Hello dear reader and welcome to the second blog post of the Millionaire Interview Series.
As this blog’s domain name suggests, my personal long term financial goal is to reach a net worth of one million euros, or in other words, become a millionaire.
In addition to self-educating in topics as finance, and summarizing my learnings on my millionaire mind series, I am keen on acquiring knowledge from other people experiences, especially from those who are self-made millionaires.
So, what is this Millionaire Interview Series about?
Every interviewee will answer a set of questions, which aim to collect information from several millionaires around the world. These questions will be all be pretty much the same for everyone.
My goal is to analyse and find common patterns, behaviour, careers, lifestyles, mindset, hobbies, or any other aspect that may come across.
If you’d be interested in being interviewed please get in touch with me by email tony (at) onemillionjourney (dot) com or a message me on Twitter.
Previously interviewed:
- Millionaire Interview #1 – Finimus (The UK)
Table of Contents
Meet FI Heroes
The second interviewee is an interesting multi-millionaire married couple who’ve reached financial independence and retired early not so long ago. They are FI Girl and FI Guy and they both blog at https://fiheroes.com/.
I have to say that I envy this couple, I would not mind being on their position and neither does my girlfriend, hehe, especially after coming across their Bucket (Adventure) List. (hugging a Koala in Australia, what a cool thing to do!).
Their story and trajectory is inspiring and shows that becoming financially independent is not an unrealistic goal, even if we start from the bottom. It’s also interesting to note that they live out of their passive (dividend) income only, which is a method that I am inclined to, due to its long term sustainability. This guys are not only millionaires and retired, but they are still accumulating more millions, sweet!
Another fact I’d like to highlight is that they don’t own a home, they rent. The sense of freedom must be even greater, think about it, being able to relocate wherever you may like as long as it is a financially affordable and sustainable, or just backpack for months travelling the world while avoiding maintenance housing costs…
Without further ado, it’s learning time with The FI team.
Introduction About Yourself
How old are you?
What’s your nationality?
Where do you live?
Are you married? (If so, how old is your spouse and when you married?)
Do you have any children? (If so, how many and how old are they?)
What do you do for a living?
Determining how wealthy you are
In this section, I would like to find out where you stand along the wealth continuum, or in other words, if you are a prodigious accumulator (PAW), an under accumulator of wealth (UAW) or just an average accumulator (AAW). More about this on wikipedia.
What’s your net worth? Please include debt details if applicable.
How much of your net worth is inherited?
Could you please tell us what’s your pre-tax household income from all sources, except inheritances and how it has evolved from your first earnings until now?
Sources of income
Please, would you mind telling us what are your main sources of income and how much they contribute to your pre-tax income household? (Day job, side hustles, businesses, dividends, interests… from you and your spouse).
Approximately, how many hours per week of your time is required to maintain this income level?
Have you had any period with a significant lower stream of income due to a career or occupation change, incapacity, illness or any other bumps on the road you encountered? (If so, what did you do to overcome the situation?)
Do you spend time or money looking for new opportunities to boost your income?
Savings, expenses and purchasing behaviour
How much of your pre-tax household income do you save and how it has changed over time?
Do you have a budget, pay yourself first or track your expenses? (If so, how much time do you spend on it on a monthly basis?)
Do you remember how much you paid for your first home and what was your household’s total annual realized income at that time?
Is there any category where you don’t mind spending more money into? (travelling, education for yourself or your kids…)
What’s the most expensive piece of clothing and the motor vehicle you’ve ever bought?
What’s the current value of all your motor vehicles?
Investing strategy and behaviour
What’s your net worth asset allocation?
What’s your investing philosophy? Do you stick into any strategy? (If so, do you change it often?)
How much time do you spend planning and tracking your investments on a monthly basis?
Do you follow the markets and media closely and trade accordingly? Are you an active or inactive trader?
Do you hire any professional financial and tax advisors, lawyers or accountants? (If so, what’s the annual cost of it?)
Tell us about your best investment.
And the worst one?
What would be your investment advice to anyone who wants to build wealth today?
Your Habits
Are you a goal-oriented person? Do you have a net worth target number?
Do you follow any specific morning routine? How do you spend the first hour of the day?
Is there any specific goal or habit you would like to mention?
Miscellaneous
How do you view money? What does it represent to you?
Did your parents provide you with economic outpatient care? (If so, how much was gifted to you?)
Do you consider yourself financially literate? (If so, please could you tell us how you got the knowledge?)
Tell us about your hobbies and how you like to spend (free) time and energy.
Your concerns, fears and worries. Can you tell us a bit about them? Is there anything you are especially afraid of?
Who do you hang out with? Where do you hang out? What’s your environment like?
What is your mindset like? What do you think about on a daily basis?
Tell us three books you think any wealth accumulator must-read.
Becoming a millionaire is a common people’s dream. Can you see any pattern that some millionaire dreamers follow, and you think it isn’t the most appropriate? What would like to advise them?
Anything else you would like to add?
