How You Can Make A Million

Money isn't sex but if you are a personal finance magazine you have to make it sound like it.  The headlines that really annoy me are around tax time with screamers like "Slash Your Tax Bill 40%."  Open it up and read about getting a tax credit or deduction for buying a hybrid or replacing your windows.  Not what I want.  I want a tax scheme that is perfectly legal, totally liquid  and in a place like Bermuda so I can visit my money while on vacation, hopefully tax deductible.  Now there is an article I would read.  No such luck.

So I have become pretty skeptical when looking at magazines.  And have been cutting back on magazines as there is better content on the net and those stupid renewal forms don't fall out of your computer like they do out of magazines.  Have let Money expire especially after that lame issue about blogs.  Congratulations to all that got in there but that guy didn't do a lot of investigative reporting.  Hope that doesn't sound like sour grapes but you know what I mean.

Got Kiplinger's on Monday.  Headline-"How You Can Make A Million--We Reveal the secrets and step-by-step strategies of 12 who struck it rich" 

Oh, boy.  Story blurb--"You could marry rich, win the lottery, or, like these 12 people, have a goal and a plan for getting there."  Great buzz words like goal and plan.  Got the goal, what's the plan? 

The first profile was a lady in Dallas with a hi tech temp business.  Tip Number 1-Seize An Opportunity.  When the tech industry tanked and her company "was almost down to a liquidation plan," Nina Vaca bought out her partner and reinvigorated the business by changing its focus. 

I don't know a lot about tech and I don't want to get "almost down to a liquidation plan" but the next opportunity that walks by will get seized.  Just not sure I will know it when I see it.

The next of the 12 was actually four guys who started a web site and are making "big bucks operating an online repository for tasteless videos, silly digital pictures and sophomoric commentary, contributed mostly by college students."  The headline is "We Worked In Our Underwear."  Tip Number 2-Have a fallback.  Josh Abramson and Ricky Van Veen started their college-humor Web site while still in school.  "If you fail, you just go back to being students," say Van Veen.

Thanks for the tip, Ricky.  Just go back to school.  I'm sure my wife will go for that one.

Five down and seven to go.

At least this guy is interesting, at least to me.  52, techie contract worker, stressed out, loves trees.  The headline is "You Can Reach Any Goal."  A Dale Carnegie graduate, I believe.  Starts growing trees, makes a million in tech stocks, loses a million when the bubble bursts, makes another million off his trees.  There's a lesson in there somewhere.  Tip Number 3-Learn from your experience.  Dave Grotz's losses on tech stocks taught him a lesson about diversifying that helped get his tree business off the ground. 

Seems he could have read a better article about stock diversification in some magazine and not have had to go the tree route.  But he likes trees so that is ok.  The take away for me?  I'll have to think about that a little more.

Person number 4 is a song writer.  And a good one.  1,600 songs sung by the likes of Cher, LeAnne Rimes and people I've never heard of.  Seems this lady wrote songs, sold them to an agency and they paid her $300 while raking in millions for themselves.  So she started her own agency and kept the money.  The headline is "I Could Not Ask For More."  Should be "Cut Out The Middle Man."

Tip Number 4--Take a chance.  Diane Warren, a Grammy-winning songwriter who has composed dozens of top-ten tunes, maximized her earning potential by forgoing a salary and striking out on her own.

Take a chance, got it.  Or does she have a lot of talent that maybe most people don't have?  But the advice is forego a salary and strike out on your own.  That's not much of a plan.

The next guy is one of those Asian success stories.  Don't speak English but start a electronics company when you are four and sell it to Lucent and then watch Lucent go bankrupt.  Buy a sports franchise as a hobby.  Piece of cake.  Headline is "I tend to say less and do more."   

Tip Number 5--Forget stereotypes.  "I'm not a natural businessman, and I'm not motivated by money," says Jeong Kim, who sold his telecommunications company for $1.1 billion.  The key to success is "having a goal and the motivation to do something significant."

Of course he's not motivated by money.  He sold his company for $1.1 billion.  Actually I like stories like this but they don't enlighten me much as my sole knowledge of electronics is changing a light bulb and sometimes I have trouble with that.  But I will remember to get a "goal" and find the "motivation to do something significant."

The next headline is actually helpful.  "Trust In The Stock Market"  And these people actually have jobs.  Paul Cloud is an ex-engineer and now banker at JPMorgan Chase in Houston.  His wife, Doris, is a project manager for Hewitt Associates.  Two kids.  Have a portfolio in excess of $1 million.

Tip Number 6--Simple ideas work.  Investing regulary and living below their means helped Paul and Doris Cloud amass a million dollar portfolio before they were 50.

They did it by making it "a habit to save a portion of every paycheck, automatically funding their 401k retirement plans and adding an extra $1,000 a month to their mortgage payment. 

What?  No Goals, No Motivation, No Fallback, No Going For It?  These two are pretty smart and pretty boring.  And this is the first bit of good advice in the whole article.

The next couple run a coffeehouse in Chicago competing against Starbucks.  Something about finding your niche. 

I'll pass.  I'm still thinking about those smart people in Houston.

Comments

[Justin McHenry]

You're right--these types of stories too often focus on people who had great luck versus great plans. But of course they can't say "the one rule for getting rich: be lucky."

For every person that got filthy rich by working hard, seizing opportunities, etc., there are thousands more who did the same things but with results that don't match up -- that's not to say the rich ones don't deserve it, just to say that there is no guarantee, no matter what you do.

The people who work, put some away, and bide their time are the best example for the average person to follow.