Millionaires are more common than you think. Some 23.8 million Americans are millionaires, according to Swiss bank UBS’s 2025 Global Wealth Report, accounting for just under 9 percent of the U.S. adult population.
But with many Americans struggling to keep up with the rising cost of living, generating seven-figure wealth may seem impossible. Yet becoming a millionaire isn’t always a complicated process, said certified public accountant Eleanor Victorioso, founder of fractional CFO firm The DoubleLine.
“What separates the millionaires from everyone else [is] the people who are grounded in their strategy and can follow a boring plan when their nervous system is screaming at them to do something dramatic and quick,” Victorioso told The Independent in an email.
Smart spending beats big salaries
Through working with her clients, Victorioso found that a high salary isn’t a good predictor of becoming a millionaire. Instead, spending habits matter – including avoiding the “lifestyle creep” trap, where consumers spend more as they earn more.
“What matters more is income stability and a low ratio of lifestyle to earnings,” she said. “I have witnessed so many $250,000+ corporate earners burn out and try to rebuild from rock bottom every 18 months with zero energy and motivation because they are trying to keep up with a proportionately increasing lifestyle.”
Her clients’ experiences support the results of a November 2025 Harris Poll survey that found 31 percent of six-figure earners reported feeling financially distressed. Without controlled spending, it’s challenging to invest enough to become a millionaire, let alone be financially comfortable.
Having financial clarity and determining what’s enough to cover necessary monthly spending can help aspiring millionaires avoid overspending and lifestyle creep.
“My clients who know what is enough or what is the real monthly figure that covers needs, savings, and joy are able to work around that number,” she said. “Most people fail to become millionaires because they’ve never defined what enough actually is, so lifestyle creep absorbs every raise, every bonus [and] every commission.”
Build a foundation
While aspiring millionaires might try to rush into investing, setting the right foundation is essential, said Chris Walsh, senior advisor and regional director at Capital Choice Arizona.
And that foundation is built on paying down debt – a 25 percent interest rate on a credit card can easily negate monthly returns from investments.
“You can’t out-invest a 25 percent [APR] credit card,” Walsh told The Independent in an email. “Once someone is debt-free and has a foundation under them, the market can actually work for them instead of against them.”
Unexpected financial emergencies can hamper investment goals, too. Walsh suggests preparing for the unexpected by building an emergency fund, which is a savings account meant for unanticipated costs that a monthly budget can’t cover.
“Consistency is the whole game, and life gets in the way,” Walsh said. “Health setbacks, job loss and family challenges – that’s why I spend as much time building emergency funds and life insurance protection for my clients as I do talking about investing. You can’t stay consistent if one bad event wipes out the plan.”
Common balance recommendations for emergency funds include three to six months’ worth of living expenses in savings (when possible).
Stay consistent
Experts agree that investing is part of a sound plan to become a millionaire. However, nearly 45 percent of Americans who aren’t investing in stocks said they didn’t have the money for it, according to a September 2025 Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia survey.
Yet investing with even the smallest amounts as soon as you can will help aspiring millionaires reach their goal, said Barry Cothran, president of financial planning software firm Vision & Hope Financial.
Investing since age 36, Cothran accumulated seven figures in his 401(k) – an employee-sponsored retirement plan – over 24 years, all without earning a six-figure income until his 50s, he said. His strategy involved using tools common with 401(k)s – automated contributions, employer matches and consistency.
“For the first nine years, I only invested the minimum required to get the company match,” he told The Independent in an email. “At that point, an automatic 1 percent annual increase in contribution began and continued for the next 16 years. I never unchecked the 1 percent annual increase box, and I didn’t change investments based on market volatility.”
Automating contributions to a company retirement plan (at least up to the employer match) or an IRA and automatically boosting your contributions by a certain percentage each year are two ways to make investing easier, he said.
And while the returns investors earn vary based on the investment type, market conditions and other factors, Cothran suggested a conservative approach to investment planning.
“A person’s financial plan should be conservative … [a] 7-8 percent growth rate,” he added. “However, actual market returns have been greater than 10 percent for [longer than the] past 20 years.”
Patience pays off
With consistent investing and smart money habits, reaching $1 million is often a matter of time and patience. How long it takes depends on how much someone invests and the returns they get.
When working with clients, Walsh refers to the Rule of 72, a simple formula that divides 72 by the rate of return to find out how many years it will take an investment to double. So, a 6 percent rate of return doubles an investment in 12 years (72/6=12).
Investors can use the Rule of 72 to figure out how much they need to invest monthly to become a millionaire over a given number of years. Generally, the earlier someone starts investing, the less they need to contribute to become a millionaire.
“At a 9 percent average rate of return, your money doubles every eight years,” Walsh said. “If they have 31 years, they can get [to $1 million] saving about $500 a month. If they only have 20 years, they need to save about $1,500 per month.”
Consider plugging the numbers into a compound interest calculator to compare timelines for different monthly investment amounts and estimated returns. However, note that projections usually don’t account for any taxes owed on investment gains or pre-tax contributions.
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