Is the best way to become a millionaire through hard work or savings - or the lottery?
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Jiratchaya Klongkarn, 29, an MBA student at Chester University celebrates becoming a lottery millionaire. Photo: Chester Chronicle
Is it even possible to become a millionaire today? It seems every opportunity to make money is getting swamped by crowds of highly skilled people all intent on the same path.
Only the brightest and best wins.
Recently my nephew tried to crowdsource a great idea. He had everything done right... plenty of promotion by Twitter and Facebook, a good market, and many Likes which showed it could be marketable. He was very optimistic.
Crowdsourcing has become a very successful business model for many startups such as YouTube, Wikipedia, Reddit and Kickstarter. GRAPHIC: crowdsourcing.org
But when it came to the time for the crowd to pay up, all he received was a dollar's contribution. One single dollar, for a lot of work and talent.
Making money in any business is difficult, regardless of the dozens of success stories you hear each day about 18 year-olds becoming internet millionaires. Even saving for a million takes years.
The shocking truth about saving for a million is shown in this calculator. SOURCE: CNN Money
Sadly the road is hard, difficult, and is usually only successfully traveled by entrepreneurs with skills that have been acquired over many years - usually the School of Hard Knocks... or life experience.
I've been privileged to be shown behind the scenes of many businesses in my time. And I can tell you - of the thousands I've seen, barely a handful make money. Most struggle through, sell up and take a loss.
It is actually easier to win the lottery than to succeed in business... strange but true. Here's why:
1. The lottery takes less time for success. You could win a sizeable prize in a week, or maybe two years. No-one really knows.
In the time it took to buy a cup of coffee at a QuikTrip store and buy a lottery ticket, Atlanta driver Randolf Adams won $7.5 million in the Georgia Lottery. It's more than he'll ever get paid doing a job in his lifetime.
But the fact is that a new business will take all your full and spare time over ten years or more - and not even produce a profit most of it.
2. You spend less time playing the lottery than any other activity, less time than making a coffee. And you only do this once a week. A business takes ALL your spare time and then some. Owners often say 80 hours a week is normal for startups.
3. The lottery will never make you broke, because you only spend what you have in your wallet at the time. It's very rare for anyone to take out a loan to buy lottery tickets. But a business exists on loans, and often its existence is like a daily rollercoaster ride as the owner wonders if they can meet payroll that week.
4. Lottery odds are very much better for a no-work business. All that needs to happen is for the prize to be in the millions instead of a $20 one, and your future is secured. By contrast, I've seen that 95% of all businesses either fail or just scrape along.
I know. I've lost tens of thousands of dollars in failed businesses. I've been totally broke.
But I have never lost a cent with the lottery.
Are you close to retiring? Your situation is worse when you don't have the time left to make a business work. People close to retirement often don't have the energy to get a profitable business going. It takes 10 years and you're exhausted most of the time.
So the answer to the question - can you easily become a millionaire through a business or savings - is a plain no.
This is the retirement life you should be living. The lottery makes it more likely than a business.
The opportunities for winning the lottery are far more plentiful. And best of all it's fun playing and dreaming of your wins. What would you choose to do?
