ABOUT US

Although the original Seven Dollar Millionaire had worked in finance for more than 20 years, selling billion-dollar deals and managing the assets of some of the world’s smartest investors, the concept was born when his teenaged daughter asked him a question he didn’t know the answer to: what’s the smallest amount of money you can save and invest every day to become a millionaire in your lifetime?

He was genuinely surprised by the answer he calculated, and re-did the calculations over and over again to check: you only need to save $7 a day, and invest them for 7% returns, to become a millionaire through a 50-year career.

A previously magical number, a million dollars, that we all assume would require jackpot or gameshow winnings, was actually within reach of up to half the people on the planet.

He checked with everyone he knew, googled it, and nobody else seemed to know the answer. This seemed strange for what would appear to be such a simple answer to a universal question. Why didn’t more people know this?

More people didn’t know this because so few people are financially literate. This is not our fault. We just aren’t taught it. Considering how important money is to our lives, a pitiful proportion of our education is spent learning even the basic concepts or building the habits that might make more of us successful with money.

Millions of people flee from poor countries every year to find work in richer countries, but due to lack of financial knowledge, they are scammed, they fail to save and invest, and most return home with little to show for the time they have spent away from their families.

In those very same rich countries, up to half the population might live one crisis away from absolute poverty, from borrowing at rates that will guarantee they can’t escape. In late 2019, 59% of Americans didn’t have $1,000 in funds in case of emergency. In 2020, that emergency came.

The Seven Dollar Millionaire is no longer just one person – it is a team of students who contribute and test ideas, a design team working on the journals and websites, and charitable organisations that teach financial literacy to people who need it most, such as migrant workers. It is a team of people who have bought the journal and sent feedback on how to make it better. It is anyone who understands that their savings can change their life, through investment, while their spending will change nothing.

Join the Seven Dollar Millionaire. Buy a journal for a friend, for a daughter who wants to know how to become a millionaire, or for your whole school. We don’t want to be millionaires on our own. We want you all to join us.