Summary: Although I was tracking my net worth closely, I can’t pinpoint the exact moment my total net worth would have crossed into seven figures and someone might consider me a millionaire. It was something I wasn’t thinking about for a variety of reasons, but because I was an entrepreneur, I was the owner of a business that was increasing in value. It was difficult to assign a specific value to that business, but because I ended up selling that business — this website — the buyer and I both had to agree on a value. Sometime before then, I also crossed the point of having a balance sheet that included investable (non-business) assets of a million dollars. One of the reasons I stopped publicly tracking my finances as I wasn’t interested in drawing attention to the fact. I tracked my finances to hold myself accountable for making better decisions with my money on a day-to-day basis; as my business grew, most daily decisions had little impact on my financial well-being. So I stopped. And I don’t talk about my net worth. Instead, I let Consumerism Commentary readers track theirs, like I did for many years, through Naked With Cash. But there are a lot of people who like talking about what it means to be a millionaire. For most people who have reached that abritray round-number milestone with their investable net worth, life hasn’t changed too much from when their net worth was lower. Jaime Tardy founded Eventual Millionaire to talk to as many millionaires as possible, with the goal of gaining some insight about entrepreneurship that could help people see that kind of success. But does it make sense to look at that millionaire milestone as the target? Most people in my age group (I’m 38 years old as of last week — happy birthday to me) would probably need several million dollars invested if they wish to be financially independent today or would need as much twenty years from now for a healthy retirement living a middle class life. In this podcast, I discuss this issue with Jaime, and we determine what we might be able to learn from millionaire entrepreneurs. Her new book, The Eventual Millionaire: How Anyone Can Be an Entrepreneur and Successfully Grow Their Startup, is now available. Continue reading this article to listen to the audio or to find a link to download the audio for later. You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. jQuery(document).ready(function($) { $('#wp_mep_4').mediaelementplayer({ m:1 ,features: ['playpause','current','progress','duration','volume','tracks','fullscreen'] ,audioWidth:400,audioHeight:30 }); }); Luke: I’m Luke Landes and this is the Consumerism Commentary Podcast. Today’s guest: Jaime Tardy, the Eventual Millionaire. Luke: Welcome to the Consumerism Commentary Podcast. I’m Luke Landes. Today’s guest is Jaime Tardy, the author of The Eventual Millionaire, the blog, and Eventual Millionaire: How Anyone Can Be An Entrepreneur and Successfully Grow Their Start-Up, a book, available at Amazon.com and other retailers. Jaime, welcome to the show. Jaime: Thanks so much for having me, Luke. Luke: What is it about being a millionaire that is so aspirational for people? Jaime: It’s so funny, it’s the extra comma that does everything, that makes it so absolutely amazing. It is a silly, arbitrary goal. Why not $999,000, why a million? But it is that point where we can pick out as if that is success. That extra digit means a big difference in people’s lives. Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a millionaire, too. I know so many other people hone into that as a huge goal to have. Luke: But what does it mean to have that “extra comma.” Does it really change your life? Jaime: Exactly — no. That’s the thing. A mutual friend of ours who came on my show, Todd Tresidder from financialmentor.com, told me on the show that [...]
