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How Nurses Can Become Millionaires

Updated: Mar 29, 2022



Nurses are known for having a stable income, but nothing glamorous. It isn't the mindset of most nursing students to become millionaires, but it is not impossible for regular registered nurses to become millionaires if they play their cards right. The trick is to start early in your career and use the benefits you will have working for a good company.

A millionaire is a term that can be used in a lot of different ways. To clear up the term "millionaire" for this post, the millionaire that we are talking about is having a net worth over one million dollars. Even if you are making 3 million a year, if you have 4 million in debt at the end of the year, you are still broke. Net worth is important to remember, it includes your assets, your income, your house, cars, baseball card collection, everything that has value. So if you want to be a millionaire, remember that a real millionaire is somebody who has one million dollars in net value regardless of their yearly income.

The first thing that you need to understand, is that unless you are doing something aside from nursing, you are not going to get rich quick. Nursing is a respectable career, but even if you are working in San Francisco making above 100k a year, you will not be a millionaire overnight. Becoming a millionaire will take a lot of hard work and patience, but it is possible for nurses who still have time to build their net worth.



The first step to building your net worth is to become debt free and stay that way. Debt is not something wealthy people want. Mark Cuban, billionaire, shark tank host, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, does not believe in debt, even to start a business. Other successful entrepreneurs believe the same thing. Gary Vaynerchuk, the online platform business mogul believes in working like crazy and saving as much as you possibly can. Remember that your net worth is your total income of all assets after debt. If your debt outweighs your income and assets you are broke.


The next step to becoming a millionaire is to put your money into assets that appreciate and continue to make money. Right now it is 2018, the late Michael Jackson died in June of 2009. Even though Jackson has been dead for almost a decade, his assets have earned him the top spot on Forbes dead celebrity list pulling in over $400,000,000 in the last year! This is possible by the assets that Jackson has, and he will continue to make money for his family for most likely decades to come.

Putting your money into assets is not something that you don't get to enjoy during life. It is just the learning of changing how you spend money. Middle-class people buy "stuff" and upper-class people buy "assets." If you don't think this is true, just think of the craziness that happens during black Friday shopping, and all the people that are working overtime to buy "stuff."

Stuff fades away, and these days stuff fades fast. Apple comes out with the newest cell phone yearly. The automobile industry is becoming more and more electronic and technical. The computers of today will be obsolete within a year. Putting your money into stuff is the sure way to not be a millionaire. While there is nothing wrong with having nice stuff, it is the overspending of buying stuff that will slow down your progression.

If you have a car that you are making the minimum payments on, and you don't think you will be able to pay the car off within a reasonable amount of time, you have a car above your means. You are putting money into something that depreciates in value every mile you drive, and every night you sleep, the car goes down in value.

Always needing the next new thing that doesn't benefit your life better than the previous model. The expensive new phone does nothing but holds you back from putting money into something that will help you in the long run. If you really want to be a millionaire as a nurse, you will need to have the mindset of a millionaire and do this early on in your career.

When you have these basics in your life, the next step you need to do is invest your money into assets. Assets are things that will go up in value and will continue to make money. Buying a home can be an asset. If you buy a home for $300,000 in 2018, and the market continues to climb, in twenty years the house could be worth a lot more than your original price. Imagine buying a car in 2018 for $30,000 and in 2028 selling the car for $40,000.

Having a house that is paid off is part of your net worth. It is something that you can tangibly have in your name that shows you put a large amount of money into. The next asset that will be a huge, if not the biggest part of your investments is your retirement plan. 401Ks are difficult to understand, but they are something that you should invest in. Even if they are not the best system, it is a system that most hospitals use, and you will most likely be enrolled automatically, or you will be asked if you want to put money in your 401K upon your hire date as a nurse.

There are financial advisors that will help you with your retirement plan if you are given the options to choose which stocks to invest in. The biggest thing to remember with retirement plans is that they take a long time to grow, but they will grow quicker than you think as long as you continue to do your part in saving.

Most employers will have a program that will match your contributions into your retirement plan. The different types of stocks you can invest in can be confusing, but to keep it simple, if you have a long time to invest you can put a higher percentage of your contributions into higher-risk stocks that will have a better chance of making more money in the long run.

If retirement is coming close for you, you will want to invest in more conservative stocks that don't fluctuate as much with how the market is doing. You won't make as much money with the conservative stocks, but you also won't lose as much if the market crashes. If retirement is really close you will want stocks that are considered defensive where you will be able to take money out with little to no penalties.

If you hypothetically make $50,000 as a nurse (low-end pay, this is just to show how investing is something you should do) and you have annual raises, and you are in a company that matches your contributions to your 401K, if you put in 15% to your retirement, in 15 years you will have $605,700. In 20 years you will have $736,900. In 30 years $1,090,800. Same scenario, but with starting out with an $80,000 annual salary, which is a higher end salary for nurses in 2018. In 15 years you will have an estimated $1,176,200. In 20 years $1,431,100. In 30 years $2,118,400.

With these numbers, you can see that it is possible to become a millionaire as a nurse. It will not happen overnight, but if you wanted to be rich you wouldn't have chosen nursing as a career. The motivation you need to become a millionaire is simple, live within your means, don't go crazy and get yourself in a ton of debt, and put money into your retirement portfolio. If you are not in a financial situation in your life to put 15% of your income into investments that's fine, but put in something. Even 2% will add up the years that you are either getting out of debt or just going through a rough patch in life.

Remember that being a millionaire is having a net worth over one million dollars. This does not happen easily, and it doesn't happen to most people because most people want to buy "stuff" that isn't going to last in the long run. Be happy with what you have now, and work hard to grow your real wealth that will last.


To learn more about how to save money for retirement, read this book from Tony Robbins. You can click on the link here and buy the book from amazon, or rent it from the library, but however you get it, read it and learn how people become real millionaires. Tony gives many examples of people who make less money per year than nurses who end up retiring millionaires! You can also watch videos on Youtube where Tony will talk about this book, and other books he has written, where he gives advise on how you need to put money into saving.












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