Money Millionaire

I happened across a millionaire dating blog the other day. The blog is an extension of the Seeking Millionaire website, except that it seems an after-thought – it doesn’t match the Seeking Millionaire website.

The Seeking Millionaire website is nothing new. It’s one of those websites where they match up beautiful girls and guys with rich men and women. In this case, the definition of rich is a little loose. If you make 100K a year, you can qualify. In some parts of the US, like New York or Silicon Valley, 100K isn’t all that unusual. You also can have a million dollar net worth to qualify. I think that might be a little more difficult, but there are a lot of people who owned a home in the 90’s that could probably claim to be millionaires. It’s a fun site to look at attractive people at least.

I commend the company for understanding the value of the corporate blog. I would have never found their business without it. Now, I’m not going to take advantage of their service, but if I found it, there’s a chance that others will as well. The blog isn’t overly exciting, but it gets the job done.

Someone asked me the other day what things he could to do start becoming a millionaire today. I decided to take something simple as an example… credit cards. Yes, credit cards… those things that cost people billions of dollars in interest and fees every year. He was astounded. “How can credit cards help me become a millionaire?”, he asked.

I told him it’s all in the math. I have a credit card that gives me back 5% at grocery stores, drug stores, and gasoline. I have another credit card that gives me 3% back at restaurants, office stores, and home stores (like Home Depot and Lowe). I told him the key is that I don’t buy anything that I ordinary wouldn’t and I make sure that I pay off the cards each month. If you pay fees, the whole plan dies a quick death.

When I told him that I got a $1000 back from last year for doing what I normally do, he reasoned that it sounds high, but plausible considering gas prices nowadays. I then showed him that investing $1000 at 8% interest over 40 years makes it $21,724. He said, “That’s fantastic, but it’s still not a million dollars.” I reminded him that’s only the first year of saving a $1000. What happens when you do it the 2nd year for 39 years? That’s another $20,115. Neither of us really wanted to take this example out for all 40 years (we didn’t have Excel handy), but we agreed it would probably get pretty close.

He was quick to point out that inflation would eat up much of those gains. I agreed it’s possible, but 8% return may be conservative. Some portfolios grow at 10% and that would take care of 2% of inflation right off the bat. I was a jackass by pointing out that we didn’t really agree on when he’d be a millionaire.

After that, he conceded that it was an extremely powerful idea. I reminded him that credit cards are just one little thing that he could do. A good place to start is a with these card card recommendations, but again, make sure you don’t pay any fees.

In the past, I had written about one could, get the millionaire mindset. But what if you didn’t have to have a particular millionaire mindset? What if you could simply think positively about being a millionaire? Could you become a millionaire? That’s what Foolswealth says about Forming Your Beliefs as a Millionaire.

I don’t really believe that you can simply think your way rich. Well if you have a plan or idea then \you could. However, if you are trying to be positive and have a good attitude it’s not going to work. You need to take action… grab the bull by the horns.

You can’t just expect to be a millionaire. You need to make it happen. You don’t deserve it otherwise.

I was reading this article on astrology and Internet Millionaires. I had never thought there was a possible connection between Astrology and being a millionaire.

Think about it for a minute. Being born at a certain time may dictate your success in life? I think that’s crazy. Then again, I couldn’t follow the complex chart that was presented there.

One thing I know, is that it’s possible to feel like you’ve found a pattern where this is none. I think this is one such case where if you look hard enough, a pattern may seem to appear where there isn’t one.

If you are looking to become a millionaire, I would suggest focusing on the principals of making money.

I hear the story everyday. People say that they could be millionaires without a doubt… if they could just find a way to get out of their credit card debt. As usual, I try to give them a few tips to get things under control. These are just a few of the steps to get out off the credit card treadmill. Once you are off, you can start work on becoming a millionaire again.

• Make it difficult to use your credit cards – Some people literally freeze their credit cards in their freezer. It means that they still have the credit cards in an emergency (plumbing breaks or other such disaster), but they aren’t likely to use them for a random purchase on the home shoppin network.
• Call your credit cards and try to a lower rate – Believe it or not this often works. I think that credit card companies are afraid to stick you with too high a rate for fear that you’ll transfer your balance to another card with another company. Of course you could always bluff that you are if they don’t give you a lower rate. It can’t hurt to try, right?
• Transfer to a card with a lower rate – You can often find a credit with a lower rate without looking too hard. Sometimes you can get 6 months of paying zero percent. That’s a big win and may allow you enough time to catch up. Remember the credit card treadmill that I talked about in the first paragraph. This is like putting that on pause.  If you go this way, check out these credit card reviews.
• Sell Some Stuff – This may hurt, but when you are paying a lot of interest, you are spending money and not getting anything for it. It may be time to admit the mistake and start doing whatever is necessary to get yourself out of it. Sometimes you have to sacrifice to become a millionaire.

It’s not going to be easy. For many getting out of credit card debt takes a long time. You need to focus and concentrate on just doing a little better each day. As you start to see progress, you’ll be empowered.

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I happened across an unusual video yesterday. The video was simply a series of screens with text reading that a person became a millionaire in a month with only 10$. Yes, the dollar sign was in the wrong place. If the idea didn’t sound crazy enough, multiple errors will tell you it’s not authoritative source. If he really did a million dollars, he would spend $15 on getting a person to proof-read his site.

One of the things that I noticed is that he is not only selling an Ebook, but the video is on Revver. For those who don’t know, Revver is a site that allows you to earn money by getting people to view your videos and click on links. His plan is simply to draw those clicks.

When it comes down to it, I can think of two ways to quickly become a millionaire:

Think Smart – Come up with an incredible idea that you can patent, sell, etc.
Get Lucky – You can always win the lottery, but you better not count on it.

This guy is obviously trying to go with the “think smart” plan, but the execution just isn’t there. So while I encourage you to just ignore the video, here it is so you can see what I’m writing about.

I’ve been tagged by Lazy Man and Money to write a six-word memoir for myself… This is such a new site and I have so many different thoughts going on that I’m not sure how to put six words on where I’ve been (or where I want to go)… wait, I can put six words into where I want to go. So I’ll write my six-word memoir from a future perspective…

How I Became A Millionaire

You’ll note that I only used five words. I tried to stretch it to six, but I didn’t feel the need add extra words that don’t really a purpose. Now I just need to become a millionaire.

Ginger of Girls Just Want To Have Funds picks apart the millionaire mindset. We have a few things in common. One might be a love for Cyndi Lauper (I’m making an assumption here), and the other is a desire to be a millionaire.

How to Become a Millionaire

Ginger has read books like How to Think Like a Millionaire and The Millionaire Next Door and digested that information in order to develop the millionaire mindset. She comes away with five key points:

1. Belief in Self – This may sound like common sense, but it’s amazing how many people mess it up. If you don’t believe you will become a millionaire, no one else will.
2. Passionate about Life Goals – I found that to be successful in anything, you need to have passion. If you don’t have that passion, the job is going to seem like climbing Mt. Everest.
3. SMART Goals – Wikipedia gives the breakdown on this project management skill.
4. Learn from Mistakes – If you can get buy without making a mistake, fantastic… Even Michael Jordan missed a lot of shots and lost a lot of games in his time. He learned from them though, and eventually became the best basketball player the world has known (and becoming a millionaire many times over).
5. Frugality – Of all the parts, I disagree with Ginger on this one the most. I have read about people in NYC and California who are millionaires, but weren’t particularly frugal. Instead they were lucky or extremely talented (in the top .00000001% of what they do). Since you can’t count on luck or being that talented, control your own millionaire destiny by being frugal

Are you on your way to becoming a millionaire? Do you have the millionaire mindset?

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Kevin of No Debt Plan gives his take on how to avoid becoming a millionaire. It seems so easy and so many people are doing it, I don’t know if we really need instructions . His tips are pretty basic.

Here are some tips for <b>how not</b> to…

…Become a Millionaire at Work

In essence you can save yourself the pain of becoming a millionaire by never asking for a raise, doing crappy work, and staying in the same job. You might as well throw away your 401k as well. Muttering about your red stapler can’t hurt either.

…Become a Millionaire Shopping

A good way to keep your net worth down is to avoid tracking your earnings and your expenses. Since you aren’t tracking how much you spend, you might as well spend more. Try not to save.

…Become a Millionaire Investing

Ignore the idea of investing. This is easy, since we’ve already spent the money shopping. You’ve got plenty of time to become a millionaire in the future.However you decided to not become a millionaire, I wish you a boatload of bad luck. Perhaps someday you’ll mess that up and be able to retire in luxury.

Heather Mills’ divorce settlement came through today. She’ll get 24.3 million pounds – the equivalent of nearly 50 million dollars. It’s seems to me that 12 million a year for a four year marriage is pretty generous – too generous in my opinion. She’ll walk away in the top one percent of the richest people in the world.

There’s also a generous child support included in this – around $70,000 per year. I haven’t raised a child, but I hope it doesn’t cost $70,000 a year. Oh and this does not include nanny and school fees which are in addition to the $70,000. I’m not looking for Ms. Mills and their son to be poor, but I don’t know if they should be given what is extreme wealth. She’ll get 4 times the amount necessary that this article says is wealthy.