Who wants to be a millionaire??

Do you know you have the power to become a millionaire using only the income you currently have? Do you have goals for your money or do you use money based on feelings and emotions? (Right now, after just looking at Rosa in the Perilla dress, I could care less about having $2 million down the road - I want that dress NOW! See what I mean?)

America is a consumer society. Marketers have done a fabulous job of convincing us we NEED so many things. Just look at the ads - the people buying things are so happy, they are with friends and family, their life is enriched by owning and having the products offered by all different kinds of companies. You will be prettier if you use X brand makeup, you will be slimmer if eat X brand food, you will have great times if you drink X brand beverage, you will be in high fashion if you wear X brand clothes. When I really truly stop and think about marketing and all the stops they pull out to get my money, I am really, really turned off by consuming. I am turned off by being wasteful. I am turned off by letting some one else tell me what I like and want and need. (Then the kid in me comes out again and I say I want it, I want it, I want it!)

Here is a chart based on one in the Dave Ramsey book that makes a big point!

Daily Decisions can make a HUGE impact!

Expense	Cost per month	If invested in interest bearing mutual fund from 16-76 *
1 Jcrew shirt	$90	$11,622,000
2 pair of shoes on sale	$150	$19,371,943
1 Anthropologie dress	$160	$20,663,319

You may say these are extreme examples of saving from a young age, and you are already 40. So let’s take a more conservative approach. For example, a 40 year old just starting to save could put $150 a month (the cost of one Anthropologie dress) into an interest bearing mutual fund* for the next 35 years and at retirement have $974,290 – or almost a MILLION dollars!!! If you want to retire at 65, you would have $284,645. So you can see, time is on your side. The younger you start saving and investing, the more you will have in the end.

I took the cost of an outfit I recently saw on Polyvore – total of outfit $276. Invested monthly in a mutual fund* starting at 40 until retirement will bring $1,792,694. So the decision is ours - closet full of clothing that we tire of, give away, donate to Goodwill, constantly replenish or almost $2 million in cash........hmmmmmm.................

This stuff blows my mind! I write this as I am thinking about life and expenses and what I want over the long haul. It's true you may be able to save money and still buy whatever you want each month. It's all relative and it's all very personal. Everyone has to find that balance. Of course in this life we want to have fun and enjoy things! I am just trying to bring to mind a different way to look at things and become more mindful of how my daily decisions influence the big picture. I am also mindful that I am a steward of God's blessings and no money is really "mine" but entrusted to me to manage in this life.

Let me also say that there are many ways to go about managing finances. I really have a hard time reading budget books that say I have to wash out my Ziploc bags and line dry all my laundry- I'm not going to do it. But that works for some people. I love reading Money Saving Mom about how they have saved cash to buy a house! They will have no debt at all! It works for them. I also know people (like my boss) who are already multi-millionaires and have become so by using the OPM (other people's money) method and creative financing. It works for them! There are many ways to financial success!

If you want to do some "number crunching" of your own, based on your actual expenses there is a great calculator HERE. Go through your receipts or credit card statements from the last few months to get a true and clear picture of what you are actually spending on clothing for yourself. Put that number into the calculator, choose 12% as the rate of return (because over the long haul, that is typically what a good mutual fund return is) and you can play with the number of years you have to work with, etc. You may have it within your power to become a millionaire!

*I am using 12% rate of return on the mutual fund scenarios as Dave Ramsey does in his books. He said in the videos, even though the market is currently down, that over the long haul good mutual funds typically return at 12%.