Being curious about how to make your first million dollars is more than normal. Whether you’ve watched a movie about it, read some sort of ‘millionaire’s guide’, or day-dreamt about a million-dollar fantasy on your morning commute – it happens to the best of us.
That’s usually where it ends, as a fantasy. While there are many reasons for that, the elephant in the room here is that making one million dollars is tough. Really tough.
But here’s some good news for everyone. There are actually several proven ways that you can make your first million dollars. It usually comes down to one of the following: hard work, luck, planning, or a combination of all three.
This isn’t a ‘future-millionaire’s guide’ with step-by-step flow charts – we’re just telling you that there are several ways to become a millionaire. Although if you happen to make your first million dollars after reading this, we won’t shy away from taking some of the credit. 😉
Let’s get to it.
For the avid entrepreneur, business person, creative genius, and the like, this is probably the first thing that comes to mind when you hear about making millions. Truthfully, there’s nothing wrong with this approach at all – it’s been done before and continues to happen every single day.
Whether you’re looking to build the next Facebook (please, no more Facebook), Snapchat (although that’s a bit of a sad ending), or Uber, an important thing to know is that an overnight success doesn’t actually happen overnight.
Method to the million: hard work, luck and careful planning.
Next up to earning millions is becoming a professional athlete. However, there are levels of professional athletes that never see this amount, so let’s clear the air – we’re talking about the big leagues like the NHL, NBA, MLB, NFL, or maybe one of those European soccer leagues.
So what’s the likelihood of making it to the big leagues? Let’s just say that the odds are stacked against you. In Canada, the chances of making it to the NHL are estimated to be between 1 in 5000 and 1 in 10,000 – which is actually a lot better than we would have guessed. Keep in mind the average cost tops $5,000 per year in Canada and you’ll likely need to start by the age or 8 or 9. Hopefully we haven’t killed your aspirations of making the all-star status, there’s still time.
When you do make it, you’ll want to know how to save on taxes just like John Tavares.
Method to the million: hard work and luck
Talking about odds, did you know that in Canada the odds of the winning the lottery are around 1 in 14 million to 1 in 28 million? It’s safe to say that the odds are working against you, but they don’t sound all too terrible when compared to a roughly 1 in 292 million chance to win the US powerball lottery.
If you’re a big risk taker and an avid lottery-player then you’ll want to read about how to win the lottery.
While we can’t tell you exactly how you should be spending your money, we can easily say that there are better ways than spending it on lottery tickets. Whatever you do, just don’t be like the Shanghai man who blew his $967,000 life savings on tickets just to come up empty. He lost his wife and now lives in a bathhouse – not anyone’s ideal retirement plan.
Method to the million: luck… lots of it.
And then there’s the inheritance babies. We’re not talking about inheriting a few thousand or even tens of thousands of dollars, remember we’re talking about millions here. Unlike the other four ways to earn millions on our list, this one just comes down to family matters – and as we all know, we can’t choose our family.
When it comes to wealth in Canada, the 87 wealthiest families have a combined net worth of $259 billion. On average, this means that they have 4,448 times more wealth than the average family.
Like we said, you can’t choose your family.
Method to the million: family luck
All of the above methods might be the million dollar fantasy you’re dreaming of, but the odds of making any one of those a reality stack up against you.
If you’re serious about making your first million dollars, then this is the definite method for you, well for anyone really.
Let’s put it like this. Would you rather try one million different things to just to make it through your retirement or retire with financial peace of mind knowing that one million dollars is waiting for you?
Calculate your retirement investments for yourself to see how much you need to save and how quickly you can earn your first million dollars.
Method to the million: creating a plan with Planswell
Every now and then we like to throw in a pun or two to keep you entertained, so yes, you read that correctly. It’s obvious that, while there are several ways to earn your first million dollars, most of them rely on factors that are a little outside of what we can control. If you’re serious about investing and building your wealth the slow-but-steady way, you should get your hands on a free plan from Planswell. It only takes about three minutes!
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