The good thing about being a millionaire is that you can buy pretty much whatever you want. For many in the two-comma club, that means boats, cars and shiny things to advertise the success they achieved — or, more likely, inherited.
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But those who make their own way in the world are much more likely to spend money on things that can grow, preserve and secure the wealth they worked so hard to create.
GOBankingRates spoke with two self-made millionaires who can recall specific purchases that helped them evolve from ambitious to stable to successful to rich.
Here are the purchases that helped make them wealthy.
Jonathan Geserick, MBA, JD, is the managing attorney at DWI Guys Texas, which, despite the name, also handles many drug charges, family violence cases and more. The firm currently has offices in San Antonio, New Braunfels, San Marcos and Boerne and is expanding to Fredericksburg, Austin, Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston, College Station, Waco, Temple, Killeen and Belton — and Geserick is in charge of it all.
“But I only started that business when I became financially independent,” he said.
Geserick traces his wealth-building journey — which made him a millionaire and gave him the resources to found his firm — to two seemingly trivial purchases that proved to be the seeds for his growing fortune.
“What is the best purchase I’ve made to grow my wealth?” he said. “The best purchase I ever made to grow my wealth was, oddly, a color printer and a roll of stamps. That allowed me to print my own marketing materials and do my own direct-mail marketing on the cheap for a side hustle I was working on. That ended up turning into a business that has made millions of dollars so far.”
Self-made millionaires are cost-cutters by nature, and Geserick’s refusal to pay for printing and mailing services that he could do himself embodies the entrepreneurial spirit — you’re in it to make money, not to give money to another entrepreneur’s business.
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The next piece of Geserick’s millionaire puzzle fit into place when he earned enough money to start putting some of that money to work. Instead of investing it all in the market, he had the foresight to invest some of it in professional guidance, which paid dividends down the road — both figuratively and literally.
