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Contributor
UPDATED JUNE 25, 2019
Heather Comparetto/The Penny Hoarder
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If you invest $400 a month and make 7% annually, you’ll have nearly $1 million in 40 years.
Let’s say you’re 30 years old and you give up movies, Starbucks and dinners out for four decades to save that $400 each month. At 70, you’ll have a million bucks and be ready to retire, right?
But wait! One million dollars today has the spending power of about $240,900 in 1977 dollars. If we experience similar inflation in the next 40 years, your future million will also be worth just $240,900 in today’s dollars.
So you’ll be a millionaire, but it won’t be quite like you imagined.
What if you don’t want to wait 40 years to make your first $1 million? What if you don’t want to wait even 10 years?
Here’s how to make a million dollars quickly — with a little luck.
Maybe you didn’t want to hear this, but it could be time to learn how to sell. One of the surest ways to wealth is to see what people need or want and provide it. But you still have to convince them it’s your something they need. That’s what sales is all about.
That’s how Dani Johnson went from being homeless to a millionaire in less than two years.
At first she rejected the idea of selling a weight loss program, as if it were beneath her. Then she realized she was homeless, drinking and using drugs — so why not sell something?
She didn’t even have a phone, but with a $15 voicemail service and a handmade flyer put up in a post office, she started getting orders for the program. When she ordered her inventory from the manufacturer, she had to borrow the address of a liquor store because she had no place to accept delivery.
From that start, she built her business and later sold it, becoming a multi-millionaire in the process.
Other examples of people who made $1 million fast by selling something include:
He was 14 years old when he started making and selling “SuperJam,”and within a few years he had annual sales in the millions.
He sold greeting cards at age 9, then moved on to selling Beanie Babies, software and advertising. By age 15, he was making more than $300,000 per month.
Within three years of opening her shop on Etsy, Shaffer was making close to $1 million annually selling handmade clothing and accessories.
When Julie Broad and her husband decided to buy their first income property, they had only $16,000 in savings. Seven years later, they were millionaires, and she retired — at age 31.
Broad says one of the things she likes about real estate is the potential leverage.
“If you have $16,000 to invest (which is what I started with seven years ago), you can buy $16,000 worth of stocks and bonds,” she wrote at MyWifeQuitHerJob.com.
“But, if you buy real estate, you can buy a property worth $160,000 (which is exactly what I did). If your stocks go up in value by 5%, you’ve made $800. But if your property goes up by 5% you’ve made $8,000!”
You make money with income property from rents, appreciation and equity gains from the tenant’s rent paying down your mortgage. You also get to exercise creativity and control with real estate investments.
Broad points out if your stocks drop in value, your options are limited to buying more or selling more, but with real estate, “there are plenty of creative techniques to try.”
For example, rent out the garage separate from the house, add vending machines or laundry facilities, change the usage of the property and sell it.
“There are dozens of ways to turn a simple house into a money-making machine with creativity,” says Broad.
Many real estate investors have similar stories to tell.
For example, in his book “2 Years to a Million in Real Estate,” Matthew Martinez relates how he made his fortune in rental properties after quitting his 9-to-5 job.
Mortgaging the house and betting $29,000 on number 17 on the roulette table probably isn’t a good plan. But not all gambles have to be that crazy.
Consider poker.
The Mirror profiled seven people who made more than $1 million playing poker in 2014. Poker comes with risk but also requires skill, and you can parlay your profits into bigger ones without risking much to start.
Another option is gambling on the popularity of new currencies.
Using $1,000 he got as a gift, Erik Finman made $100,000 on Bitcoin at age 15. At age 18, he now owns 403 bitcoins — worth more than $1 million.
And yes, buying a lottery ticket is a terrible bet. But it is one of the fastest ways to make millions — and buying a ticket or two each year probably won’t break you.
Just don’t add yourself to the long list of lottery winners who lost everything.
The internet may be the most obvious platform for making $1 million quickly. Of all the possibilities, creating videos for YouTube is perhaps one of the most fun.
Here are just a few profitable types of videos you could create:
You may not have heard of him, but comedian Ray William Johnson made $1 million per year with his funny videos.
