How To Be A Millionaire In 10 Years (Starting With $0)

What's up, Graham? It's guys here. So here's the deal: it was recently found that real wages have barely budged in decades. More than half of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and the poorest 70% of U.S. households don't even have a savings account.

However, there is some good news because a survey reported that Americans would need $500,000 to feel financially secure and a million dollars to retire. So in this video, we're going to be talking about how to do exactly that—starting from nothing in 10 years. I know that sounds extremely far-fetched, but it's entirely possible, and these are my own recommendations from personal experience that I've learned firsthand.

There are some step-by-step rules that anyone can follow that work incredibly well that don't cost you a single penny if you have the goal of calling yourself a millionaire exactly 10 years from today. Although really quick, if you enjoy topics like this, it would help me out tremendously if you hit the like button or subscribe if you haven't done that already. Doing that gives me a really good indication of whether or not I should make more videos like this in the future, so let me know. Thank you so much for watching, and now let's begin.

To start, before we go into the steps that you could take, I'm first going to tell you how I was able to build a million-dollar net worth by the age of 26 years old without coming from a wealthy family, without any inheritance, and without posting a single YouTube video on how to get rich. Because despite me now making a lot of money talking on YouTube about how to make a lot of money, that's not how it initially started.

My first way of making money came when I was about 16 years old, working a part-time job throughout high school. At the time, I was paid $1 for every picture I took in Photoshop for a marine aquarium wholesaler. So instead of being paid for my time, I was paid on results. On a really good day, if I was focused, I'd be able to make anywhere from $80 to $120 for about 5 to 8 hours' worth of work, and I loved it.

Now, I don't usually recommend that other teenagers follow this advice, but I would usually skip schoolwork, weekends, and take every holiday as an opportunity to earn even more. By the time I was 18 years old, I had about $5,000 saved up. From there, I decided not to pursue college and instead use some of those savings to get licensed as a real estate agent so I could do that full-time, even though I didn't know anyone in the industry and I hadn't the slightest clue what I was doing.

I would spend every weekend going to open houses and asking other agents how they were able to grow their business. By pure luck, I met an agent who allowed me to work underneath them, help him out with whatever he needed, and whatever business I brought in would be split 50/50. From that point on, I spent the next four years working 10 to 12 hour days, 7 days a week, taking on any business I could and saving as much money as I earned.

Since I was entirely paid on commission, my income was extremely inconsistent, so I took saving and personal finance extremely seriously. I budgeted every penny that went into and out of my account. I wouldn't spend money unless I absolutely had to, and I treated every dollar as though it was the last dollar that I would earn. But it paid off. Within 4 years, I had about $200,000 saved up from a combination of a growing clientele, a few very fortunate listings, and the frugality to resist the urge to spend it.

It was around this time that I noticed my wealthiest clients had begun to invest in real estate. After I helped one of them buy a property in San Bernardino, it hit me: I should be doing this too. So I spent months seeing potential properties every single weekend and writing global offers on every single home that came on the market within a certain criteria. In doing so, I was able to purchase three bank-owned properties that I subsequently renovated and then rented out.

From there, I continued reinvesting as much as I could. I slowly began to increase my business as a real estate agent. I took on higher price listings, my past clients began referring me even more business, and all of a sudden, I began making a lot more money. That allowed me to purchase a fourth property in West Los Angeles around my 26th birthday, which I then fixed up and later rented out. At that point, between the increased equity of four properties along with cash in the bank, I had reached a million-dollar net worth by the age of 26 years old, starting with zero in 10 years, before even making a YouTube video about it.

But in terms of the practical steps that you could take, along with the blueprints that everyone else is able to follow, here's what I recommend.

Number one. If you're going to do this in 10 years, you need to save as much money as possible. As simple as it might be to say, without this part, the entire plan fails. When it comes to building up your net worth, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how much money you make, but instead how much of it you actually get to keep. I can't even begin to tell you how many people I've seen making $500,000 a year and spending $48,000 of it on random expenses that make no difference whatsoever.

As proof of this, just consider that 20% of people making more than $250,000 a year spend 15% above what they deposit in their accounts, and others aren't even able to save any money on $500,000 a year. So if you want to know the secret about how I was able to become a millionaire in my 20s, it was because I lived as though I was broke and spent as though I was making the bare minimum. Even today, I buy used cars that don't depreciate in value. I only spend the money that my investments make. I don't buy designer clothes.

Now, of course, I understand that I'm extreme when it comes to finances, and it's not for everybody. But I have to say from my experience, most really successful people don't have an income problem—they have a spending problem. By cutting back on what is not absolutely necessary, you'll be putting yourself that much closer to reaching a million-dollar net worth.

Now second, if you're going to do this in 10 years, you also have to make a lot of money. From my experience, if you want to speed up the process a lot, pick a career that's not dependent on how many hours you work. Even if you ignore the rest of the video, and only focus on one thing, let it be this because it's so important. Anytime you work a career that pays you based on a certain amount of hours, most likely you'll plateau rather quickly before hitting a ceiling. But as soon as you begin working in a career that pays you based on results or tasks, your income could skyrocket because the number of hours doesn't make a difference.

For me, I did this by working as a real estate agent because it didn't matter if I worked 2 hours or 200 hours; if the house didn't sell, I wasn't getting paid. So it was really up to me to utilize my time efficiently and create a schedule that maximized how much money I was able to make. Personally, I think sales are one of the most underrated careers out there because it often serves as a stepping stone to making more money while teaching you everything you need to know about customer service, time management, and efficiency.

Now, of course, if you're not the type who wants to get into sales but you still want something stable while being able to earn more money, just consider this: it was found that employees who switch jobs every 2 to 3 years make twice as much as the person who stays within the same company. So consider switching careers, leveraging your skills, or learning something new to earn more money, especially now while many businesses are experiencing a shortage of talent and are willing to pay anything possible to find the right person.

Although overall I will say that most people that you hear about who are able to make a lot of money relatively quickly do so by starting a business. They saw an unfulfilled niche and created a solution to a problem, or they saw an existing business and figured out a way to do it better. Obviously, this is a huge risk and a big time commitment, but if you find an industry that scales quickly, you can make a huge amount of money.

Lastly, before we go into the practical step-by-step blueprint: number three. Realistically, you're also going to have to invest your money. The fact is, even though I kept my expenses extremely low and scaled my income throughout my early 20s, I would not have become a millionaire by 26 if I didn't invest.

As an example, just consider this: if you want to save your way to a million dollars in 10 years, you're going to have to put away $273 a day or $833 a month to make that a reality. But if you invest your money instead, you could get there with only $158 a day or $4,750 a month, averaging an 8% return. Although at the same time, I get it. Even though it's nice to think about how simple this would be in a hypothetical scenario, investing $4,750 a month is easier said than done.

This requires keeping $57,000 a year after taxes and not including your own cost of living like housing, car payments, insurance—everything else, it adds up. Plus, if you're able to actually save $57,000 a year after taxes, chances are you're already making between $100,000 and $120,000 a year while also being excessively frugal at the exact same time. Of course, some people might say, "But, Graham, I'm able to make a 15% return on my money and do that on much less, and my buddy makes 30% a month on his crypto investments!"

So this is false. Yeah, I'll admit you could take a different approach to your investments that might make you a lot more money, but there's a catch. Either you make a return that's directly proportional to your chances of losing money or it's an investment that's going to take a lot more work than you initially expected. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

For me, I enjoy the long-term consistency of investing in the stock market through a well-diversified index fund because it's really hard to mess that up, and 99% of people can get started in less than 5 minutes. But anyway, in terms of the practical steps that anyone could implement immediately, here's what I would do:

First, cut back as many expenses as you possibly can. Figure out the bare minimum that you need to survive along with some discretionary income thrown in every now and then. From that point on, everything you make will be automatically invested.

Second, determine how you can make more money. Perhaps look into switching careers, learning a trade, taking on a side hustle, or starting a part-time home business. The fact is it's not going to be possible if you're earning under $50,000 a year, but the good news is that there are plenty of ways to make more money if you're willing to put in the time.

Third, once you have enough money saved up, I would highly recommend you either reduce or eliminate your housing expense altogether by doing what's called house hacking. This is where you buy a multifamily property like a duplex, triplex, or fourplex, and then you rent them out while living in one of the units. Typically, when you do this right, the other units will pay for your entire cost of living, allowing you to stay there for free while getting to buy a property at the exact same time. Instantaneously, that could free up your entire housing payment, and just by saving that 20% to 50% difference, you're going to be on track to a million-dollar net worth that much faster.

Fourth, if you have an interest in house hacking, you could repeat that process every 18 to 24 months. For example, banks allow you to get a low-interest fixed-rate loan as a primary residence on up to four units, as long as you intend to live in the property for the first year. That means you could buy a cash-flowing property, move into one of the units, wait for another one to come along, buy that, rent out the previous unit, and start the process over again while gaining equity and cash flow at the exact same time.

Or, if that's not your thing, at the very least, if you do this once, it's possible to reduce your housing expenses significantly so that you could invest the difference. But I get it, since everyone wants specific numbers to follow. Here you go: If you're 20 years old and you want $1 million by the time you're 30, you'll have to invest $4,750 a month at an 8% return. So if you could find a way to average $120,000 a year before taxes while living off $3,000 a month, you could achieve that goal.

Of course, like I mentioned, some investments might help speed this up depending on how involved you want to be, like with real estate. If you're able to save up $50,000, you could use that to buy and renovate a $250,000 2-to-4 unit building. If you find the right deal, a strategic renovation should be able to increase that property's value to $300,000, and all of a sudden, you've doubled your initial investment. If you're able to replicate that strategy every 18 to 24 months, you could reach $1 million a lot faster.

Now, if this seems far-fetched, this was literally the example of Mike Rosart, who I had on my channel a few years ago. He's a prime example of someone who grew to a million-dollar portfolio while working a day job without any crazy income. He just lived extremely frugally, invested everything he could, did a lot of the work himself, and learned as he went along.

But fine, what about for everyone else who doesn't have an interest in doing that and doesn't make $120,000 a year? Well, the honest answer is if you're already saving as much money as you can and you don't have enough discretionary income left over, then you'll have to increase your income by either shopping around the job market, learning a new skill, or taking on a side hustle. At the end of the day, building up a $1 million portfolio is all about the numbers.

Even though your spending tends to be the easiest to control to point you in the right direction, your income is going to be the speed at which you hit your target. So by lowering your overhead while increasing your income and diligently investing the difference, you could work backwards to be a millionaire in 10 years without it being any more complicated than that.

So with that said, you guys, thank you so much for watching. As always, feel free to add me on Instagram. Thank you so much for watching, and until next time!