millionaire to-do list
Personal Finance

The Impersonal Finances Millionaire To-Do List

While it originated more than a decade ago, I wanted to add myself to the prestigious Budgets Are Sexy Million Dollar Club with a millionaire to-do list of my own.

What do I have to do to get myself to the Double Comma Club? Mostly, continue to do what I’ve been doing. But that’s boring. My list includes some of the basic rules that I’m currently abiding by, but also a few ambitious goals that might help me to expedite the process and diversity my portfolio.  

So why am I doing this? I think it’s important to not just set goals, but to write them down. Blogs, well-trafficked or not, are great for accountability purposes. I want to make sure that I have—in writing—the to-do list that makes sense to me at this very moment, so that I can both reference and ridicule it in the future. It was J. Money’s Net Worth reports that helped me to gamify the wealth-building process in the first place, and I’m counting on his millionaire to-do list to help keep me on track.

Without further ado, here’s my 10-step program toward achieving a million-dollar net worth.

The Impersonal Finances Millionaire To-Do List

  1. Continue maxing out my 401k and Roth IRA, investing primarily in VTSAX
  2. Continue making automatic payments to my brokerage account with additional funds (also invested in VTSAX)
  3. Don’t spend so much time blogging that I forget to pay attention to my full-time job, which currently accounts for 99.9 percent of my annual income
  4. Spend enough time blogging that I might someday be able to rely on my job for only 99.8 percent of my annual income
  5. Avoid taking on consumer debt (this is a free space, as I don’t envision a scenario in which I deviate from this point)
  6. Seek out feasible opportunities to dip my toe into the rental property market (finally a challenge!)
  7. Supercharge my index fund investments with a small portion of Warren Buffett-like long-term individual stock investments (it’s that easy, right?)
  8. Further educate myself on all things personal finance, particularly in areas of weakness that could provide future savings/earnings
  9. Remain open-minded on potential side hustles that fit into my current schedule, no matter how stupid they might be
  10. Avoid paying too much attention to my money, lest the pursuit of millionaire status render me an insufferable

There it is; that’s the plan. This list conveniently includes a bunch of other links to my own website on topics I’ve already touched upon. But then, this is admittedly a very self-serving piece of content. Through my vanity, I hope that you might be able to draw upon your own situation and consider if any of these goals can or should be applied to your financial plan.  

While I gave my reason for jotting down these millionaire goals, I didn’t mention why I want to be a millionaire to begin with. Why become a millionaire? Well, you know, duh. The answer, similar to most in the personal finance blogoworld, is the financial freedom and independence that it provides. The allure of JL Collins’ F-you Money concept is obvious. I don’t know exactly what I want to do with that financial freedom just yet, but that’s a topic for another day.

Hopefully, in a handful or many handfuls of years, I’ll start working on my own Billionaire to-do list. But a million bucks seems like a good place to start.

20 thoughts on “The Impersonal Finances Millionaire To-Do List

    1. Thanks Fred! I saw you were one of the more recent additions before me. It’s really cool to see some of the original pledges from 10 years ago that are still at it. Not coincidentally, many are millionaires themselves now!

  1. I’ve been going through the millionaire list the past few days checking out the different pledges and deciding what to put in mine while also beefing up my blog a little bit. Sometime in the next week or so I’ll finally put that pledge on paper and join you on the list! My blog is actually real estate investing focused with a sprinkle of finance in there. I currently own 4 investment properties and I’m working on converting 5-7 as soon as this pandemic slows down. Feel free to reach out if I can answer any questions for you and thanks for the awesome read!

    1. There are some great ones on the list. A lot of it boils down to the same simple concepts, but there is definitely some creativity to be found in 200 different takes on an old classic! Look forward to seeing your pledge!

  2. The list looks fool proof over time. I agree that goal-setting and writing down goals is important. I typically set financial goals and blogging goals at the beginning of each year. I am looking forward to setting them soon. Posts like this help with ideas and motivation for my own financial goals. Good luck with your journey.

    1. That’s great! Absolutely, it’s all about holding yourself accountable. The best part about a lot of money goals is how easily they can be automated. As others have pointed out, step one alone will get me to where I want to be in due time. Once those automatic payments are set up, I could ignore this list for the next 10 years and would still be in great shape.

  3. I like the list. Any one of these items on your list are a recipe for success, but I agree with FLA that #1 and #2 are the most critical component. I’m with you on a lot of these things. For #6, I’m happy to see how this goes for you. I keep going back and forth on the idea of investing rental properties. There’s months where I’ve read books on the strategy, pinpointed neighborhoods on Zillow, and the only thing that held me back me is the pandemic…then there’s times like now, where I’m grateful for not having the stress of another home to manage. But real estate definitely seems to be the fast track to millionaire status.

    1. Thanks for the feedback! Good point on real estate, it’s definitely a different level of commitment that I haven’t fully comprehended just yet. I need to get a better grasp of just how much of a responsibility it is (financially and otherwise) before I pull the trigger. But I needed a challenge! At the very least I need to learn enough to be able to rule it out of my plan.

  4. A+ To-Do List, IF! #1 and #2 are how you truly become a millionaire. It seems common sense to us, but not enough people take advantage of the opportunity they are given! I know it can be boring but the consistent investments will inevitably lead to an unbelievable net worth. Very self-aware goals, you’ve inspired me to make my own to-do list.

    1. Thanks Fresh! The list is definitely market-cap weighted toward 1 & 2, and everything else is gravy (Thanksgiving week). It’s important not to get too cute and just trust the simple process, even if it’s a little boring.

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