My $80k in Debt to $1M Journey (the 4 big things)

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Getting out of debt and building wealth can:

- Boost your confidence.

- Build your bank account.

- Give you more options in life.

Unfortunately, most schools teach nothing about money.

 

The Math Of A Lifetime

 

According to Our World in Data, the average person spends:

- 28 years sleeping.

- 16 years working.

- 13 years relaxing.

And the rest of their time is spent on chores, childcare, socializing and eating.

 

Work is a big part of it.

Which means learning how to deal with money.

And after working for 40 years, hoping someday there's enough money to finally leave 9-5 life for good.

To sleep in more.

To see family more.

To finally go on that trip.

But what if leaving 9-5 life a few decades early was possible?

 

 

Like it was last week, I remember looking out across the sea of cubicles inside the office I was working.

There were people in their 20s.

People in their 30s.

And even people in their 60s working away.

 

As time wore on, I couldn't stop thinking about:

- Waking up.

- Commuting to work.

- Taking a fast lunch.

- Commuting home.

- Relaxing for a few hours.

- Going to bed.

...and doing it all over again for 30 more years.

 

Many of the people I talked to in their 50s and 60s didn't seem very happy with taking that path.

And I started wondering if there was another way to live life.

A way to work less, and enjoy more.

 

The $80,000 Problem

 

But I had a massive amount of debt at the time.

And leaving 9-5 life early felt like a silly daydream.

As time wore on, I couldn't stop thinking about what it would be like to:

- Not have to wake up early everyday.

- Not have to ask for time off hoping no one else asked before me.

- Not feel like I was living the same day over and over again on repeat.

 

So I became obsessed with figuring out how to get rid of my debt.

And how to build my net worth as quickly as possible so leaving 9-5 life early became an option.

 

The 4 Things Behind $1M

 

Hearing stories about people getting out of debt, building their investments and quitting their 9-5 jobs early motivated the heck out of me.

And I was fortunate to hear a lot of these stories while working 10 years as a banker.

Here's the 4 biggest things that helped me get out of debt and build $1M of investments in my 30s (things I learned from people much wiser than me).

Let's dive in.

 

1. The Money System

 

Most people keep track of their money in their head.

That's what I did too for a long time.

But eventually I realized, that wasn't working.

So I started using a money system.

The goal of a money system is to make things easy and to:

 

Here's the 5-step money system I started using:

Step 1: Save $1,000 in a savings account using automated deposits from your paychecks.

Step 2: Pay off all of your high-interest rate debt using the debt snowball method.

Step 3: Grow a 3-6 month emergency fund with the extra money you now have.

Step 4: Invest in retirement on autopilot (15% of each paycheck is the goal).

Step 5: Build wealth rapidly and plan your early escape from 9-5 life.

Spending just 30 minutes a month using a simple money system can change everything.

 

2. The Stock Market

 

Most people are intimidated by the stock market at first.

And I was too in the beginning.

Doing the wrong thing and losing money was my biggest fear.

But coming across famous investor Warren Buffett's quote helped me feel more confident with my investing plan:

 

 

Each time I was paid, money automatically went into my retirement account at work and the money was invested in an S&P500 fund, which includes 500 of the largest companies in America like:

- Tesla

- Apple

- Google

- Amazon

- Microsoft

+ 495 other companies

 

In the beginning, I started with $100 per paycheck.

As time went on, I invested more and more until 15% of my pay was going towards retirement.

Then I opened a non-retirement account (a brokerage account) and started investing there as well.

And I watched the stock market go up 10% per year on average, like it has over the past 40 years.

 

^{Stock market history}

$100 invested in an S&P500 Stock Fund 30 years ago is worth almost $2,000 today.

 

3. The Real Estate Market

 

Many people wait for a good time to buy a house.

And before getting a loan to buy my first home, I also wondered if it was a good time to buy.

But after seeing a chart of house prices going up since the 1960s:

 

^{House prices history}

Figuring out how to get loans to buy real estate was something I thought about a lot.

And learning how to buy homes without having to spend a lot of my own money became my weird obsession.

 

While working in banking I discovered how to get up to $30,000 when buying a house. I call it the Max Cash Method.

It's a way to get money from 4 different places while buying a home.

- From the program.

- From the agent.

- From the seller.

- From the lender.

And it adds up.

 

It helped me while getting loans to buy 7 properties.

A $130,000 home bought 30 years ago with a home loan is worth around $400,000 today.

If you want to buy a house without having to save up tons of money all by yourself, you can ​read about my max cash method here​.

 

4. The Part Time Millionaire

 

Most people plan to work a 9-5 job for 40 years.

Then "retire" and stop working.

That was the plan I was on too at first.

But then I realized, there's another option.

A way to leave 9-5 life decades early.

And I watched many bank customers do it.

Justin's post sums it up:

 

Every paycheck you get is evidence that someone else figured out how to monetize your skills better than you did.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) July 13, 2026

Eventually I realized, I didn't want to:

- Work a 9-5 job for 40 years.

- Retire and stop working.

 

Instead, I wanted to:

- Work a 9-5 job to learn skills.

- Let a salary fund my investments.

- Build up enough investments so I could quit my 9-5 job and just work part time.

 

I watched several bank customers do this in their 30s and 40s.

They used the skills they learned from their 9-5 and got to a point financially where they could just work part time.

 

Some even used the skills they learned from their 9-5 to start a small online business sharing knowledge and making money part time online.

The wild part, some of these people made more money working part time for themself then they did working their fulltime 9-5 job. They became part time millionaires.

Leaving full-time work doesn't mean you have to follow the traditional path of 40 years at a 9-5 job.

 

The bottom line

 

Those 4 big things made the biggest difference on my $80k in debt to $1M journey and leaving my 9-5 at age 39.

- Spending 30 minutes a month on my money system.

- Using my salary to invest in an S&P500 fund.

- Using the max cash method to help buy real estate.

- Viewing job skills as a way to leave 9-5 life early to just work part time.

Working part time for yourself is the better option, in my opinion.

When I had $80,000 of debt at age 29.

Paying off bills, building wealth and quitting my 9-5 felt impossible.

But becoming obsessed with getting my money right and wanting to build a freer life taught me anything is possible, when you want it bad enough.

I'm rooting for you.

That's all for today.

See you next Saturday.