Reaching a Million Pt. 1

Have you ever wanted a million dollars? If you say no you're lying. We have all had our fantasies of winning the lottery and having a huge sum of money deposited into our bank account. Personally I just hope to someday see six figures in my savings account.

I think everyone has this dream, to be financially comfortable enough to not worry about that extra purchase, whether it's a Wendy’s 4x4 meal or the new game console. It would be nice to just be able to purchase those things and not worry about how much money you’ll have left. Quick disclaimer, this is going to be longer than usual for these entries.

For the 70% of Americans who have less than $1,000 in their bank account (Statista.com) this is not the reality and the new Playstation is impossible for them to buy unless they want to forfeit that month's rent. I am one of those American’s, and I am generally an “average” American in most aspects. I’m a 5’9” 160lb caucasian male working a normal job with a wife and a son in a small town in Northern Indiana. Nothing about my life screams “special” and that's ok. I could definitely use some extra cash to get myself out of this hole I am in. What’s this hole you ask? Ok I know you didn’t ask and you don’t care but I like degrading myself so why don’t I tell you about how dumb I was as an 18 year old kid.

Oct. 16 2018 at 8AM I got out of bed, excited to be an adult. What's the first thing an adult should do, I asked myself, get a credit card. I put on my holey pajamas, with my worn Adidas shoes that had not been untied in two years and got in my rundown Pontiac and made my way to my credit union. Once inside the lady at the front service desk literally laughed when I told her I was here to get a credit card, but she was nice enough to have someone see me anyway. I waited two hours, on a Tuesday morning, for someone to see me. I was the only person in the waiting area and only one other person had come in to deposit money while I waited. Looking back I realize they were probably arguing about who had to go tell the hobo he wasn’t approved for a credit line through them. Finally a young hispanic woman escorted me to her cubicle and sat me down and went through the normal questions. Name, date of birth accompanied by the obligatory happy birthday, SSN, income and so on. Then we got to the fun part. She asked if I was a member, I told her I was, she then asked if it was ok if they use my account as a determining factor in if I get a line of credit or not and I said of course.

Little did she know, I had over ten thousand dollars in my savings account. That's right, five figures, just sitting in my bank account as an 18 year old. I had been smart with my money. There was almost an audible gasp from her when she checked my account and with that I was instantly approved for a 1000 dollar line of credit through them. I walked out with my fancy paper card in hand and drove myself home with a feeling of success. Most people know the feeling of getting approved for credit, for some it's a lifeline, for others it's a fun way to get things you can’t afford, but for me? It felt like a game that I was winning. I went home and applied for as many credit lines as I could think of, Amazon, Walmart, Best buy, Macy’s, Victoria’s Secret, Paypal, Dell. If it was accessible I applied for it. I don’t even shop at Macy’s but if I could get the credit I got it. And guess what, I was approved by every one of them except Amazon who told me that I didn’t have enough credit history to be approved.

I received all the cards to these places about a week later. I got three on the same day and my mom asked why I was suddenly receiving so much mail. “Coupons” I said, too afraid to tell her what I had done. I victoriously placed each card in its own slot in my tri-fold wallet, now filled with plastic, and marched myself out to my car. I then drove and picked up my at the time girlfriend. Let’s talk about her real quick.

She was also fairly average like me. Nothing too extravagant. We got together the summer of my sophomore year. At the time I was infatuated by her as I had never had a real relationship. I wanted to give her the world and I wanted to be with her forever. But I slowly realized over the course of our relationship that the reason I was dating her was to tell other people that I was in a relationship and not because I loved her. This, among other various issues, led to us breaking up a month after we moved out together, but that is a story for another time.

We went straight to my local mall and started spending my well earned credit. Bras, clothes, a damn toaster and so on. I maxed each credit card and told myself that I would just pay it all off at the end of the month and watch my credit skyrocket. I was wrong, so so wrong.

The months came and went by and I continued this streak of maxing out cards for stupid things and then paying them off and the one month I maxed out my Dell card with a brand new computer and a laptop for my girlfriend and I realized I didn’t have the money to pay it off. I had drained my $10,000 in less than five months and you know what I had to show for it? Meaningless crap and a bad credit score. I told myself that I would be fine going a month without paying off a card. That month turned into two months, and then three. And at 18 and 8 months I decided it was time to buy a new car.

I had been looking at cars for months and decided I needed a sports car that I could drive year round. So I went and bought a 2006 Audi TT special edition from the world's sketchiest car dealership. This guy was running his dealership out of his trailer home and the paper that he printed his contract on was literally used, one side of the paper had advertisements on it and it literally looked like one of those placemats local businesses use to promote other businesses. But I was young and preapproved to buy the car so I did what any 18 year old does and bought the car. As I shook hands with the dealer he told me that he would go “halvsies” on any maintenance problem that occurred in the next six months. 23 days later the transmission literally fell out of the car and the dealer was gone, he had seemingly vanished into thin air. I was now left with a 250 dollar a month car payment and no car to show for it so you know what I did? I decided I should buy another new car and this time it needed to be brand new so it had a warranty.

I went to my Kia dealership and applied for a Kia Stinger that cost 45 thousand dollars and luckily was not approved for it. Instead they approved me for a 20 thousand dollar Kia Optima that ended up costing me 30 thousand after they applied the worthless Audi I had to trade in. Now I had a 530 dollar a month car payment and debt up to my neck. Then I moved out of my house into an expensive trailer, broke up with my girlfriend and spent more money. I was now literally drowning in worthless debt.

At one point I was almost 50 thousand dollars in debt and too afraid to tell anyone, yet I kept spending money on things I didn’t need. It wasn’t until I met my wife that I realized I needed to get my life together.

That sums up my idotic teenage years pretty well. I am now roughly 30 thousand in debt between my Optima and the credit I am still paying. But I am working to pay it off and decided it was time to take that seriously. So in these entries, written as short memoirs, I am going to detail my journey on reaching a net worth of one million dollars.

Just to be clear, I am not a financial advisor nor do I recommend you attempt anything I do yourself because I have literally no idea what I’m doing.