’s never ever harm in ‘just asking; whether it’s the best deal they can do.

      In the case of the tyres, I actually went into another store prior which didn’t have the Tyre in stock and they said they could sell it for $125 but it would take a few days to get in. I simply went to the new store and got them to match the price 🙂

  11. I love articles like this. I’m only 28 but wish I had set a budget and paid more attention to these little details that make a huge difference earlier on in my 20s. I agree to your point, becoming a millionaire just seems easier nowadays. You don’t need Starbucks every day and expensive haircuts. Saying and doing are two different things, but following simple rules like these sure to make it sound enticing! I’m not planning on it taking me 32 years.

    Creating a budget, while it doesn’t sound very sexy, is the most eye-opening, life-changing thing you can do for your future.

    Thanks for this post!

    1. Budget’s are amazing. In fact, from about 2008 – 2012 I tracked every single dollar I spent. Now, a lot of people said I was insane 🙂 But it did give me fantastic insight into exactly how I’m spending my money, where I’m spending it and how much I’m saving each month.

      It’s something I’ve actually just started doing again because it’s a great habit to get into.

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