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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Last year we made just under $3M taxable income, just under $2M the year before.

I own a primary business that I started literally from scratch about 15-20 years ago.  My spouse has a normal job. I made a high Hhi early only, $200k net first year.  I spent a lot of time at work, but really like what I do.  After about 5 years I realized that my business could not just be me and a few employees.  I needed others to bring in business too.  I have tried a lot of things.  Most fail and cost me money. The ones that succeed, I adopt grow and repeat.  Boring business strategy, but that is the recipe for success.  That business has a few dozen employees and netted me seven figures last year.

We always made way more than friends and we invested the excess.  We bought rental properties slowly and then faster.  These days I usually only buy if it will cost me minimal cash out of pocket and cash flow is positive.  I will cash out refinance or put second mortgages in existing properties. Recently we have been selling residential properties and 1031 exchanging into commercial properties  (predominantly strip malls).  Cash flow from those properties are shielded by depreciation and don't reflect in my taxable income, but net cash flow is around $250-350k per year.  Mortgage pay down of principal is another $$150k or so.

I took those profits and started a third business (financial related) that also nets seven figures annually.

Lastly I invest in other good opportunities as a minority passive partner when opportunities arise.  I also have partnered on house flips a number of times.

As for lifestyle.  We have kids preschool and elementary age (I cut back hours after they were born, but do often work again after they go to bed).  While I am sure this is subjective, we live in an A+ location, in a mansion with guest house.  We have a second home at the beach, substantially smaller, but still with 4 bedrooms and a guest house, also in an A+ location.  We recently looked at a third residence, which we loved and would have been a wonderful lifestyle to show our kids, but realistically we wouldnt use it much and decided to pass.

We have both a nanny and housekeeper, plus a slew of part time people. There is very little that we cannot afford, but don't want very many material things ( kids excepted, but we put the same restraints in them as most dcum parents would).  We have taken a few excessively nice vacations ($25K+). We both think the amounts spent are absurd, but we can afford it and frankly I don't know what else to spend it on.  We stay in multi bedroom suites and bring the nanny (although we would never tell people that we brought the nanny, as it would seem gauche).  Btw, we call her a nanny, but she has multiple advanced degrees in childcare and education and is technically qualified as a governess and we pay her accordingly.

We maintain what most would consider very large mortgages on our residences (monthly payments are $20K/ month, Piti).  We could pay them off, but our rate is 3.5% and I can consistently earn 30% return.  Our largest expenses are new investments and then taxes (over $1M/ yr federal and state).  Nearly everything is invested, so we rarely have true cash of more than $25-50k at a time, but I could get ahold of a few hundred thousand within a few days and a few million within a few months without any fire sales.

Overall assets are around $40M.  Debt has been slowly decreasing as a percentage of assets, currently below 50%, but increasing in amount as the assets increase.

We use a financial advisor for stocks, but I think it is probably a waste of money.  The returns they make are far inferior to our own and I think a target fund with semi annual readjusting we be just as good with a lower expense ratio. Retirement funds are all in Roths.

Btw, I regularly post on dcum.  Everyone on here thinks people with a lot of money would never post on here, but I don't know where else I would post.

I will tell you that our net worth at our ages gives us very few contemporaries (I get that we aren't mega rich- but if I wanted to work until 65 I could amass nine figures).  We try not to talk about money.  Our friends and others know we are rich, but probably not how rich. Since I run a business it would be nice to talk to some other successful business owners, but I know very few.  It is actually quite lonely.

We could retire today comfortably, particularly if we downsized the house to something extremely nice, but not as insane as we have now. But I have no idea what I would do and we have young kids.  We think it is important that they see us have jobs.

Speaking of kids, they know we have a lot of money, although not how much.  I heard them discussing the other day whether we were rich (they were unsure and outright asked- I ducked the question, by asking if it mattered). I don't know how to hide the fact that we have money and at the same time not feel that we have to hide that we own rental properties or that we have dozens of employees in my businesses. They do know that just because you want something doesn't mean you buy it.

We are ardent proponents of public education. We voted for Hillary (although I was torn between her and Bernie in the primary)  We think obamacare is good.  We were against the tax reform bill (the loss of salt will affect us less than other benefits of the bill- so it was personally a good bill for us). We hate trump.   We were both raised well off, but nothing like how we live now.  And we will leave the vast majority of our money to charity, as we don't see any reason that our kids need it nor do we think it would be good for them.  
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LOL You have an active fantasy life.[/quote]

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