Review of Alan Corey’s A Million Bucks by 30

I received a complimentary copy — autographed by the author, no less! — of A Million Bucks by 30. This book will be available in stores shortly after the new year, or you can order it on Amazon.com. Alan Corey is a “New York City-based entrepreneur, speaker, writer, and bargain hunter.” The book describes his journey from having very little to have a net worth of $1 million in less than a decade. He set out in his early twenties with his #1 goal of being a millionaire by the time he was thirty, and he accomplished that goal with a year to spare through extreme frugality, a lot of self-education, sacrifice, and aggressive but educated risk-taking.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, and there were a lot of gems scattered throughout. He doesn't take himself seriously at all; from the introduction: “Read the book any way you want. Read it from start to finish; read just the lessons, tips, and box scores; or, if you don't really like me yet, read it from back to front and watch me go from a millionaire to being broke.” The book's audience is by and large for people in their twenties, and the diction is geared toward that demographic. He was unmarried during the time covered by the book; some of his money-making activities were much easier to pull off because he didn't have to take a wife or children into consideration. There's nothing wrong with that at all, but married people would find selling some of Corey's ideas to their spouse difficult.

I'll get to some of the gems, but I have to get a few reservations about the book out of the way first. (1) There are a few expletives in the book. If this bothers you, look elsewhere. (2) Being extremely frugal is one thing; stealing is quite another. Showing up to get day-old bagels for free or half price is fine, but I don't care how many black umbrellas are in lost and found. It doesn't mean that you can ask a clerk if they found a black umbrella and take your pick, knowing that it's not yours. Buy a $4 umbrella or use yesterday's newspaper. (3) Jumping in with both feet is fine, but lying isn't. Saying that you're interested in writing a book without a book proposal is fine, but fabricating a love drama to get on Jerry Springer — regardless of whether both parties benefited — or pretending to be a magazine publisher to get into a concert for free is wrong.

OK, with those out of the way, there are a lot of good points, and here are some of them:

• Make it very difficult to spend your money. He put money in a checking account that you don't touch. He made the ATM a walk nearly across town. He pulled out a very large chunk of his paycheck — like more than half — and lived off the rest. He paid himself first and locked it away. He made it a chore to withdraw the money.
• Learn, learn, learn. “No one will care more about your financial picture than you” (p. 28). Corey used very little of what he learned in school through his chosen major and instead capitalized on things he learned on his own time: investing, real estate, IRAs. He attended open houses out the wahzoo to learn his local real estate market.
• Cut your expenses to an absolute minimum. Corey's dates were usually stay-at-home ones with video games and Excel spreadsheets that showed to the penny how much interest income his date was giving up by keeping cable. He survived for quite a while on $2 a day for food. He lived in the projects for a while to cut his rent. He rarely, if ever, paid full price for any essentials, and got some of those essentials for free.
• Sacrifice and save like a madman. What wasn't spent was saved. It was put away where he couldn't touch it. His credit card had a $50 annual fee, but he received 2% back in the form of savings bonds. He lowered his expectations on just about everything in his life to reach his $1 million by 30 goal.
• Get by with less. Living extremely frugally inherently involves getting by with less, but Corey took this a step further in his first real estate purchase when he voluntarily moved into the worst room of the place so that he could rent out the better ones and live there essentially for free and build equity in the property. That's wise.
• Force yourself to be creative. Despite being unethical, getting on Jerry Springer for the free vacation was pretty creative. Being a human guinea pig for hire was pretty creative. And without any slack in his budget, Corey had to be creative. He had to be creative when he borrowed a lot of money to purchase his own house, and later when he borrowed from friends and family (at 10%) to get a down payment for another. He cut out any room for error, and this necessitated invention.
• Generate multiple revenue streams. He has his comedy routine, his book, his real estate, his stocks and bonds, and his bar. He had all of his eggs in one basket for a while, but not anymore. If one sours, he's not back to having to eat Alan's Stick-To-Your-Ribs Breakfast Blend (p. 60) — but he might want to anyway just because he's a cheapskate. 😉
• Keep your day job until you really don't need it anymore. This was also wise. All of the extra revenue streams were done in his “spare time” away from his day job. He was able to live off of his day job, and used that security to enable more risk-taking. Only when he had made his million did he quit that day job. He was ready at that point.

Again, I enjoyed this book. It's quite different from, say, David Bachor Stanley and Danko, but that's not a bad thing. It's a breezy read, and I laughed out loud in a couple of places. The people who stand to get the most out of this book are younger (late teens, early twenties) who don't have much to lose, or, more accurately, have time to make mistakes, and who want to leave the comfort of a nine-to-five job. A Million Bucks by 30 has a lot of good ideas from someone who's tried them and succeeded financially.