OKAY, here’s me in a nutshell: Coming out of college, I was scared of the opposite sex, I hated where I lived, I had no viable skills, and the worst of it, I was flat broke. Maybe right now you are better off than I was, maybe worse, but I  was in a place where I wanted a change. To change everything. I wanted something better. It wasn’t peachy being a newly sprung college grad with a crappy day job, trying to get by in my suburban hometown living in my mom’s basement among abandoned exercise equipment and slowly leaking beanbag chairs. It didn’t take me long to figure out that wasn’t the way I wanted to live—that is, on someone else’s terms and schedule, with a limited social calendar, and, not to mention, under financial constraints. So, at the age of twenty-two, I happened upon an idea so crazy I thought it just might work: I would become a millionaire by the time I was thirty.

Of course, I wasn’t the first person to set this goal, but I’m not sure how many people actually accomplish it, and my guess is that those who have probably went about it differently than I did.

You see, I’m just a plain ol’ gravelly voiced dude with  no special talents. I didn’t become an investment banker or a high-powered lawyer, and my family’s not loaded. When I decided to be a millionaire by thirty, I had just accepted a job in a new town, leaving behind a ridiculous comfort zone of familiar surroundings and friends. And, of course, my mom’s weekly Chore Wheel. I left that all behind to make $40,000 a year as a technical-support guy in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I definitely didn’t  know what I was getting into, but I was excited about it.

I embarked on my new life with a freshly printed college diploma and $10,000 to my name. That’s a lot of money for a twenty-two-year-old. But because I made some solid financial decisions before and during college, I was leaving school ahead of my friends, financially speaking. I went to a university that offered me a full scholarship, and
I kept it all four years. (That doesn’t mean I’m smart; it just means my college had loose standards.) It wasn’t the school of my dreams, but I knew I could make it work. It took me a semester or two, but I eventually found a way to balance my studies and keg stands (both required someone shouting “Hurry! Before the girls/cops get here!”).

Another chunk of that ten grand came from money I had been saving since sixth grade. My mother, in an effort to make me interested in personal finance, had promised to double any amount of money I deposited into my savings  account. Looking back on it now, it made no sense for her to teach me the value of money by giving me free money.

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