My First $1 Million: Retired Media Project Manager, 68, Southern Maryland

First $1 Million Series

Welcome to Kiplinger's My First $1 Million series, in which we hear from people who have made $1 million.

They're sharing how they did it and what they're doing with it.

Married 68-year-old Retired Project

This time, we hear from a married 68-year-old retired project manager in media who lives in Southern Maryland. He reports that his last salary was $98,950.

See our earlier profiles, including a writer in New England, a literacy interventionist in Colorado, a semiretired entrepreneur in Nashville and an events industry CEO in Northern New Jersey. (See all of the profiles here. )

Readers Answering Questions

Each profile features one person or couple, who will always be completely anonymous to readers, answering questions to help our readers learn from their experience.

These features are intended to provide a window into how different people build their savings — they're not intended to provide financial advice.

5 Things 50 Millionaires

To learn what these millionaires have taught us, check out the articles 5 Key Insights We Learned From 50 Millionaires and 5 Things 50 Millionaires Wish They'd Known Before They Retired.

And to hear more about My First $1 Million, you can check out this podcast with bestselling author and tax attorney Toby Mathis:

Basics

The Basics

How did you make your first $1 million?

Spent Spent Less

Dogged persistence. We saved more than we spent, spent less than we made and gave more than we got.

We were in our early 40s when our net worth crossed $1 million.

Always Fully Funded

We have always fully funded our IRAs, and we began aggressively funding our 401(k)s when they first became available.

What are you doing with the money?

SFD Single-family Dwelling Rental

When our children were in elementary school, we started to invest in SFD (single-family dwelling) rental real estate. At the time, we thought we would begin divesting when our children began college, selling properties as necessary to fund those expenses.

Turns out that by the time college came around, our portfolio was throwing off so much free cash flow that we didn't need to sell anything!

Fun Stuff

The Fun Stuff

Did you do anything to celebrate?

Number

Nope. That's just a number.

What is the best part of making $1 million?

Doesn't Mean

One million is just a number — doesn't mean a thing by itself.

Did your life change?

Asset Level Allows

Our asset level allows my wife and me to weather the idiocy of whatever the current administration is, regardless of political party.

When the White House does something stupid and markets crash, I simply use that as an opportunity to do Roth conversions.

Allow IRA Contributions Nevertheless

We were early devotees of Roth IRAs, but for many years, our income level did not allow IRA contributions. Nevertheless, I was an early advocate of backdoor conversions.

Does anyone know you're a millionaire?

Two Adult Children

Our two adult children are well aware and fully informed of our finances. That's both a learning experience for them and their spouses and an essential element of our estate plan.

We threw our rental real estate into an LLC many years ago, and we diligently gift our children's trusts interest in the LLC to the maximum allowable.

Retire Early

Did you retire early?

My wife retired in her mid-50s to start providing daycare to our grandchildren. My plan was to retire about 10 years later — my original plan was to retire in mid-March of 2020 (remember COVID? ).

Alone Blows

Our assets are such that we can easily be up or down in a day what we used to make in a year. That alone blows my mind!

Anyway, we were down almost $1 million after COVID hit, so I decided to push my retirement, which I hadn't yet communicated to my employer.

63

Ultimately, I delayed one year until I pulled the trigger — at that time, I was 63.

Looking Back

Differently

Anything you would do differently?

Nope, our aggressive investment philosophy has served us incredibly well, and we've always been self-directed.

IRA Contributions

Early in my career, I was between jobs during the spring, and we couldn't afford to make our IRA contributions, so we borrowed the amount — it was $1,500 each so we could fund our accounts for that year. We borrowed the funds in April and paid the loan off i