The expensive-city penalty does not show up in the data
Moving somewhere cheaper should leave more money to invest. But in hundreds of millionaire profiles, people in high cost-of-living areas reached their first million about two and a half years sooner, and the gap remained at every income level.
The best-paid career is not the best wealth-building career
Grouped into career families, the highest earners build less wealth per dollar of income than a group earning under half as much. Career choice explains only about seven percent of where people land.
Why I am writing this down
I am aiming at one million invested, then Coast, then done. This is the first post about why I am keeping the record in public, and what the outside data says about the gap between how much people think they save and how much they do.
What I-S-E-E means for my money
I-S-E-E reads aloud as I see. The letters stand for investing, saving, earning and experience. This is my case for each one, including the places where the evidence is thin.
The first million is bought by earning. Everything after is bought by investing.
I pulled the numbers from hundreds of millionaire profiles. Three quarters say earning made them rich. The arithmetic points somewhere else, but the two answers can both be true.
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