How I Built Wealth From Scratch With an Ordinary Job

I was not born into money. I did not come from a wealthy family, and no one gave me a large amount of money to invest. I never started a business, never became a social media influencer, never invented anything, and never had a job making millions of dollars a year. Yet, at the age of 35, I was able to retire and make work optional for me.

How did I do it? I will tell you. It happened through a very high amount of discipline and being able to resist lifestyle inflation.

At 16 I got my first job at retail, making minimum wage. I saved everything I made, which was easy practically (I was still living at home), but very hard mentally. All of my friends spent everything they made and when I tell you it was hard not to do the same, I mean it.

I remember watching my friends show up to school in new clothes, going out to eat, and buying the latest gadgets. They’d ask why I never joined them at the mall or for dinners. I’d make up excuses about homework or family obligations, but the truth was I couldn’t justify spending what I had worked so hard to earn.

By the time I graduated high school, I had saved nearly $12,000. Not a fortune, but enough to give me options most of my peers didn’t have. I chose to attend an in-state public university while working part-time. Again, my friends took the “normal” path — prestigious out-of-state schools, student loans, and continuing to spend freely. College was when I discovered investing. A finance professor mentioned compound interest during a lecture, calling it the “eighth wonder of the world.” That night, I opened my first brokerage account and invested half of my savings in an ETF. I basically continued down this path of saving aggressively and investing for the rest of the time. Another big thing that helped me was lack of debt. I refused to take out student loans. I graduated at 25 instead of 22 because as I was working, I was saving to pay for school in cash.

As I got older, my income increased. But unlike most people, I did not immediately upgrade my life every time I made more money.

I did not rush to buy a luxury car. I did not move into the nicest apartment I could afford. I did not start taking expensive vacations or buying designer bags every time I got a raise. Instead, I kept my expenses mostly the same and invested the difference. That is the part most people do not want to hear because it is not exciting. People want to believe there is some secret formula, some perfect stock, some business idea, or some shortcut that will suddenly make them wealthy.

But for most people, wealth is built in a much more boring way.

You earn more over time. You resist the urge to inflate your lifestyle. You invest consistently. And then you repeat that process for years.

Most people never do this because as soon as they start making more money, they immediately increase their spending. I understand the urge because as you make more money, you want to live like it. The reason why I personally did not, was because I viewed money as a tool to buy me freedom, rather than a tool to get me status symbols, such as designer handbags and luxury cars. I stick with that philosophy to this day. I have a good life, but it is not lavish. I am still not driving a luxury car and I do not own designer items. I do own my time and my life. I depend on nothing and no one and to me, that is the best way to live.