How I became a millionaire & things I learned along the way

My net worth from 2002 through 2017

Something remarkable happened to me on January 24, 2017. When I looked at my assets, like my bank balance, my condo, my investments, and subtracted my liabilities, like my student loans and mortgage, my net worth came out to $1,000,378.46. I was officially a millionaire at 33 years old.

I first started tracking my net worth in 2002 during my freshman year at the University of Michigan. At the time, my net worth was only $5,279.59! I was very proud of having close to $6K to my name. Little did I know that 15 years later this number would be 200 times greater. With $6K, I could buy just about anything I needed (I wasn’t even thinking about a car or a house at the time!). I kept the money in a checking account that was paying a stingy 1.5% or so. Sadly, this rate wasn’t even enough to cover inflation!