What No One Tells You About Becoming a Millionaire

About six years ago in one of the worst single days in the stock market, my portfolio was down about $50,000 and I didn't do anything about it. I personally knew that long-term investing over time, the market would probably recover, but still that day felt mentally awful. On a percentage basis, maybe it wasn't the worst loss, but on an absolute dollar basis, my brain couldn't comprehend the fact that I basically lost someone's salary in a single day. Becoming a millionaire definitely is an accomplishment. Everyone says how great it is, but nobody tells you what happens to you when you actually hit that milestone. I'm a firm believer that your life won't change too much when you cross that specific number, but you up here mentally might change in five different ways and they show up in this order. One, you feel like nothing has actually happened. Number two, you feel like it's not enough. Number three, you start asking if you're doing things wrong. Number four, you have something to lose. And number five, you stop talking about it and it being money. In today's video, I want to go through each of these five feelings that you might encounter and give you specific frameworks on whether or not these feelings are rational. I'm also going to share with you some personal stories of my own after becoming a millionaire that no one's going to really tell you about. That way, whether you're on your way to a million or you've already crossed it, you know what to look out for. The first feeling you're going to feel, and I personally felt this, was that when you cross that $1 million mark, perhaps in your net worth, nothing crazy is going to happen. It's not like one day you wake up, you check your net worth, it's at seven figures, and all of a sudden a plate of caviar and French toast appears out of thin air. In fact, I would say it's quite the opposite. So when your net worth goes from $999,000 to a million dollars, you might feel that nothing has really changed. One singular digit just basically ticked upwards on a screen and that's basically it. You yourself are the same. A net worth number is basically like a stock price. You can look at it all you want, but until it materially changes your lifestyle, you're not going to feel it. Now, even though you won't feel it, a lot has actually changed about your financial situation because a million dollars is a huge milestone no matter what, and people these days are going to try to discount the fact that it's a huge milestone. They'll cite inflation or quote that it's not what it used to be, but a million dollars in net worth still brings you a lot of security. You're guaranteed to almost never go homeless, and hitting seven figures in your net worth unlocks this new mental level in your head of, okay, I now know how to build wealth. I just have to keep going and keep repeating the process. Now, depending on how that net worth is allocated, you might feel very different compared to another millionaire. Approximately 18 million U.S. households are millionaires solely because their home equity pushes them past the million dollar mark, but when you remove home equity from the equation, only about 6 million households have their million dollars in liquid net worth, and this difference in how your net worth is comprised is also going to change a lot about how you feel. If you have a million dollars invested in the market, your assets can be generating close to $40,000 to $45,000 a year in cash flow from average market returns using a safe withdrawal rate. Compare that to somebody who has their entire million dollars of net worth tied up in a home equity, they could be living two very different lifestyles. So I'd say the takeaway for me personally was that when I became a net worth millionaire, that cash flow ultimately still is king. You can feel infinitely more rich knowing that you have a lot of money coming in every single month rather than having your net worth tied up in an asset that isn't paying you regularly. The next feeling, which is very common among Reddit personal finance and fire communities, as well as the comment section in perhaps YouTube videos like this one, is that when you become a millionaire, people feel like it's not going to be enough money. A common theme that you'll hear the comments say is that once you've reached a million dollars, that you need to continue to save aggressively in order to hit the two to three to $5 million of net worth. When you're surrounded by people or content of people online making millions, or if you know your neighbors are worth multimillions, you will immediately compare yourself against them. Some of that is going to be natural. I would say most millionaires aren't going to compare themselves to the median household or someone that's doing worse than them financially. In fact, most people don't really compare themselves to people that have less than them like ever. They're always comparing upwards in society and therefore your goalpost is always going to move. A study from Harvard Business School found that most wealthy individuals believe that they need at least double or triple their current net worth to reach optimal happiness. But the funny thing is, is that that target is going to continue to be double or triple unless they learn how to be content with their lives. The way to figure out if a million dollars is enough for you is by using a withdrawal rate rule, something like the four or the 4.5% rule. We know that if we're using a 4.5% withdrawal rate that a million dollars in investable assets or a retirement account will allow you to withdraw $45,000 a year without ever running out of money in your 30 year retirement. That doesn't sound like a lot of money to a lot of people out there, especially when you consider that the median income is around 55 to $60,000 per year and $45,000 in this case just sounds much less. But the thing is that most people forget that they're going to have social security payments and their cost of living is also going to go way down in retirement. So for example, with social security, you're going to get around $1,800 to $2,000 a month in retirement. And then that total amount is going to amount to $20,000 a year plus your nest egg. That's going to actually make up a pretty good income. So the stigma that you see is that a lot of people want to live a lifestyle that costs more than that. And that's where this whole a million dollars is not really that much attitude comes into play. Having a million dollars back in the nineties, sure. That usually meant that you were really rich. Of course, these days, it doesn't mean that you're completely super rich, but it still means you're going to be pretty comfortable. If you are in the camp that you think a million bucks is not enough, I would just say you need to run your numbers. Now, one thing that I've been using recently that has helped me save money is Rocket Money, which happens to be the sponsor of this video. For a long time, the thing that quietly drained my accounts was subscriptions that I had completely forgotten about. You know how it goes. You sign up for something because you need it for one specific project or you want to watch one specific show. You tell yourself you're going to cancel it later, but then three months later, it's still charging you every single month while you haven't opened it one single time. That's the problem that Rocket Money solves. Once you connect your accounts, it finds every subscription you're paying for and puts them in one list. So instead of digging through bank statements, trying to remember what you signed up for, you're just looking at all of it in one place. And if there's something on that list you don't want anymore, Rocket Money may be able to help you cancel it right there in the app with a few taps. The other feature I like is the spending tracker, which automatically sorts your transactions into categories and lets you set limits on the ones that you tend to overdo. And if you're trying to actually build something up rather than just stop the leaks, you can get a savings goal in the app and have it put money aside automatically on whatever schedule you want. So it just happens in the background, whether you're thinking about it or not. Go to rocketmoney.com slash Humphrey or click the link in my description below to get started for free. And you can also scan the QR code on the screen right here. Unlock even more features when you sign up for premium. So that's rocketmoney.com slash Humphrey. And thanks to them for sponsoring this portion of the video. And let's get into the next feeling. The third feeling is that you might start asking yourself if you're doing it all wrong. I know that this sounds a little bit strange because you just hit a million dollars in net worth. But the feeling you might experience is one of frustration because you feel like compound interest should be taking over and that you should be well on your way to two million bucks as quickly as possible. But it doesn't feel like that happening. And I know that from firsthand experience. So let's actually put a number on it. And a million dollars invested, earning roughly 7% a year after inflation, your money doubles in about 10 years on its own. If you can contribute another $20,000 a year, you're going to hit two million dollars in around eight to nine to maybe 10 years. So that kind of does address that feeling, right? It's like it's still going to take you eight to nine to 10 years after you hit a million to hit that next million dollars. So compounding is working exactly as it should. It's just that the speed might still feel a little bit slow to you. Someone telling you that your money is going to double every decade. That sounds really fast, like on an abstract level. But then when you're actually living through that decade, you're like, dude, why is what is taking so long? Like, I want to be a millionaire tomorrow, not in 10 years, you know? So it's understandable to have this frustration where you think that everything that you're doing is wrong. But you have to know that you probably aren't doing anything wrong. It's just that the results haven't caught up yet. And usually, financially speaking, results from investing are heavily delayed. So my analogy for you guys is I was doing YouTube in 2019, 2020, and 2021 without even knowing if it was working. Obviously, we had some traction in those early years, I was making some money here and there, but I never actually knew if I could go full time on the actual job. And during those years, I would constantly question myself and wonder if I was on the right path. And if the work that I was actually doing and the videos I was putting out was actually worth my time and was going to lead somewhere. It's easy to look back right now in 2026 and realize, okay, those years weren't actually for nothing. I definitely learned a lot about video creation, editing, and ultimately posting videos to YouTube. But during those three years, I remember them being very difficult. Me and my editor would talk about this all the time. We were just like, man, if we could get 20,000 views on every single video, we would be ultimately happy. And obviously, we're way past that now. But we still remember that feeling back then when we were in that grind of like, okay, let's just hit 20k views. And if that's all we get, then we're made. So the idea with investing is kind of similar. It's that you have to put in a lot of work upfront and consistently. And then at some point, your work is going to compound and the returns from that work or the investing will eventually outpace the incremental contributions that you put in. I'm sure you've heard the first $100,000 is the hardest. That's a Charlie Munger quote, because contributions make up the bulk of your investing journey in the beginning. That's like the friction that I just spoke about, which is that you have no idea whether or not your investing engine is actually working until you a crossover point. And that's the point that I want to talk about, which is that's the point where your investments start to out earn your contributions. So let's actually look at this chart at $20,000 per year invested, you can see what you contribute stays flat on the x axis. And you can see that your portfolio is trying to catch up in those early years, but it doesn't out earn your own contributions until maybe somewhere between years 11 and 12. So does that mean that all the work that you were doing in years one to 11 was or nothing? Definitely not. That's the one thing I didn't realize about becoming a millionaire, it's still not going to feel really fast. And that's why I think keeping a net worth tracker is so important, because you're able to look back at the years prior and just see maybe how far you've come and give yourself that perspective. The next feeling that you're going to feel when you hit a million is the pain and the emotional load that you will go through because your portfolio can drop quite a lot in any given day in a dollar basis. Like my story at the beginning of this video, a 3% drop on a $1,000 portfolio is about a $30 loss, not too bad by any means, but a $1 million portfolio, a 3% drop means that you will lose $30,000. So that is the strange thing about becoming wealthy and becoming a millionaire is that your financial anxiety may actually go up, you have actually way more to think about and consider when you have more money at stake. So in the $1,000 portfolio, you can probably make up a $30 loss and just say an hour's worth of work. How are you going to make up a $30,000 or $50,000 loss though, that's not exactly a day's worth of work and that's hard for your mind to wrap around. In order to combat this type of anxiety where you feel like your portfolio swings are just so high, I think it's best to equip yourself with more knowledge and data to prevent any impulsive actions. When I experienced that $50,000 drawdown in a single day in my portfolio during the COVID crash, I had already observed what happened to the markets through the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. So I kind of knew what to expect in terms of a crash and then a depressed period of the stock market afterwards and then an eventual recovery. I distinctly remember telling myself during that COVID crash that I was kind of used to seeing these drops in the market, especially given my prior knowledge. So a 30 to 40% drop would definitely suck, but I knew that my portfolio would probably recover over time. It's really important during those times to not do anything and actually sit on your hands and don't impulsively trade. The worst thing that you can do is get emotional, especially when you see a catalyst or a black swan event or a recession happen. Even though I did nothing in terms of actions with my portfolio, it's not like it didn't take an emotional toll on me either. I mean, it definitely took a toll on my emotional state and my mindset. So even if you do arm yourself with the best knowledge, it's not going to remove that feeling. One thing that you can do for yourself if you have a portfolio that's becoming significant in size is to ask yourself the following question, which is what type of dollar amount drawdown have I actually survived before? If you have evidence that you've survived a $10,000 or $20,000 drawdown in your portfolio, maybe it's unrealized losses, but you're still comfortable sitting with your portfolio, that's a good thing. But if you don't know what you would have done if let's say your unrealized loss was $80,000 or $100,000, that's something that we should probably build your portfolio around. The reason why the boring portfolio mix of index funds is usually the tried and true method to becoming a millionaire is that even though these funds are going to have drawdowns, it's not like they're going to be 90% or 80% drawdowns where you get emotional and you start to sell everything. And that's why the boring portfolios, they don't really have the highest expected returns out there. For example, a portfolio like the three fund portfolio, which includes three popular index funds, it doesn't have the most astronomical returns, but it's just trying to match the market or maybe slightly beat the market. And I think that's fine. Your job isn't going to be to try to find the best returning portfolio of all time. You just want to find a portfolio that's going to survive no matter what. And it's going to keep you invested in the market over time. All right, this next feeling has to do with who you tell after you reach the millionaire milestone. If you end up telling your friends and family, when you hit a million dollars in net worth or even more, then you have to be prepared for them to treat you a little bit differently, especially if they aren't millionaires themselves. In addition, even if you don't tell them, but they start noticing that you are more financially successful because of maybe what you buy or how you dress, then you should also be prepared for consequences like that as well. I do have a personal story about this. So my story is that I used to hang out with a friend of mine and he noticed that I started to become more financially successful. Maybe they saw me do well on YouTube or I started to spend more money in my own personal life, whatever it might be. But I noticed that their behavior around splitting the bill changed back when we were both in the same financial position or probably in similar financial positions. I noticed that whenever we went out to eat, we would split the bill 50 50. No questions asked. As soon as I started to get some success, though, I think I offered maybe to pay once or twice for dinner. You would gladly accept. Now, once or twice is fine. But over time, he became sort of accustomed to that treatment. I just started to notice what was once gratefulness turned into entitlement. In addition, whenever we would take an Uber somewhere, I noticed that he would always be the last person to try to take out his phone to offer to Uber us places. He would always suggest, hey, are you going to grab an Uber? It's not like he couldn't afford these things. I knew that he could. It's more just that I feel like he was trying to take advantage of the situation or perhaps look at me as if I was just one of his financial resources. What a lot of millionaires and people that just become wealthy do is that they just stop talking about money. I assume that money talk is just not going to be well received. And sometimes you talk about money with someone who has less than you. It feels like it's a little bit unrelatable. Now, a one million dollar household means that you're in the 82nd percentile in America, whereas the median U.S. household has a net worth of one hundred and ninety three thousand dollars. So that means by default, if you hit net worth millionaire, you are technically five times as wealthy as the median U.S. household. Every conversation you might have about rent, vacation or whether or not an item is expensive might be perceived differently depending on who you talk to. Just know that this feeling is very real. It's not a character flaw, even though that's what most people think it's going to be. It's just a part of attaining wealth. So these are some things that I don't think people really tell you about becoming a millionaire. Let me know if you agree or disagree, especially if you've crossed the million dollar mark or you're close to it. If you're interested in another video for me, you want to check out this one right here where I dive deep on why it feels like everyone has more money than you. But spoiler, they don't. I'll see you guys in that video or a future one on the channel. All right. Peace.