How I Became a Millionaire at 26 (and how you can too)

Becoming a millionaire is a feat especially if you are living in a Third World Country like the Philippines. It requires hard work and discipline. Hard work because you need to do well in your job to receive salaries and if you're lucky, bonuses. Discipline because you need to resist various temptations to spend, the strongest of which is among your peers and office mates. 

A million peso is more or less equivalent to $20,000. It may not be much to others who are working in other countries like the US and European countries, receiving a much higher salary but achieving it as a regular employee here in the Philippines who worked for 4 years and 7 months and with a salary of just around $400 to $600 a month is really a feat. 

In one of my previous articles, I posted an introduction about myself. You can read it HERE. I started my blog 'Millionaire Acts' with a view of becoming a millionaire someday. I can clearly remember it was April of 2009, just days before my 27th birthday when I achieved it. If I can do it, you can do it too! 

Below are some tips that I can share to all of you:

Use the equation INCOME less SAVINGS equals EXPENSES

Nowadays, most employees, whenever they receive their income, they spend first before they save. After all the expenses, they would normally complain at the end of the day that they don't have savings at all. This is the mentality of most of us but not for me.

Whenever I receive my salary, I took out first my savings before I spend. I pay myself first before I spend because savings is the most important expense since it buys the most important thing - YOUR FUTURE.

If we view ourselves as a corporation, then a corporation must have a plan and budget for expenses. What is the first priority expense of a corporation? Yes, it is the payroll of employees. If you agree with this, your first priority should be “paying yourself first” because you are the sole employee of your own company. 

You maybe asking as to how much of your salary should be automatically saved before you spend. The answer is at least 20% through the use of Pareto's Principle of 80/20. Of course, the higher amount, the better. In my case before, I usually save 50% of my salary and it goes up as much as 60% for some months.

Have multiple sources of income

Having a multiple sources of income is comparable to a car running on a road with a spare tire. If the car's tire gets flat, it can continue its journey on the road because of the spare tire. The same principle can be applied to our lives. If we lose our job, which is mostly our main source of income, we could have other means of income. Having multiple sources of income can accelerate your savings goal.

Before I landed on my first job, I had a buy and sell business of mobile phones way back in my college years. I was able to save 50,000 pesos because of it even before I worked in a corporate job. During my corporate job, I had a sideline job of blogging already. I started my blog 'Millionaire Acts' in November of 2008 giving tips to my readers about financial literacy. 

In some of my articles, I optimized certain keywords for the success stories of some tycoons here in the Philippines through search engine optimization or SEO. Those hard work paid off. Until now, my blog gets regular visitors from search engine so it gets passive income even though I rarely update it anymore. In addition, since my blog got media attention, I have direct advertisers from time to time.

Educate yourself on investments

Investing is another field that I studied as I finished reading the book of the famous Robert Kiyosaki. I specifically read his books 'Rich Dad Poor Dad' and 'Cash Flow Quadrant'. I was introduced to the idea of passive income vs. active income and in the E-S-B-I quadrant with I as the 'investor'. 

With that in mind, I started educating myself when it comes to investments - bonds, stocks, mutual funds, and unit investment trust funds - mostly paper asset investments. At the age of 22, I started investing in a bond fund, then later on as I understand more of the risks involved in each investment, I became more aggressive and invested on equity funds and eventually in the stock market to have a higher return. 

You can find below the links of my media exposures. I will continue writing more articles here about personal finance to inspire more people to become millionaires too and I hope you can follow me, and upvote & resteem my articles. :)

If I can do it, you can surely do it too.

ONLINE NEWS FEATURES

GMA News - 7 Steps to First Million

ABS-CBN News - Why it is better to start investing early

The Freeman by Philippine Star - Part 1

The Freeman by Philippine Star - Part 2

Mint - Expert Interview on How to be a Millionaire

MoneyMax.ph - Earning a Million Before 30

Sunstar Cebu - Road to Financial Freedom

ECompareMo - Top Personal Finance Bloggers to Follow

TV GUESTING AND APPEARANCE

ANC On The Money - How I Earn My First Million

ANC On The Money - The Power of Compounding

Kapuso Mo Jessica Soho - Wais Tipid

Kapuso Mo Jessica Soho - 50 Pesos Money Challenge