I’m 38 years old. Our net worth is about 1.9M euro . I don’t feel really rich, but it is for sure above average.
How we did it ?
A combination of things:
- We both studied hard to get a high level university degree
- We were ambitious in our jobs. Quickly going to management level
- We invested early in real estate and stocks
- We kept our expenses low (we currently save/reinvest about 70% of our income)
- We never spend money on useless, overpriced things like Apple products, cloths from famous brands, expensive hobbies,…
- We avoided outsourcing too much work and try to do much ourselves (like painting our house, doing the garden, washing the car, cleaning,…) This has a big impact in high tax countries, like the one we live in.
I think we would not have gotten this far if we just did 1 thing right. We really needed the combination.
If we just work hard at our job, and did not work hard next to it to invest in real estate, our net worth would be much lower.
If we worked hard at our job, invested in real estate, worked hard at home, but would spend everything, we would be poor now. I see many friends spending much much more money. Friends of which I’m sure they don’t even make 50% of our income.
I don’t think you can become rich easily by just working hard as an employee. You need other things next to it.