About Me

Hi, my name is Arnold. I live in Ohio, United States.

If you have not read the short introduction on the home page, please do that before proceeding. As mentioned previously, I work as a Software Engineer. I happily graduated and started working back in 2012. I was not sure if I wanted to go to college, but back then I had no idea what I wanted to do so I just went with it. I knew I did not want to be in debt for a lifetime, and for that reason I choose the cheapest way possible. I lived at home which cut the price in half right away. On the afternoons I worked and saved as much as I could. As most of you probably know, you have six months after graduation before you have to start paying back your loans. Right after graduation I saved every single penny for six months. And as you might be able to guess, with the saved up money throughout the college years, and the money I saved after I started working as an engineer I was able to pay back all my loans. It felt amazing, but at the same time it sucked, because I could have bought a really nice car with that money. But I was glad that I did not have to worry about it anymore.

I was planning on all the things to buy now that I was making better money. For the first time when I saw the real tax deductions, it was a slap in the face, but the money was still better than busboy, host, or delivery driver money. I bought a motorcycle after the first year, and soon after I needed a new car. Everything was good, but money kept going out the door. That is when I decided to buy a house because in a way that is an investment and that way I could be putting money into the house. For that reason I looked at it as an asset. Everything was good, but I could not save a lot of money. My mother wanted me to go back to school for master’s degree. My father has passed away when I was 11 years old, but he would have also wanted me to get more education. To my mother I jokingly always put it off with the “If I don’t become a millionaire by the age of 30, I will go back for my master’s degree.”

Well, that 30 came up much faster than I expected. I started doing a lot of reading, and self-development for the past two years. I did a lot of research on investing, how to start a business, what business I could start, learned about entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, and the list goes on. I have probably learned more on my own than I did in college. I wish I learned all this at a younger age, so if you are a young person and you are here researching this, you are doing great! I also learned that even if I were to go back to school, after having kids, I will need a bigger house, bigger cars, etc. I will just have to work even more. It looks like I will be running the rat race for the rest of my life. The 9 to 5 is just a marketing gimmick in my opinion; it’s really a 7 to 6 job.

For this reason, I decided I will do everything in my willpower to reach that one million dollar. As the saying goes, one million dollar is not enough to retire, but if I invest it smart it will bring me enough passive income. I am sure I will make a lot of mistakes, but that is how we learn. We learn best from our own mistakes. I believe that for me more school is not the answer to reach financial independence. However, I am not telling you to quit college, or don’t go to college. My beautiful wife of four years is working on her college degree as well, since she could not afford to go to college right out of high school. Sometimes she also wants me to get my master’s degree but she has also read some of the books that I have and trust the process in some ways. I also enjoy learning on my own a lot more. So without further ado, let’s make that one million dollar! Please feel free to keep up with my journey. I will document as much as I can.

If you read this far, thank you very much for your time, the value of your time is very much appreciated.