Hot dogs! Over 5 years ago we started our awesome Millionaire Club and listed everything out we needed to accomplish to get there, and today we have our first member who’s officially crossed it! Give a round of applause to BigChrisB – way to go, man!

Here was his original submission from January 25, 2011 as member #62 (we now have 105 people pledging to reach a million). Do you remember what yours looked like if you’re one of the members from back then?

I’ve decided to join the crowd, and make my own millionaire pledge. I’m already past $600,000, so don’t have too far to go. Until I achieve this goal, I pledge to:

1. Pay off my business loan by Feb 2012 (~$4,000/month)
2. Contribute the maximum ($25,000/yr) to my superannuation fund
3. Pay all dividends from listed investments onto my margin loan
4. Pay the dividend component of my pay ($2,700/month after tax) either into my margin loan, or into my investment company.
5. Pay all periodic profit dividends from my employer into my investment company.

Doing this, without any return on investment, I will be a millionaire by January 2014, or three years time. If my investments return as expected (5% capital gain on listed stocks, 12% on private company), I will be a millionaire by October 2012. Check back and see if I can do it!

And here’s his follow up post too, if you want to read how he reached it: I’m a Millionaire! We’ll see if the first million is, indeed, harder to achieve than the second :)

Seeing all this got me thinking about my own millionaire goals from back in the day too, and what – if any – I’m still working on. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t really looked at that post since I last updated it all those years ago when I got fired, other than to add new members to the list, but of course I have been paying attention to my money and what not. As evidence in my monthly net worth updates – even if they’re not talking about the ultimate goal of hitting $1 Mil.

What’s crazier though is that I have never written a follow up post to the original Millionaire Club idea after all these years! How lame is that?? How are we supposed to motivate each other here if we rarely talk about it? We gotta change that!

So today – 5 years and almost 1 month to the original date of posting - we shall start doing Millionaire Club follow ups going forward. It may not be every week or every month for that matter, but whenever the mood strikes we will, indeed, hold ourselves accountable and welcome the new members to the club. Perhaps some others have also hit it and we were too busy to notice? :(

Okay, so step #1: Revisit our current millionaire plan.

Here’s what I had on Day #1:

1. Max out my 401(k) –> $16,500 invested | $16,500 matched!
2. Save/invest 1/2 of all future bonuses –> $2,500
3. Max out my Roth IRA –> $5,000 invested
4. Sell unwanted stuff on Craigslist –> $500 est.

Banking approximately $41,000/year towards hitting the goal, making me a millionaire by the time I hit 43 (we used CNN’s millionaire calculator  setting the growth % conservatively at 6%, and stripping out inflation since it would *still* be a million dollars regardless of what a million means by then).

Then when I got laid off a couple years later, I went back and updated this list to reflect the following, more achievable goals, at that time. Which is always important to do or what’s the point in even thinking about it all?:

1. Max out my SEP Ira –> $15,000 invested
2. Max out my Roth IRA –>$5,000 invested
3. Continue living more minimalistically –> $3,000 est.
4. Sell unwanted stuff on Craigslist –> $500 est.

Putting me at $23,500/year and making me a millionaire by the time I’m 45. So a set back of 2 years from the change of plans, but only after a couple of years of hitting the goals earlier which helped to close the gap.

Step #2: Update our current millionaire plan!

It’s now been a good 2 and 1/2 years since that last day of goal updating, so we need to review and make sure we’re up to date again if we want to stay on track. Which we most definitely do :)

I may have been neglecting these Club posts, but I can assure you I’ve done nothing but continue dreaming and hustling to reach those extra 0′s at the end that number! I’m okay with being a Thousand Dollar Baller for the time being, and even a Thousandaire, but I’m not gonna start becoming complacent anytime soon, that’s for sure. I’ve got dreams, my friends…

So here’s what our to-do list looks like NOW:

1. Max out my SEP Ira –> $22,000 invested
2. Max out my Roth IRA –>$5,500 invested
3. Max out my wife’s Roth IRA –> $5,500 invested

And that’s it. Yeah I’ll be working on living more minimalistically still, and selling stuff on Craigslist, etc, etc, but I’m not gonna spend the time tracking it and holding myself accountable. Same with other things that will pop up throughout the years like a new business opportunity or awesome stock that’s taking off and what not. These three items above are the sole focus of all my saving/investing which I’ll be working towards no matter what’s going on around me. And I think that’s more than enough to bite off in a single year :)

Keeping this going will give us a total of $33,000/year socked away, making us a millionaire earlier on again at the age of 42 (9 years and 4 months from now). Not including any non-income producing assets either, like a house, cars, etc which the millionaire calculator doesn’t factor in. I guess they want you to hit a million based on investments only?

And notice I say “WE” here instead of “I” since our money has been tied together officially now for the past couple of years. It took us a while, but we eventually merged everything to simplify and make our lives easier – even though we still have a small side fund each which we can do as we please with. This makes it harder to compare our numbers with other, strictly single, people out there, but that’s not really the point of all this to us. We’re in a competition here with *ourselves*, not others!

What all this means to YOU?

Well, I dunno – that’s a question for yourself :) I’d love it if you wanted to join us here and become an official “member,” but it’s totally dependent on what you can get out of this stuff and if it helps.

For me, I like seeing stuff written down and narrowing in on what the REAL goal is here with tracking all these numbers – especially since having a blog makes it easy to go back in time and review! – but I know it’s not for everyone. A million dollars is a big scary number, so maybe it’s better to start out at $100,000 and work your way up? Or even $500,000?

Regardless, the takeaway here is to have some goals – any goals – and then do your best to follow through on them. The simpler/more accountable you can make them, the better. Who needs more hassle in their life??

Welcoming the latest members to our club!

Here are the most recent people who have joined our sexy secret society. Congrats on putting it all down on paper, guys! That’s a good first step!

• RevenueKing
• Tarragonisntjustaspice
• Jeremy @ My Financial Road
• Abbie Stokes @ Finance Junkie –> Abbie’s millionaire list
• Ma rio @ Debt Blag
• Free Money Minute –> Free Money Minute’s millionaire list

And with that, we shall wrap up our first update :) If anyone else wants to join us, please do! Just drop a comment along with your list in the comments on our club page and I’ll add you to the list. We’ve got 105 members so far who may or may not be paying attention anymore, haha… (again, it’s been 5 years since originally posting it!) but the dream is still very much alive and well for most people. It’s just a matter of committing to it and taking action!!

So give it some thought today and see what comes of it… you can always go back to the old normal you if you ever get bored ;) See the rest of you on the beach!

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