Hi:
Well, if we bandy about $1M as financial success, my family has about 1.2. It also recently had 0.6 (circa March).
I am 47, retired about 10 years ago. Wife is 44 and a teacher. Married 12 years. She still works and likes her job, and is out of my hair in the daytime - win, win , win!
How did we get here? No one thing really. Just find ways to generate surpluses, and then invest them.
A surplus can come from growing the income number, or shrinking the cost number. My highest earning year was about $70K, 2nd maybe $65K and all others < $50K. Clearly wasn't growing the income number, our success came from shrinking the cost number.
Factor number one in shrinking the cost number would be the fact that I never owned a car until marriage. That is 19 years after age 16 of not having an annual expense of what is it these days about $9000. These kinds of numbers easily paid for my first house and then some. I think I was 28 when my net worth exceeded the value of the house and about 32 or 34 when I actually paid off the mortgage (or parents, don't remember the order any more).
Factor two, what did I do with the house? I had roommates for about 12 years, so my personal housing costs were equivalent to a single bedroom apartment or thereabouts. Traded personal space for more surplus. As many or most won't have the disposition to have roommates into their 30s, the equivalent would pretty much be live in a single BR apartment and invest all that surplus that would instead be going into a mortgage.
Factor three would be not buying many disposibles: Books, magazines, restaurant meals, beer etc. To many, this sounds like depravity, but I did occasionally spend. $2000 on a custom made bicycle, $4000 on a nice pool table. The reality is that the everyday **** that people buy over years exceeds in dollar terms the occasional big capital good.
Factor four is I did most of my own home maintenance. Wiring, plumbing, new bathrooms, finished basements, I've done it all. All this stuff would average about the equivalent of $5000 to $10,000 a year at a guess.
Factor five would be to let the stock market do it's magic. I (or we) pretty much buy and hold, and adapt to changing circumstances as required. Last year was different as there were plenty of changing circumstances that needed adapting to, but I'd say that over a 30 year investing history, I average under 6 trades a year. I'd say that we have only ever owned 60 or thereabouts distinct securities. I have all the trading slips ever received on my accounts in 30 years in one file that is about 3/4 inch thick. We currently own 21 distinct securities.
I'd say that my personal accreditive characteristics for my financial position would be brutal frugality, rational thought, and a lack of fear of poverty. The bad points would be that I have not been a particularly good investor, I've watched 5 or 6 positions go to zero over the years, though the blunders have tapered off of late. Still, we have unrealized gains of over $200,000 currently and since I stopped working, I have engaged in "tax gain selling" to get enough income to use up my dividend tax credits and make me slightly taxable, say $1000 to $2000 per annum.
In conclusion, I would say that one does not have to the things I did, as I was pretty extreme. Making more money, or working more years, or being a better investor will all get you there without resorting to my more extreme measures.
YMMV
hboy43