How I Built
$750K on an
Army Salary

Become Debt Free

Before you do anything else, eliminate your debt. Debt is a guaranteed negative return. If you are paying 20% interest on a credit card, that is the same as losing 20% on every dollar you hold — no investment in the world reliably beats that.

List every debt you have — credit cards, car loans, personal loans, student loans. Order them from highest interest rate to lowest. Attack the highest rate first while making minimum payments on the rest. Every dollar you free up goes to the next debt on the list. This is called the avalanche method, and it is the mathematically optimal approach.

The one exception: if your employer offers a retirement account match, always contribute enough to capture it — even while paying off debt. A 100% match is a guaranteed return that beats almost any interest rate. Outside of that, eliminate the debt first. Everything else waits.

Save Aggressively — At Least 50% of Your Income

Once you are debt free, the mission shifts to saving as much as possible. I saved roughly 60% of my income. I lived well below my means and refused to let my lifestyle grow with my income. Every raise, every bonus, every extra dollar went into the system — not into a bigger apartment or a newer car.

Most people budget their spending. I budgeted my saving. The moment my paycheck landed, I moved my savings target out first. Whatever was left was my spending allowance. I did not need willpower — the system made the decision for me automatically.

If 50% feels impossible right now, start with 20% and increase by 5% every time your income goes up. The military gives you a huge advantage here: housing, healthcare, and food can all be subsidized, which dramatically reduces your cost of living compared to civilians. Use that advantage. Your civilian peers cannot.

Max Out Every Tax-Advantaged Account

Tax-advantaged accounts are the single most powerful legal tool available to build wealth. The government lets your money grow — and in some cases lets you contribute — without paying taxes. That difference, compounded over decades, is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Fill them in this order: 1. Employer-sponsored retirement account (TSP for military) — at minimum, contribute enough to capture the full employer match. This is free money you cannot afford to leave on the table. 2. Personal Roth IRA — max it every year ($7,000 in 2025). If you are deployed to a combat zone and receiving tax-free pay, your Roth IRA contributions may also go in tax-free — one of the best wealth-building opportunities in the entire tax code. 3. Health Savings Account (HSA) — triple tax advantage: contributions are pre-tax, growth is tax-free, and withdrawals for medical expenses are tax-free. 4. 529 College Savings Account — if you have children, open one and start funding it. The earlier you start, the more compounding works in your favor. 5. Go back and max the employer retirement account — after the above are funded, maximize your TSP contribution ($23,500 in 2025).

Only after all of the above are maxed should you invest in a taxable brokerage account.

Invest Everything in S&P 500 Index Funds — and Never Sell

I do not pick stocks. I do not time the market. I do not watch CNBC. I put every dollar into the C Fund (TSP) or a low-cost S&P 500 index fund — VFIAX, FXAIX, or VOO — and I wait.

Why the S&P 500? Because over any 20-year period in history, it has never lost money. The average annual return is approximately 10%. Compounding 10% over 20 to 30 years turns small, consistent contributions into life-changing wealth. One number to internalize: $500 per month invested at 10% annual return for 25 years grows to $598,000. You do not need to be a genius. You need to be consistent.

The enemy of investing is not a bear market — it is you selling during one. I lived through multiple downturns between 2018 and 2025 and never sold a single share. Every dip was a sale. The market always recovered. Boring on purpose. Relentless by design.

Buy a Home and Pay It Off Quickly

Once your investment accounts are funded and running, buy a home — and pay it off as fast as possible. This step has two powerful benefits: it eliminates your largest monthly expense, and it positions you to capture a significant tax-free gain when you sell.

Under the IRS Section 121 exclusion, if you have lived in your home as your primary residence for at least two of the last five years, you can exclude up to $250,000 of capital gains from federal taxes when you sell ($500,000 if married filing jointly). That is a quarter of a million dollars, completely tax free.

I paid my home off in 2 years and 9 months. By doing so, I paid only $13,500 in total interest — a fraction of what a standard 30-year mortgage would have cost. The faster you pay it off, the less you give to the bank and the more you keep for yourself.

If you are in the military, use your VA loan benefit — zero down payment, no private mortgage insurance, and competitive interest rates. It is one of the best mortgage products available to anyone. Use it wisely.