The Millionaire Choice

By Tony Bradshaw

The Millionaire Choice inspires and equips anyone with hopes for a better financial future. Tony Bradshaw grew up in a financially challenged home in a lower income area of Nashville, TN. In his mid 20s, he found himself following in his family’s footsteps of debt and financial struggle. Then at age 25, he experienced a financial wake-up call that changed his future forever: he decided to break his family’s cycle of financial mismanagement and become a millionaire by 40 years old. It’s what Tony calls making the millionaire choice. Regardless of circumstance or family background, everyone has the ability to make choices that affect their future positively or negatively. In The Millionaire Choice, Tony shares the principles and actions he applied during his journey to becoming a millionaire to reveal how, with the right financial knowledge and choices, anyone can become a millionaire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9781683509448

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Money. It’s complicated. Well, it’s not complicated in its simplest form. You work for it. You earn it. You spend it. Repeat. Unfortunately, that’s all most Americans do with their money. If that’s you, then you’re destined to spend your life working, perhaps struggling to pay your bills at times, and wondering why you work so hard yet never get ahead. The longer you are caught in this monotonous cycle, the more discouraged you’ll become. Eventually, you may feel trapped, with no way out. Does this sound depressing to you? Who in their right mind wants to live this way?

In 1996’s The Millionaire Next Door, we learn that only 3.5 percent of American households are millionaire households.¹ By 2016, that number climbed to 8.5 percent or 10.4 million households.² Almost 10 percent of American households have now reached the millionaire level.

We also learn that 80 to 85 percent of these millionaires are first generation millionaires, which means they made it on their own.³ No silver spoons. No wealthy mom, dad, or aunt handed these people their money. These individuals figured out how to break the financial cycle handed down from past generations, and they became millionaires.

So, money. It’s complicated. It’s complicated if you want to learn how to make it, use it, and become a millionaire. However, it’s not quite as complicated as you might think. There are basic principles of money and finances that almost anyone can do. It’s not rocket science. It’s just money, some knowledge, and hard work mixed in with a lot of discipline. I believe you and many others across America can become millionaires. It’s within your grasp. You just have to decide if you will do what it takes.

CHAPTER 1

Growing Up

Life in a Financially Messy Home

Too many homes across America are financially broken. The home I grew up in was no exception. It wasn’t the hardscrabble poverty lifestyle that many Americans endure, but our family certainly had financial issues.

I don’t remember ever feeling a sense of being poor, although by some people’s standards I guess we were. Fortunately, most of my needs as a child were met, and unknowingly, my expectations were pretty low. Financially, my parents were much like average America. They lived paycheck to paycheck.

My mother managed convenient stores, pulling in a modest $30,000-$35,000 a year, while my dad worked as a carpenter. Dad wasn’t very organized or much of a manager, and his money skills were sorely lacking. Later in life, I found out that one year my dad worked an entire year as a subcontractor, but after taxes and expenses, only managed to earn $7,000. $7,000!

My father dropped out of high school in the ninth grade to support himself. He is good with his hands and is mechanically inclined. My mother finished high school and even managed to complete a bit of college, but never completed her degree. They were both working-class Americans with extremely strong work ethics. They came from families with strong work ethics, but also quite a bit of family dysfunction, hence the reason my dad was supporting himself in the ninth grade. Both of my parents came from broken homes with very little family support or stability. Needless to say, personal finances and money management were not strong skills in our family.

We were one of those do as I say not do as I do families when it came to money. My mother frequently told me, You need to save money. Did she save money? No. Did I save money. No. I spent every dime about as fast as I made it. I did what was modeled for me. We were a family with a bad case of living paycheck to paycheck. In fact, we were much worse.

My parents were constantly writing checks to pay bills or buy groceries, trying to time the checks hitting the bank with getting paid. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. For everyone who’s ever bounced a check, you know what that means. Fees. Bounced check fees. Overdraft fees. My parents didn’t do anything halfway. When checks bounced, it wasn’t one or two. It was common for multiple checks to hit in overdraft, resulting in $100, $200, or even $300 in monthly overdraft fees. Ouch!

Are you shocked? For many Americans, this is a more common practice than you might think, and I experienced it firsthand. And this is just one of the many financial issues I witnessed as a kid growing up in a financially messy home.

Utilities

Utilities. That’s a fun one. Water, electricity, telephone. When money is tight, you must make choices. Do you put food on the table or do you pay the utilities?

Telling these stories today seems almost comical and right out of a TV sitcom. They’d go something like this.

Honey, the water was cut off today. Can you go outside and turn it back on? My dad digs around through his tools and out comes with this T-bar thing. It is the tool the water meter guys used to turn the water off. As I learned, the real name is water meter key. It is 3’ metal bar with a few metal plates welded to the end. For some reason, my dad had one. Why shouldn’t he? After all, our water was turned off somewhat frequently. Water off? No problem. Grab the T-bar from the tool pile. That works pretty well until you continue not paying the bill. Once that happens, the water company padlocks the meter before they resort to removing the meter.

What about the electricity? That’s just as fun. You come home from work or school and the power’s been turned off. Why? That’s what happens when you can’t pay your bills. Your electricity gets turned off. No grace. No questions. Pure and simple, the power company turns your power off. Happens every time. It is especially inconvenient in the winter. And so you pay the bill and you also pay the late fees and the reconnect fees. More wasted money that you don’t have.

Clothing and More

As you can imagine, a child in a financially tight family naturally has to do without some things that children in other families might get to enjoy. A common one is clothing. In the ‘80s, we saw clothing trends and brands like Izod, Members Only, Starter Jackets, and the ascension of Nike as the athletic shoe of choice. Yeah, it would have been nice to have a pair of Nike high-tops. While the other kids on the basketball team all had matching Nike shoes that cost $45 a pair, I was the only kid wearing non-team-matching ProWings from Payless Shoes that cost $15. I still remember the coach’s disgusted look on his face when he saw my shoes. It was a fairly defining moment for me as a fourteen-year-old.

We had to stretch our dollars, and I got some serious mileage out of my clothes. This was probably best reflected during a high school pep rally while walking by some of the more popular girls as they called out my name. As any teenage guy would be, I was excited. Wow. Those girls just called out to me, I thought to myself. Then I heard them call, Tony, are you expecting it to rain today? With a puzzled look on my face, I replied, What? Yes. I was that naive.

My parents made some serious sacrifices for my sister and me. Looking back, I was well into my twenties before I truly appreciated all their sacrifices. Perhaps their greatest sacrifice was my mother working eighty to a hundred hours per week at times to keep my sister and me in private school. My dad’s work as a carpenter was seasonal, and as an independent contractor, his cash flow was unpredictable at times.

It was common for us to be behind in tuition payments even at this low budget, affordable private school. At one point, we were two years behind in tuition payments. For several years in a row at the beginning of the school year, the tuition had not been paid on time, which resulted in my name not being on the class roster. It’s grueling to show up year after year and be the only kid not listed on the homeroom rosters. As a teenager, crazy things start to go through your head, such as, I don’t belong! Honestly, it may seem like a small thing, but it was a psychological hit that I still deal with today as an adult.

Christmas

What can we say about Christmas. Wow. As a kid, you appreciate all Christmas offers, and boy did my parents go overboard. Christmas was one of the areas where mom over compensated for her childhood and made some common Christmas mistakes Americans still make today.

One Christmas, Mom wanted to do something super special for my sister and me. If you know anything about the Five Love Languages⁴ by Gary Chapman, you’ll understand why Christmas was so important to my mom. One of her love languages was gifts. She experienced love through gift giving and receiving. It was important to her. And for those of us who like to give gifts, it’s easy to go overboard.

I believe I was thirteen during the blowout Christmas. Remember, my parents made meager incomes. However, that year my mom and dad splurged and spent $1,000 each on my sister and me. A thousand dollars each! Needless to say, it was financially irresponsible, but I appreciated it…deeply.

It was some years later when I discovered the secret of how my parents could afford all these wonderful Christmas treats for us, and the secret was my grandmother. My parents were so bad at handling money that their credit was pretty much busted. Mom would load up Christmas on my grandmother’s credit cards and then spend the next three to six months paying them off. Not a good financial management decision.

I didn’t have a terrible childhood and that’s not the image I want to portray. I was quite oblivious and simply took life in stride. For me, that’s just how things were. For all the financial mess, my mom and dad really went overboard in providing a wonderful childhood for us. Looking back, I realize they were overcompensating for their own meager childhoods, but the financial mishandling was still there. While they should have been preparing more for their future, they were busy pouring themselves out for us in any way they could. They were wonderful parents even if they were a financial mess.

The Repercussions

Our family was a real-life example of almost everything a person can do wrong with their finances. As is so often the case, we absorb and live out what was modeled for us by our parents. Not knowing any better, I began following in my parents’ footsteps.

At age thirteen, my working life began. Receiving a small regular income, I managed to spend it all as soon as it hit my hands. Throughout high school, I migrated from cutting grass to convenient store work to grocery store work and back to convenient store work. I made it through high school spending virtually every dime. Most of it went to my car, a 1972 Pontiac LeMans/GTO clone.

Then it was off to college with only a few dollars saved. My savings account had $500 in it, which was just enough for first semester books.

Throughout my college years, I didn’t fare much better. I used my parents like a piggy bank, and they supported me as best they could. I was so wasteful it was embarrassing. My parents’ unhealthy need to accommodate their children and my unhealthy money habits were a terrible combination. Quite frequently it put my parents into a bad financial bind.

Sadly, the tradition of not having my school bill paid at the beginning of each school year continued. My college years began with me arriving on campus and going straight to the financial office to sort out the details on my tuition payments.

Throughout my college years, I continued to work throughout the summers. For the last eighteen months of my college career, I worked on campus as a security guard, enabling me to lighten the financial burden on my parents. With my parents’ help, I avoided student loan debt. At least we did something right during all those years of financial mismanagement.

After graduating from college, it was time to find that lucrative job that all the college kids expect to find. However, that lucrative job didn’t find me right away. Not so surprisingly, I began to live off my credit card. It was so easy. Lay around. Send out resumes. Use that free money that the banks so gladly gave me. I believe it was a Capital One™ card with a $2,000 limit. Eventually, my dad found a pitiful job for me doing auto body work at a local body shop. After that, it was off to a temp service for $7 per hour, then on to a small manufacturing plant, followed by Whirlpool, where I experienced the joy of the paint assembly line. Finally, at age twenty-four, I landed a break that turned into my first real job out of college as a manufacturing engineer.

Throughout those first two years out of college, I managed to rack up about $3,000 in credit card and consumer debt, $13,000 in a car loan, and blow the rest of the money I made. With that, the circle was complete. I had continued in my parents’ footsteps. I was a financial mess.

CHAPTER 2

Breaking Bad Money Habits

Learning What No One Taught You

Managing Money Well is a Choice

So many of us grow up without good financial knowledge or habits. Are we destined to live a life of bad financial choices and living paycheck to paycheck simply because we lack the knowledge we need to change? Absolutely not.

Learning to manage money well is a choice. It is your choice, but you still must make it. Ignoring it is a choice as well. Sadly, many Americans fail to choose to gain the financial knowledge they need to make changes, and consequently, they fail to develop good financial habits. These Americans, and there are millions of them, are choosing to live a life of financial turmoil. Living paycheck to paycheck is a way of life for them, and unless they change, their entire life will be one of financial hardship.

Today, we see more and more people working into their sixties and seventies. Yes, some of them choose to continue working because they want to, but for many, it is the only option. There is no retirement in their future. These are the people who still have mortgages on their homes, a recent car loan, or just don’t have enough money saved to retire. As the American economy continues to shift, we even see student loans carried into a person’s sixties. This is what debt and financial mismanagement yields…financial bondage.

You may feel as sad for people in this situation as I do. Why didn’t they learn what they needed to make the financial turn? Why didn’t they change? The answer is simple. They didn’t know how to change. For most people, the thought of learning anything new after school is foreign. The average American only learns what they need to learn to exist or deal with the daily problems and challenges they face. I dare say that many people spend more time learning how to record a show on their DVR than they do learning how to improve their personal finances. When it comes to money, if you don’t realize there’s a problem, you will not do anything to change. People continue to live in financial misery, unaware there is a better way to handle their money within their grasp.

There are no excuses. In most cases when you’re broke, you have no one to blame but yourself. Sure, medical issues and hosts of other circumstances will surface, but most of the time, sound financial knowledge and principles will win out. You must take personal responsibility for your finances. And that starts now. From this moment forward, your future is in your hands.

Realizing that something needs to change, and then doing something about it, are two different things. Many people recognize a need for change, but few ever do what is necessary to make that change. In some cases, people might eventually change, but they delay the change. In my moment of change, I acted. I didn’t want to delay the benefits of healthy financial management any longer. No one in my family was going to help me. This change had to come from me. Will you do what is necessary to change your financial future?

Can You Change?

Is it possible to change? Of course it is. It’s not easy, but it is possible. How do you break your family cycle of financial mismanagement? Or perhaps your family was good with money, but you were the one who fell off the wagon. Either way, the principles and methods of financial change are the same.

Waking Up Financially

The fact that you are reading this book is a good sign that your financial future is about to change. You are waking up to the possibilities of what your finances could become. Your financial future will be bright if you follow along and devote yourself to change.

My wake-up call came in the Spring. I was a twenty-five-year old bright-eyed college graduate making more money than I had ever made in my life when I received my W2 for my first full year of work as a manufacturing engineer. The experience of opening that W2 envelope was surreal. That moment seared itself deeply into my mind and forever changed my life.

Opening the W2 envelope revealed my total earnings of $39,000 for the year. $39,000?! As I stared in disbelief at the number, I asked, Where did all of that money go? then I tried to recall everything that had transpired over the past year. What did I buy? Where did I go? My list was short, and it started with a new green Saturn SL2 Sedan for $14,000. Unfortunately, it was financed with a $315 per month car payment. In the corner of my bedroom, on my the desk my father built, sat my Micron 75Mhz Pentium computer. It cost $2000 and was also financed. The other corner of my bedroom hosted my Harmon Kardon stereo, my high-end Polk Audio speakers, and my 27-inch Sony television. All the audio and visual gear a single guy could want. There were a few other items on the list, like the bed I built myself, the regular eating out, and the meager amount of rent paid to my parents. That’s about it. That is all I had to show for my entire year of work and $39,000. I was shocked. $39,000 earned. $16,000 in debt. That was not a winning formula, but it was the wakeup call I needed.

Time for Change

It was at that moment something clicked for me. The numbers didn’t seem right. The math didn’t add up. I realized that something was wrong and I was determined to never repeat that money mistake again.

Thanks to my mom and dad, I had already developed a strong work ethic, and my parents also instilled a strong sense of personal responsibility into me. The primary component missing in my life was financial knowledge. It is not something anyone in my family could have taught me, so I had to seek out a source to learn about personal finance management.

It might seem weird today, but in those days, Bill Gates was still in denial about the internet and Google™ didn’t yet exist. I found my source of knowledge in the local Books-A-Million bookstore. Kiplinger’s was my magazine of choice, and I picked up numerous other financial magazines to help correct my bad money habits. Kiplinger’s provided a sound foundation for my investing knowledge at this early stage. Prior to Kiplinger’s, my knowledge about investing or the stock market was zero. It was a simple plan, but it was