Deuteronomy 8, 18 says, but thou shall remember the Lord, thy God for it is he that giveth the power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant.
which he swears unto thy fathers as it is this day. True of Kathy founder of Chick fil A said, it’s okay to have wealth, but keep it in your hands, not in your heart. Today I want to discuss becoming a millionaire and share our personal story of becoming one.
But first I want to define what a millionaire is. So, what is a millionaire? Most people would think it’s probably someone who makes a million dollars. And while that might be true, they might be millionaires. Okay. They might not. If a million dollars comes in and they spend all a million dollars and they’re not a millionaire, a million dollars is a person who has a million-dollar net worth, meaning their assets minus their liabilities, what they own minus what they owe is a million dollars.
And by the grace of God, Erica and I in March became millionaires.
While many of you may be familiar with our story, for those that are not, you can go back and watch an episode called the backstory. But just to summarize it here in 2007, we essentially hit bottom. It was in August of 2007. We found that Dave Ramsey book and we read that, and we talked about getting on a plan and we worked to get out of debt.
Took us about three years or so. And in 2010, October 1st of 2010, when we got out of debt, it took us about 2011 to build our emergency fund. And then really since they’re starting about 2014, I’ve been tracking our net worth as this continued to grow. And in March of this year, 2024, by the grace of God, Erica and I became millionaires.
Years ago, Dave Ramsey and the Ramsey solutions team used to do a show called the millionaire theme hour where millionaires would call him to the show, and they would interview him. They’d ask certain questions, and you can find some of those back on YouTube. But they don’t do that as much anymore.
I don’t think I don’t know why we solicit him a lot and they were kind of encouraging. So. What we’d like to do in this episode is unpack some of the details about becoming a millionaire and kind of simulate the idea of having a millionaire theme hour. So why are we doing this? I promise you it’s not to brag or to boast, but rather to provide, you know, a little bit of a backstory about us and our journey and really to provide you hope and inspiration that no matter where you are in your financial journey, if you’re just getting started, if you’re deep in debt, if you’re in the messy middle.
Where your kind of on the backside of close becoming a millionaire. Our hope is that this will provide some inspiration and encouragement for you to keep going.
again, it’s not to, it’s not to boast or brag or whatever. I mean, I think it’s kind of common sense. You would think that a financial advisor or financial. Planner. Would be good with their money, right? So, you’d think that they would be building wealth. And, and that’s what we’ve done. Essentially what I encourage my clients to do and what I advise my clients to do is the exact same things that we’ve done.
We, we do the exact same things. We budget, we get out debt, we have adequate savings. We’re adequately insured. We have an estate plan. We invest. I invest clients the same way money I invest hours. And we walk this path of reducing taxes, all these types of things. And why do we do that? Okay. Because it works.
That’s why. And that’s what we want to try to illustrate here is that working a proven plan to wealth will work. If you work the plan.
Before getting too deep into this episode, though, there are two people that I would like to personally thank publicly, the first one. is my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
The reality is everything that I have in my life, he has either given me or enable me to have the breath in my lungs, the strength of my muscles, the abilities, the minds, the teaching, everything that I have. He is my creator, my Savior, my Redeemer, my provider, my sustainer, and really a whole lot more. And so, any glory that is comes about from this, it is all because of him.
Without him, none of this would have been possible.
The second person I like to thank. That again, without, without this person, none of this would have been possible either is my wife, whom I affectionately refer to as Mrs.
Beautiful, but her name is Erica. Her faithfulness, her support, her efforts, her frugalness, her hard work has gotten us to where we are. She has made me and continues to make me a better man. And this milestone that we’re hitting here really is. Part of the fruit of that relationship with her because I promise you without her none of this would have been possible And so I have a special treat for you today.
I was able to convince Mrs. Beautiful to do this show with me now Normally, I do it in my office standing up, but the part of the problem is I’m six foot and she’s five four and a half That’s what she says, five, four and a half. So, you know, only short people kind of count the half, right? So rather than doing this show, standing up with the microphone, you know, in between us and not being able to hear and stuff, what we decided to do is we did this at our dining room table sitting down there.
So, we’re more at the same height and hopefully it has a better video. So, without further ado, here is the show with me and Mrs. Beautiful.
Welcome Mrs. Beautiful to the True Wealth Financial Show…. Thanks for finally having me on. Glad you’re here….
