Ten years after graduation, in order to retire early, I saved 1 million on my own

How long does it take to save 1 million on your own?

All along, we seem to be accustomed to hearing stories of sudden riches, making tens of millions at every turn, or even "a small goal". In contrast, the story of a person who saved up 1 million in ten years after graduation is not even worth telling.

But the real data reveals another world – according to central bank data, as of the end of June 2022, the mainland had less than 100,000 deposits per capita. Five years ago, the central bank also disclosed that the number of people on the mainland with millions of disposable funds at that time was only 3.5 million. This money, the property is not counted, and the debt is deducted.

In other words, if you had $1 million disposable funds at the time, you would have exceeded about 99.75% of your Chinese.

So, at a time when the anxiety of making money is shrouded, how can those young people who are desperately looking for a side hustle, trying their best to save money, and not wanting to be left behind, save enough for 1 million? And with this money, what changes will life bring about by this?

We found several young people with millions of disposable funds. Their average age is around 30, and most of them graduate 10 years ago and save their first million. Among them, some people get rich by starting a business and find ways to support their families; Some people save money while learning to manage money on their own; Some people rely on the joint efforts of husband and wife to save family funds; Others are to own their own house and retire early.

In any case, it is not an easy path for ordinary people.

Text | Gao Yue

Edit | Yi Fangxing

Operation | Tsukimi

Difficulty factor: one star

"Every penny I spend is my own staying up late, working overtime, and suffering."

35 years old, 13 years after graduation, Chengdu financial industry, has deposited 1 million

I have always strived for a minimalist life.

When buying clothes, I don't follow the trend, basically I won't pay more than 100 yuan, and I won't buy clothes that I can't wear next year. It has always been simple and versatile, buy a few pieces every quarter. Even so, some clothes, after a season, I don't think I like it, will hang on the idle fish to shoot, especially some series of Uniqlo, can get a good price.

When I encounter something I like, I also delay consumption, I will put it in the shopping cart, and after a week, if I still like it, I will choose to buy it, or wait until the event.

I also won't buy too expensive skin care products, they are all domestic and affordable. Pick lipstick, among the usual colors, only choose the one you like the most, use it up and buy it. Sometimes, do light medical beauty once a few months, such as photorejuvenation, because the medical beauty in Chengdu is quite rolled, so the price of the project is relatively low.

I don't like the bag either. Big brands will create concepts such as making buying bags associated with love, which doesn't make much sense in my opinion.

But I love wellness. I believe in Chinese medicine, so I only make flower tea and drink it. Should not be paid, do not eat and drink, do not do nail art, do not take a taxi, has always been public transportation, more environmentally friendly.

In order to save money, I have always kept accounts, and I will make regular deposits every month, and the proportion is relatively large, about two-thirds, for example, when I have a monthly salary of 20,000, I save about 13,000 yuan.

There is basically no need to control, there will be no lack of money, if I spend too much on other aspects, even if I like this dress, I will not buy it, I will wait for next month. In this way, there is no need to set goals, and you can save hundreds of thousands a year.

I have good control over myself. When I was in college, I began to save money and keep accounts, and my parents gave me 1,000 yuan a month for living expenses, which was more than ten years ago, I only spent more than 300 yuan a month, and the rest was saved. Basically, I eat in the cafeteria, and the college cafeteria eats a few dollars, unless on weekends, I will reward myself for eating out.

I remember when I was a child, my mother asked me to buy salt, she stir-fried at home, my mother said that salt is 6 dimes a pack, I was in the downstairs store, people said 7 dimes a pack, I will go out, must buy 6 dimes a pack. My mother saw that I hadn't come back and ran downstairs to look for me.

Parents always say, don't waste, eat as much as you want. So I basically don't waste. My parents are doctors, my father's family conditions are not very good, and he spends money very saving, which will affect me.

I am now working in auto finance, and I work quite intensively and often work overtime. I will feel that every penny I spend is my own staying up late, working overtime, suffering, and money is not particularly easy to earn.

So don't spend money indiscriminately, make every money worth it.

Saving money is thinking that you can retire earlier and go to Dali earlier. I like Dali very much, I used to go to Yunnan once a year, it was very comfortable, I used to exercise there every day, run 5 kilometers, go out every evening, people who live there will greet you, there are also many people over there, people are also very enthusiastic.

The house price in Dali is not expensive, my high school classmate is in Dali, he makes tea, the rented yard is very cheap, more than 40,000 a year, they raise dogs and cats, grow a lot of flowers and plants.

I'm always setting myself goals – how much money I'm going to save, how many problems I'm going to solve, and so on. At the time of the New Year, I still thought that my real life never seemed to begin. I also want to go early and live the life I want to live. The definition of wealth freedom is different for everyone, I may have saved three or four million, and I will start lying flat.

▲ Annual income of wealth management stock trading. Figure / Courtesy of respondents

Difficulty factor: Two stars

"I'm a person who doesn't have any hobbies, and my biggest pleasure is to research and make money."

33 years old, 11 years after graduation, Wenzhou civil servant, has deposited 1.3 million yuan

I am from Wenzhou, Zhejiang, and our people there, making money is engraved in my genes.

In 2009, when I was a freshman, I learned to speculate on stocks from scratch, read books, read stock forums, add stock groups, and study for four or five hours a day. Later, the family gave the principal, more than 40,000, did not make money at that time, almost all lost, plus failed the graduate school entrance examination, insomnia all night, felt that there was no future in life. My family also advised me not to continue.

But I was unwilling, and I thought that my learning ability was not bad. And I have liked to watch "Sun Tzu's Art of War" since I was a child, which says that "the winner wins first and then seeks to fight, and the loser fights first and then wins", so, I have a natural self-confidence, it doesn't matter if I lose money now, I'm not afraid, I can earn it back in the future, but I have to accumulate some victory certainty.

I majored in information management in my undergraduate science, but my first job was in a securities company, doing marketing, and I only earned 1800 yuan at the end of the month. Later, I was admitted to a public institution, and my annual salary could be about 100,000, until 2014, when I became a civil servant, at the beginning of 1230,000 a year, and now I can have 1560,000.

After graduating, I started saving money. I limit my annual expenditure to 30,000 yuan, which averages 2,500 yuan per month. I live in a small rental house, similar to an urban village, only 1,000 yuan a month, eat three meals a day in the unit canteen, Saturday and Sunday to do it myself, add up, 500 yuan per month is enough.

I don't wear fixed brands of clothes and shoes, I buy them all from Taobao, two or three hundred pieces, and the quantity is not much. I don't like to play games, I don't go to the gym for fitness, and the only cost is to buy tea, which is a few thousand yuan a year.

I use software to keep accounts every month, and at the end of the month, see if I have spent too much. Later, I was troublesome, so I always used Alipay to pay, and as soon as I pulled the monthly bill, it was clear at a glance.

In this way, at the beginning, I can save 5,000 yuan a month, and later I can save more, from 60,000 or 70,000 to 100,000 a year, until now, these years, just by saving money, there are nearly 700,000.

I know that it is difficult to make money by working, and if you want more money to come in, you have to find a way to make money. I'm a person who is not afraid of your jokes, has no hobbies, does not like to play, does not love to travel, and the greatest pleasure is to research and make money.

I reopened my account, and every day after work, I continued to study stocks for more than 2 hours a day. Sometimes I buy funds and make a portfolio. I use a cheap notebook of more than 4,000 yuan, but all my orders are operated by mobile phone, and I specially buy expensive mobile phones, more than 7,000 yuan.

After studying for so many years, at the beginning it was a small profit every year, I earned more than 20,000 in 2016, and I earned so-so from 17 to 19 years, and the most I earned was in 2021, one hundred and twenty thousand at once, and after more than 7 years of stock speculation, I earned more than 200,000.

When the number in the account reached 1 million, I was quite emotional. I've always wanted to be the rich generation on my own. When I was a child, I had a hard time, my parents were employees in the system, our family of three was squeezed in the unit dormitory, only 25 square meters, you can often see spiders, centipedes crawling on the ground, my bed is in a small space next to the wardrobe, very dark, the place is also very small, at that time did not dare to turn off the lights to sleep.

In those days, those who went to work made very little, and only made money by doing business. I sometimes stayed with relatives, and they mocked my father, saying that he read the most and made the least money. So, I wanted to make money for a long time, and in high school, I always read business magazines, went to the reading room to borrow, borrowed from classmates, and there were many stories of business bigwigs.

Now, with some savings, I don't buy all kinds of big items like my friends. After that, I plan to continue to make money, the stock is no longer invested, I am ready to slowly withdraw the principal, and then consider taking profits when I save more.

For me, making money does not stop, and it is better to have money when I am old than to be poor all my life.

▲ Personal assets reached 1 million souvenirs. Figure / Courtesy of respondents

Difficulty factor: three stars

"From the moonshine clan to save 1 million, thanks to my daughter-in-law."

36 years old, graduated 14 years, Beijing copywriting, three years ago savings to 1 million yuan

I'm a typical moonshiner and used to even owe a lot of credit cards.

From childhood to adulthood, I didn't have any pocket money, and when I went to college, it was 2009, 700 yuan a month for living expenses.

I always felt that my family was poor and had no money, so I was always very poor. I did my own internship at the university and made a little money, so I especially like to spend money.

There was a time when I was obsessed with improving my clothing taste and wanted to make myself a little more handsome. I bought many issues of Esquire, Men's Wear and so on, and bought clothes according to the styles inside. I also like to play with digital products, buy projectors, game books, etc. In addition, I also have a cat and use the best natural food and imported canned food, all of which are more expensive, which is part of the expense.

There is also a lot of money spent in the game. I played multiple games at the same time, and I really wanted to become stronger in the game, so I became a RMB player. The most expensive is League of Legends, one year there was an event, the lottery had a limited skin, that day I kept pumping, and then the money was drawn, I also borrowed a credit card to draw, and spent a lot of money.

When I first graduated, my income was not high, just a few thousand yuan, so I basically didn't have any money left.

Getting married is a transformation. It was 2015, and my family bought a 44-square-meter apartment in Beijing, and my family made a down payment of 720,000 yuan. And in these 720,000 yuan, there is no my own savings, and I was very remorseful at that time, feeling that all these years have been wasted, and I am gnawing at the old.

At that time, my daughter-in-law found out that I was always spending money in games and owed money on my credit card, and we had a big fight. The result of the final quarrel was that I handed over my salary in the future, and I kept 3,000 yuan a month for living expenses.

After that, life slowly changed. In those years, we had a small house without paying rent, saving a lot of money in Beijing. As for the mortgage, the provident fund can cover it. We cook our own meals and rarely eat out. My daughter-in-law is also more frugal, has no material needs, and she buys things for a few hundred yuan at most, whether it is shoes, clothes or bags.

As for me, I especially don't like buying clothes. When we go to play, we go to the free country park, and we don't need a ticket, so we get a blanket over there and eat bread, cookies, snacks on it.

I keep 3,000 yuan a month for living expenses, and the rest is used as family expenses, so that another person's salary can be saved.

This 3,000 yuan is enough for me, which is equivalent to spending 100 yuan a day. I bought a small mini rice cooker in the office, cooked the rice, put the dish on top of the rice, and it became a donburi. I've been eating it for almost a year and this one has saved a lot of money. Several times, my daughter-in-law asked if she wanted to give you more money every month, and I said no.

Planning how to spend the 3,000 yuan to spend the month is a very rewarding process, and it shows that I have a kind of control over myself.

I have my own secret. For example, a package of organic vegetables in a fresh supermarket costs 10 yuan and can eat two meals. I ran a membership, bought a pack of vegetables, more than 9 pieces of 9, just took a giveaway, there was mineral water, yogurt, mushrooms and the like. I generally choose vegetables, which are very nutritious.

I also bought the most expensive seasoning. For example, organic soy sauce, 55 yuan a bottle. I told myself that although I ate relatively simply, I used the most advanced seasoning, and I ate organic vegetables, so as to hedge away the embarrassment of life. Every Wednesday on membership day, I also buy organic pork ribs, a box of ribs is more than forty yuan a box, which is actually very expensive, but I will also buy once.

I'm from Hubei and I'm very good at stewed lotus soup so I can drink rib soup at least once or twice a week.

One month, I saved my own money to buy a bicycle for 1500 yuan, so that the 8 yuan subway fee for commuting to work was also saved.

I will also entertain myself, and I will not aggrieved myself in this regard. I recharge all the video software because if you watch videos and watch ads, then the quality of life will decline and you will feel embarrassed. I don't like embarrassment.

I used to like to spend money on games, but now I have changed. Now only play one game, only the moon card, in that game you need to use rough stones to draw characters, I can save a year's rough stones, I can draw a highest-level game character for myself. It was hard because it took a lot of restraint, and after I switched my thinking about playing the game, I found that I also had restraint and felt very happy.

In this way, seeing the money saving more and more, it turns out that saving money is such an easy thing. The day I really had 1 million, almost 10 years after I graduated, she sent it to me and said we had 1 million.

It was like a dream, I felt like I was living a life I had never thought possible, and I felt very grounded. I feel that people like me, as long as I live alone, I may never save 1 million yuan. You can only rely on the help of external forces, you have to get married, you have to learn to live.

I have come to the conclusion that when a person makes up his mind to start living a good life, it will also be the first day that person successfully saves money.

▲ Cook in the office and save money. At the same time, the use of organic soy sauce does not reduce the quality of life. Figure / Courtesy of respondents

Difficulty factor: four stars

"In order to save money, I set up a lot of characters. Do not drink milk tea, lactose intolerance. Do not go to bars, alcohol allergy. ”

28 years old, 6 years after graduation, planned in Chengdu, has deposited 800,000 yuan

I decided to save money from graduate school.

At that time, the dormitory chatted and asked if everyone had deposits. A roommate said that she would exchange all her scholarships and money from childhood to cash to save up, and usually lock them up and not take them out. Now, there is already a full box, almost 780,000 yuan.

I was shocked because I only had two or three thousand dollars.

I wasn't going to save money. When I was an undergraduate, I had a roommate who had money and could dress up. She thinks I'm also beautiful and should dress more, teach me makeup, pick makeup, and help me analyze the style and clothes that I fit. At that time, my monthly living expenses were 2,000 yuan, she was three or four times more than me, almost every day, she took a new express back, influenced by her, I also always chopped my hands, the living expenses were not enough, so I blossomed, or let my mother pay for it.

Although I didn't spend much more, at most I spent more than 1,000 yuan, but this also led to me not saving money, and a little more scholarship was also used to buy computers, cameras and travel.

From the beginning of graduate school, I began to control. Once a year, I get the highest grade, and I can get 10,000 taels. Usually there is a monthly subsidy of 600 yuan, when the assistant has a salary of more than 700, I also work for the tutor, do the PPT for class, help him proofread the new book, and the tutor will also pay a salary regularly. The school has many scientific research projects, and there are project funds to share.

At that time, I also interned twice, and the average internship salary was four or five thousand per month. I also do training, tutoring students for postgraduate students in oral English, one hour a class, there are more than 400 yuan, and I can also sell postgraduate examination materials.

In this way, when I graduated, I saved more than 100,000 yuan. I began to understand that I was also a very good money saver.

After graduating, I worked as a planner in Chengdu, with a monthly salary of 8,000 at the beginning and more than 6,000. I thought of a lot of ways to save money. The first is compulsory savings, I am in the bank next to my home, I opened a new card, as soon as the salary is paid, I will hit 5,000 yuan inside, that card is not tied to the mobile phone, usually put it in the wallet, never take it out to use.

Half a year later, I changed jobs, raised my salary a little, and began to save 8,000 yuan, saving more and more.

I haven't touched the year-end bonus every year, my mother knows I'm saving money, we go out on a trip once a year, and she's paying for it. My family's tradition is that as long as I am not married, I can always get money, I am the youngest of my generation, and now everyone will send me red envelopes for the New Year. I also saved all this money and never used it.

Then there's the budget. In recent years, my monthly living expenses are 2,000 yuan, I cook three meals a day, there is a farmer's market in front of my house, every morning, I buy vegetables with a group of grandparents, buy steamed buns, bean paste buns and various pickles in the morning, cook porridge and drink; The vegetables bought can be eaten twice, and the money for buying vegetables a month is enough for seven or eight hundred yuan.

Dressing, I also began to engage in capsule wardrobes, and I gave up my previous clothes. I will set myself a standard and only buy one piece a month and don't care about the brand. I will also keep an account, how much each part costs, all stipulated, go out for dinner and entertainment 500 yuan, daily meals 1000 yuan, shopping daily necessities 500 yuan, can prevent myself from spending too much.

In order to save money, I set up a lot of people. Do not drink milk tea, lactose intolerance. Do not go to bars, alcohol allergy. Sensitive skin, to streamline skin care, can not use a lot of cosmetics. I am also relatively homely, I don't have any money-burning hobbies, I like to take pictures and watch movies, but the projector, which is the most expensive expense in recent years.

Finally, find a way to get money. By saving salary, I was able to save 60,000 or 70,000 a year at first, and then I was able to save about 100,000, which was far from enough. I found a lot of side hustles, part-time platforms, and planning orders, this is my bank, it is not difficult to do, a single has 500-1000 yuan.

I also take on paperwork, write propaganda for employees of state-owned enterprises, write essay assignments for students, and so on. Later, I cooperated with an intermediary for a long time, basically 400 yuan per thousand words, a small paper, can earn nearly 2,000 yuan.

Later, he gave priority to me for any list, and during the rest time, I was basically writing, and when I was more, I could have an income of five or six thousand yuan a month, and a small 100,000 yuan a year.

Last month, my cousin got married, and my grandfather gave me 50,000 yuan. He has not been in good health over the years, so he sent me the money he was going to give when I got married, and also gave me 50,000 yuan. Coupled with the salary I just received, I saved just over 800,000 yuan. I have only saved this money for 6 years, and I am very confident that in two years, I will definitely reach 1 million.

I watched a Japanese drama called "How to Use 3,000 Yen", there are many ways to save money, and the protagonists in it can also resonate with ordinary people like me, I want to save money, just to buy a house, my own house, and leave some money so that I can use it when I get old.

I wanted to save up to 1 million, or 1.2 million, and in my early thirties, I moved to a third- and fourth-tier city—a small city with livable prices, low housing prices and a slow pace of life. It is better if the parents also sell the house in the hometown, and we live in a neighborhood. I can find a stable job, don't have to earn too much, just four or five thousand yuan, and enjoy life slowly.

▲ Figure / Screenshot of "How to use 3,000 yen"

Difficulty factor: five stars

"Making money is like picking soil with needles, and spending money is like pushing sand with water."

31 years old, 9 years after graduation, self-employed in Hubei, has deposited about 3 million yuan

When I was in college, I saved about 400,000. I have a very stable job as a tutor and a fixed number of times a month. I studied industrial design in Beijing, and I did art training for children who wanted to learn to draw, starting as a teaching assistant, brushing paint plates, sharpening pencils, and taking them out to sketch.

Later, others thought that this girl was quite attentive and could do more things. At first, my fee was more than twenty yuan a class, and then it came to two hundred yuan.

I also worked a lot of odd jobs, going to the supermarket part-time, I could get 100 yuan a day; go to the door of the work body to sell signed photos, and there are more than 2,000 yuan a night; I also handed out flyers, first for $14, $18 an hour, then $20. I also found someone who introduced me to do things, told him, I can help him recruit, I added the national college student group, advertised in the group, earned intermediary fees, I remember one of the Longhu projects, to recruit telephone staff, I introduced them, can earn more than 2,000 yuan a month.

My plan is clear. A week after my freshman year, I was looking for part-time jobs everywhere, and I was willing to try anything; In my sophomore year, I started interning and racing against time.

I went to a consulting company, they had a good internship salary, I could get a monthly salary of 10,000 a month, I was in charge of the terminal at the time, I had to go to the retail department of the product, arrange unannounced visits, summarize reviews, write forms and reports. My part-time job the year before made a big difference because I had to deal with all kinds of people. At that time, my colleagues around me were still Peking University, I was very stressed, there were a lot of English materials, I couldn't catch up with them, so I finally gave up this path.

After graduating in 2016, I didn't have a job and started my own Taobao e-commerce. When I was an undergraduate, I opened an online store, and when I went to Hefei alone, I started my own micro-business. The next year, I was also a person, and I went to Wuhan by myself to look for a warehouse.

▲ Go to Wuhan alone to find a warehouse. Figure / Courtesy of respondents

I sell skincare. One is that it can have an immediate effect, and the other is that it can have a visual impact, take a video, people will want to try it when they see the effect of concealer and foundation.

I did a lot of promotion activities at that time, there was a buzzword called "Shenma", I engaged in "Shenma bag", collected 18 likes, 38, you can draw once, the products in the draw are different. He drew his own lottery, which is also promoting for me, and can also become my downline and push to more people. This is my first pot of gold, almost two or three months, I made more than 100,000.

Until now, I'm still working on this. Since 2017, I have opened offline physical stores, I have two direct operations, and the others are franchises, at that time I opened more than a dozen across the country, and later expanded to more than 20. But when the epidemic came, turnover was greatly affected, and many stores were closed. In good times, my store has a profit of more than 700,000 yuan a year, but for three years of the epidemic, the annual profit is less than 300,000 yuan.

In the middle, I also thought about my own brand and wanted to make food. I went to Chengdu and wanted to make cold food, so I found a factory by myself, tried the taste, and held a press conference. But the profit of food is very low, losing hundreds of thousands, and then it is no longer done.

I want to do everything myself, so my money is exhausting. I was also not good at communication, the university campaign secretary, I didn't even dare to raise my head, I kept burying it in my chest, and the head teacher thought I was crying. So I kept pushing myself, and for a while, I went to the store to sell, trying to convince the other party to divide me a container, sell the product in half of the profit, and often get kicked out.

Later, I slowly accumulated experience, don't go in the morning and evening, go at noon, the effect is better in summer than in winter, bring more water, go several times, and strive to add WeChat first.

I want to make money, but I don't like to spend money at the same time. With a group of peers, I must be the most simple one, I only have a designer bag, a few decent suits, I have bought expensive ones in autumn and winter, I can wear them for many years, and my children's clothes are all worn by my cousin's family. When I go out, I always walk and ride, and I never take a taxi or go outside to do my hair.

This idea of saving money is related to my family, and I have known since I was a child that money is important. My family is a rural village in Hubei Province, and there are brothers, younger brothers, cousins, and cousins at home, and I am the only college student in the entire family.

My dad worked very hard, and he worked as a painter for fifty or sixty years in order to make more money. Many temples and theaters over there are painted by him. He has good craftsmanship and good calligraphy. My mother is a farmer, and she depends on her for all the family's fields and takes care of her three children.

When I went to college, I was alone, with two large suitcases, sitting in a sleeper for the first time, more than 300 yuan a piece, and sat for 14 hours to Beijing West Railway Station. I have more than 10,000 pieces in the mezzanine of my school bag, which is my tuition and living expenses.

I always feel that I have a responsibility to my family, so I will pay for my brother to go to Wuhan to study interior design, he and my father do paint, in the future, it must be a computer instead of hand-drawn paper, which can be used.

My mother was also frugal. She often says: "Making money is like picking soil with needles, and spending money is like pushing sand with water." "When I was a child, she always kept money on her lips, and every day she kept reminding my father to go out to work and remember to pay the end. Now, too, she doesn't always want to spend money.

Once, I wanted to take her and my father to the Maldives, and the plane tickets and tour groups were all registered, but she said that the family's land was going to be collected, and she said that she would not go anywhere. Some time ago, I gave her a massage foot therapy card, and she didn't want it, so I had to return it. When eating steak, it will be said that just such a small piece of meat, there can be thousands of pieces, it is a lie.

It will give me a sense of mismatch, and it will make me wonder if I don't make enough money now to support her to live the life she wants.

The article is original by Daily People, and infringement must be investigated.