I finished reading A Million Bucks By 30 by Alan Corey and it’s an interesting personal finance book, so I wanted to review it here.

Alan’s Ambitious Goal

I think the book title does a great job of capturing Corey’s style and personality. The title sounds scammy, but contains some great tips.  Alan really did reached his goal ( a bit early too!) and it was with frugality and smart financial choices.

Corey writes an entertaining and informative guide to building wealth.

What I really enjoyed was that Corey was methodical with his approach and offered real, doable steps for anyone interested in increasing their net worth.

I’m highlighting the first three parts so you can get an idea if this book is for you.

Part One: Scrounging, Scheming, and Savings

Something I admire is that Alan took a lot of time to go through several personal finance books and apply their advice. Too many people might not read any information and just complain or they read and don’t act on it.

He also decided to continue his college living and kept his monthly expenses very low. He was paying $400/month for rent and utilities in New York City.

He also automated his money, leaving him with no choice, but to live frugally.  Could you live on 40% of your income? Alan explains how he made sure he automated his retirement contributions, hide his savings in another bank inconveniently located, and his credit card strategy.

Part Two: Estate of Affairs

Corey is looking at real estate only a year after he started his millionaire journey due to his extreme savings plan. He used his saving account for the down payment and started to shop around.

When buying his first apartment in the city, Corey did his homework and read as  much as he could about real estate. He researched and watch others during open houses to get an idea of what questions to ask and what to look for in a property. He low-balled his offer to see if he could lower the sales price into something manageable.

Alan also shares some other source of income besides his tech support job that he used to build up his net worth faster. Working hard might not sound like something many people want to do, but it can increase your money while you are working towards a goal.

Part Three: Brokering and Budgeting

This section has Corey working with real estate and renovating. He tackles buying his second property and he again gets creative with increasing his income, this time with living arrangements. He was able to increase his monthly profit from real estate to just under $1,000.

I noticed that in addition to his side income Corey dies work on improving his salary at his day job. You can only cut costs so often and building your income is a great move. He didn’t waste his bonus or his raise, but instead invested them in either retirement, emergency savings, or real estate.

Financial Lessons Learned

The rest of the book goes a bit more into his real estate partnerships and renovations, ending with Alan reaching his goal early.

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