8 Ways to Make a Million
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Want to Strike It Rich?
Don’t just dream about striking it rich. Make it happen. To inspire you, Kiplinger looked for people who have become rich. Just how did they do it?
Click through our gallery as Kiplinger shows you how eight ordinary entrepreneurs, investors and savers reached millionaire status.
First Up: The Video MomMore From Kiplinger.com:
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Scogin Mayo/Kiplingers
The Video That Took Off
Twelve years ago, Julie Aigner-Clark was looking for a way to expose her 18-month-old daughter, to music and the arts. So she and her husband shot a video in the basement of their home using a black velvet background and her daughter's favorite toys. The amateur video was such a hit with her daughter that Julie, 41, became determined to market what they called Baby Einstein. The couple invested about $15,000 of their own money in production and packaging and targeted Right Start, a small chain of baby-product stores, to be their distributor.
Next: How Much She's MadeMore From Kiplinger.com:
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Amazon.com
The Video That Took Off
Julie and her husband Bill made more videos set to classical music and started raking in the money. Sales, which topped $100,000 in the first year, snowballed to $1 million in the second year, $4.5 million in the third, $12 million in the fourth, and more than $20 million in year five. In 2001, the enterprise started to get bigger than the couple could handle by themselves. So they contacted Disney, which bought it for more than $22 million.
See Full Profile: Julie's New Venture?
Next: Millionaire Profile No. 2More From Kiplinger.com:
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Laura Rossignol/Kiplingers
Know When to Make the Call
Mark Wilson had been managing Dun & Bradstreet’s call centers for 15 years when the company decided to outsource the business in 2001. Sensing an opportunity, Wilson immediately asked to be considered. There was only one catch: Wilson didn’t actually own a call-center business at the time. Wilson won the contract. To get up and running quickly, he partnered with an established call center in Houston. Then Wilson knocked on doors to get help with funding.
Next: What Happened Next?More From Kiplinger.com:
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Know When to Make the Call
Ryla Teleservices opened in June 2002 and rapidly accumulated big-money contracts. Revenues topped $3 million in the first full year of business, more than doubled the next and were up to $17 million in 2007. After another round of financing, the company is going through another growth spurt and projects more than $30 million in revenues this year.
Full Profile: Secret to Ryla's Success
Next: Millionaire Profile No. 3More From Kiplinger.com:
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Kiplingers
Pounce When Time Is Right
Make a million in real estate? Today? You must be kidding. But where others see a housing bust, Robert Norton sees opportunity. He sold his home for a profit of nearly $2 million last year. Norton, 52, spent 25 years as an entertainment lawyer, working first for Jim Henson's company (of Muppet fame) and then Mattel. But real estate was his passion.
Next: Norton's Big ScoreMore From Kiplinger.com:
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Pounce When Time Is Right
In 1997, Norton pounced when he saw the price for a six-bedroom house in fashionable Bel Air drop from $1.1 million to well under $1 million. So he offered even less ($750,000), closed the deal in three days and moved in. Then he waited, knowing that real estate cycles in the area tend to last seven to ten years. When he sensed a downturn coming in 2007, he sold the house for more than $2.8 million. Norton quit his job and now focuses full-time on real estate.
Full Profile: His Advice to Investors
Next: Millionaire Profile No. 4More From Kiplinger.com:
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Stacy Kranitz/Kiplingers
It Started Over Cocktails
Laurel Touby’s $23-million Internet bonanza started with a time-honored tradition of social networking: the cocktail party. Touby was a freelance writer working out of her New York City apartment in 1994, and she was eager to connect with other creative professionals. So she began sponsoring middle-of-the-week cocktail parties at a bar in the East Village, where guests bought their own drinks and swapped business cards. (She donned a boa as a way to identify herself to new arrivals.)
Next: What Came Next?More From Kiplinger.com:
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Mediabistro.com
It Started Over Cocktails
The media mixers were an instant hit, and by 1996 she had built a database that included thousands of names. Touby took the growing community online the following year and dubbed it Mediabistro.com. In mid 1999, she began asking people who posted job ads on her site to send $100 per listing to a post-office box. By the end of 1999 she had taken in more than $65,000 -- nearly twice her earnings as a writer.
Full Profile: How Much It Sold For
Next: Millionaire Profile No. 5More From Kiplinger.com:
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Scogin Mayo/Kiplingers
A Thirty-Year Plan
Gary Gardelli chose his career path at age 4. In junior high school, he realized an added benefit to being a firefighter: the pension. At age 20, Gardelli studied fire departments in the Denver area, including their benefits and retirement plans. He picked suburban Bancroft as a place to live and work and attended college for two years while waiting to be accepted for training. Then he stayed put for 31 years and seven months.
Next: His Big PayoutMore From Kiplinger.com:
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A Thirty-Year Plan
For most of his working years, Gardelli knew exactly when he would retire -- November 2006 --because that's when a lump-sum pension payout would amount to $1 million. He decided to take the lump sum because the lifetime-payment option offered skimpy survivor benefits to his wife, Cindy. Gardelli worked with a financial planner to invest the money, gradually putting it in a diversified portfolio, composed mostly of stock funds, and keeping some in a guaranteed account that earns about 5%.
Full Profile: How He Lives Now
Next: Millionaire Profile No. 6More From Kiplinger.com:
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Ellen Jaskol
Happy Chickens
Cyd Szymanski knows how to score a breakthrough in the tradition-bound egg industry. She turned a foundering start-up called Nest Fresh into a company with sales of more than $5 million. In the process, she showed her competitors -- including members of her own family -- that cage-free chicken eggs could be profitable.
Next: Her Big BreakMore From Kiplinger.com:
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Ellen Jaskol
Happy Chickens
Her big break came when King Soopers -- the leading grocery chain in Colorado -- agreed to carry the eggs, and a local newspaper wrote about Nest Fresh. Customers liked the look, taste and idea of the cage-free eggs enough to buy them at $2.79 a dozen, more than three times the price of regular eggs. In 2006 she sold the Nest Fresh brand to Hidden Villa Ranch, of Fullerton, Cal., for a sum that put her squarely in the millionaire column.
Full Profile: What Almost Stopped Her
Next: Millionaire Profile No. 7More From Kiplinger.com:
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Kiplingers
A Fortune on $11 a Hour
You don't need to earn much to make millions. Paul Navone, 78, never made more than $11 an hour as a quality-control inspector in a glass-container factory. But last year he gave $2 million to two New Jersey schools. He has about $1 million more saved for his retirement.
Next: How He Did ItMore From Kiplinger.com:
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A Fortune on $11 a Hour
Navone was hired by Wheaton Glass when he was 16. He scraped together $6,500 to buy his own duplex at age 23. He lived in one half and rented the other. Eventually, he bought four other properties. Income from his rentals paid Navone’s living expenses. "I never spent any of my wages," he says. He owns no phone or TV. He collects Hummel figurines. But for the most part, he squirreled his money away in savings and investments, and he gives credit to "four very good brokers."
Full Profile: More on This Super Saver
Next: Millionaire Profile No. 8More From Kiplinger.com:
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Kiplingers
Suddenly It Clicks
By the numbers, Gurtej Sandhu is one of the most prolific inventors in the U.S. What's more, he has parlayed his education and ingenuity into millionaire status. Sandhu holds more than 700 patents, which puts him among the top ten patent holders in the nation.
Next: What Type of Patents?More From Kiplinger.com:
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Suddenly It Clicks
The semiconductor business faces cutthroat competition, and all of Sandhu’s patents focus on making microchips more efficient. For example, Sandhu developed a method of coating microchips with titanium without exposing the metal to oxygen, which would ruin the chips. Initially, he didn’t think his idea was a big deal, but now most memory-chip makers use the process.
Full Profile: What He Does for Fun
More: Turn Extra Cash Into $1MPast Millionaire Profiles:
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Turn Extra Cash Into a Million Bucks
If you're 30 years old, you need to set aside $448 per month for next 35 years to become a millionaire -- if you earn a reasonable 8% annualized return in a retirement account. Don’t have $448 to spare -- or even $248? Maybe you do and don't realize it.
Click through our gallery as Kiplinger.com shows you how you can come up with the cash.
How to Find $448 a MonthMore in Money & Finance:
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Recent Comments
Galileo001 10:08:55 AM Jun 21 2008
DALE7XCHAMP21801 is so typical of folks who don't really study. Republicans have dominated the Congress for years and didn't get the nuclear or oil driling ban reversed. Nuclear plants have not been designed properly for wide scale roll out yet are desirable. None of this is the issue on gas prices however. Ask why all of a sudden oil prices are skyrocketing when the supply is bigger than ever? Ask why the oil companies are reporting record profits while we all pay ridiculous prices? Ask why we are paying for this war and we didn't pay for GW's Dad's war? Ask why our automotive industry fought alternate fuel power and other countries did it first? My simplistic answer......GREED and Corruption
Namvetarmy 08:34:27 AM Jun 15 2008
Stop talking and start doing and we all will fix this mess. "GA-BESH?
Louisdancs 11:40:35 PM Jun 02 2008
The present system is not working ! This country needs a big change, otherwise is
going to the drain.The changes shall be as follows: Term limit ( two terms ) for all
senator and congress man, Outlaw all lobby ( lobby = bribary ) Allow more party
Independent or green ( the two corrupt party are not serving this great nation )
Establis a universal health system with one payer for every US citizen ( get rid of
the hundreds of insurance companys, they are abuse the system ) and finaly limit
the age of every politician, mendetory retirement at 65. ( when I pass 65 Ican not get even a low level Federal or State job, Why a high level job is OK for a politition?
ThePips9502 08:07:28 PM Jun 02 2008
I HEAR THEIR GOING TO START GIVING A 13.OZ EL-CHEPO 100% PETRO.SHORT FOR PETROLUM JELLY WITH EACH FILL UP SO YOU DONT FEEL YOUR GETTING DRY
Craigmrog 07:06:21 PM Jun 02 2008
This isn't looking good is it? I'm 52 and have lived through both dem/rep presidents.. All I know is, I'm getting nowhere regardless of who's calling the shots....
DALE7XCHAMP21801 05:16:23 PM Jun 02 2008
ITS ALL THE IDIOT'S WHO THINK YOU CAN RIDE A BIKE TO WORK 50 TO A HUNDRED MILES EVERYDAY OR LIVE IN A BIG CITY AND WALK TO WORK. IT THOSE MORONS FAULT FOR ALL THIS GAS PRICE SPIKES
DALE7XCHAMP21801 05:14:02 PM Jun 02 2008
ROBINSONS1112 GREAT POINT YOU SHOULD RUN FOR THE PRESIDENTS JOB AND GET RID OF THE DEMOCRATS
DALE7XCHAMP21801 05:13:00 PM Jun 02 2008
OKAY LOOKS LIKE SOME PEOPLE NEED SOME POLITICAL EDUCATION HERE.
FOR 35 YRS. THE DEMOCRATS HAVE VOTED AGAINST ANY NEW DRILLING OF OIL WITHIN THE U.S.,ALASKA OFF THE COAST,HAVEN'T LET US BUILD ANY NUCLEAR FACILITIES(FRANCE AND JAPAN ARE 70% NUCLEAR POWERED ELECTRICITY POWERED COUNTRIES) THERE HAS NOT BEEN ANY NEW REFINERIES BUILT IN THE U.S. DUE TO THE DEMOCRATS ARE BEHOLDING TO ECOLOGICAL WHACKOS. THERE IS ONE TRILLION BARRELS OF OIL SHALE THAT CAN BE MINED IN COLORADO AND WYOMING ALONE. SO ALL YOU IGNORANT PIECES OF CRAP THAT THINK THAT OIL IS GONNA GO FROM $4 TO $2 IF BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA OR HILLARY CLINTON BECOME PRESIDENT I HAVE SOME SWAMP LAND I WANT TO SELL YOU IN FLORIDA. OIL INDEPENDENCE IS THE ONLY WAY TO CONTROL THE PRICE OF OIL , IF YOUR DEPENDENT ON ANOTHER COUNTRY TO GIVE YOU THE OIL AT YOUR SET PRICE IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. PLUS THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT AL GORE WANTED IN 1999 WHEN HE WROTE HIS EARTH IN THE BALANCE BOOK, PUT $2 OF TAX ON GAS NOW AND PEOPLE WILL STOP DRIV
GOOD