10 Ways to Get a Million Dollars

I'm sorry if you are reading this post in order to learn the secrets of black-market stock-trading or the winning lottery numbers or my bank account numbers (just kidding, I don't have $10,000 much less $1 million).

This post is less of a how-to because you've already read plenty of those, like this one. You already know you need to spend less than you make and save the rest. The more you make and the more you save, the more money you'll have. This is old news.

So instead, this post is more of a thought experiment. There are so many ways to end up with a million dollars and I bet some of these will make you feel a little better about your chances. And some of them might make you feel a little worse. My apologies ahead of time.

1) Invest $110 a month for 45 years. That's $1,320 per year. Anyone can afford to do this, and I mean that. If you start now, you won't even be that old when the you hit seven digits.

2) Save $1,850 a month for 45 years in a checking account (with no interest).

Notice that $1,850 is a LOT more than $110. Investing beats saving, every time.

3) Invest $5,000 a month for 10 years. That's $60,000 per year.

4) Invest $2,000 a month for 10 years, and then let it sit (no touching!) for another 10 years.

5) Trade for it. This man just about did.

6) Steal Jeff Bezos' income for 6.7 minutes without him noticing.

7) Work 137,930 hours at a minimum wage job and save 100% of your income. That's 66.3 years (working full time).

8) Convince Jeff Bezos to split his fortune between every adult who lives in Vermont and invest that for 13 years. And make sure you move to Vermont first.

9) Steal 5 Lamborghinis.

10) Sell an app you made to 477,000 people on the app store.

To entertain you on your way out, here are my favorite Jeff Bezos memes. Read below them to see where I got my numbers.

Fact check me:

I assumed an investment of return rate of 10%, which is quite possible (although I wouldn't count on it).

I found online that Jeff Bezos makes just under $2,500 per second and that his total net worth is currently $145 billion.

Minimum wage is currently $7.25, which you can read more about here.

The average cost of a Lamborghini is $200,000 and the average app sold on the app store costs a little less than $3.

Which one of these sounds the best to you? Are you going to try to implement any of these?