Laura Beck
6 min read
At 62, Josh C. is preparing to retire with a net worth exceeding $4.2 million. It’s a fortune built not through inheritance or lottery winnings, but through disciplined real estate investing and smart financial habits developed over three decades. As a CPA who spent his career helping other people manage their finances, Josh turned his steady accounting salary into a real estate empire that now generates enough passive income to support his retirement lifestyle.
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“I never made six figures as an accountant until my late 40s,” Josh shared. “But I realized early on that it’s not about how much you make — it’s about how much you keep and what you do with what you keep.”
His journey from middle-class professional to multimillionaire offers valuable lessons for anyone in their 30s looking to build long-term wealth. Here’s what Josh wishes he had known (or done differently) during his wealth-building years.
Josh’s wealth-building strategy started with a principle that sounds simple but proves challenging for many: spending significantly less than he earned. While his accounting peers were upgrading their cars and homes with each promotion, Josh maintained his modest lifestyle even as his income grew.
“I drove the same Honda Civic for 12 years,” Josh said. “My colleagues thought I was cheap (which I am!), but I was investing the difference. That $400 monthly car payment they had? I was putting that into my real estate fund every single month.”
This approach allowed Josh to save 40% to 50% of his income throughout his 30s and 40s — far above the typical 10% to 20% savings rate most financial advisors recommend. The key, he explains, was treating his future self as his most important client.
“As an accountant, I helped business owners understand that every dollar they spent was a dollar they couldn’t invest back into their business,” Josh shared. “I applied the same logic to my personal finances. My ‘business’ was building wealth for retirement.”
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While Josh maximized his 401(k) contributions and maintained an emergency fund, real estate became his primary wealth-building vehicle. He purchased his first rental property in 2001 — a modest duplex in a working-class neighborhood — using money he’d saved from his accounting salary.
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