I saved over $1 million by the time I was 32—and now I’m bored

My parents owned a French restaurant with a handful of employees, and no pension or benefits. They had friends who did not have much money. Even as a young child, I began to see the stress of not having enough money in people’s lives. I didn’t want to be in that situation. I wanted to live a comfortable life, and it seemed that money was the only solution. So I worked hard.

“I’ve done everything under the sun”

I’ve done everything under the sun. I worked at my family’s restaurant, but I also worked at Tim Hortons. I cleaned the cars. I mowed the lawn. I once got a contract cleaning up cigarette butts in a parking lot as a side hustle. By the time I was 22, I had almost $100,000 saved up. Most of my money was in mutual funds, and guaranteed investment certificates (GICs).

When I graduated in 2013, I worked for TD Bank as an underwriter. I think I was making $50,000 a year. But I continued to work on the side. Bartending brought in another $25,000 or more. That means, when I was 22, I was earning about $75,000. Even today, that’s a pretty good deal. I worked in a bank, then into the automotive industry, then back to the normal nest—running my family’s restaurant full-time.

That’s all I knew—watching my parents work 60 to 70 hours a week, weekends, evenings and holidays. Because I worked full-time and part-time, and had limited expenses, I was able to put away $50,000 a year in my investments.

“Real estate was a big part of my portfolio”

Real estate was a big part of my portfolio. Ontario real estate did very well, and I joined a group called Durham Real Estate Investors. Basically, a bunch of classic real estate investors get together once a month. These people were explaining strategies for renting and renovating rental properties, as well as adding basements. Consider Scott McGillivray’s show, Income Suite.

So I took advantage of the opportunity to get help on my existing condo because I had built up equity, and then reinvested periodically. Most of that money went back into the stock market. In 2016, I started moving into broad-based, low-cost index funds that track the S&P 500. Diversification was always my strategy, and I believed that holding diversified assets would help my portfolio.

Around 2018, when I was 25, my girlfriend and I decided to move in together. We paid $630,000 for a house in Whitby. A few years later, we bought a second house together in Whitby for $540,000, with the help of a partner. It was a single-family home that we turned into a two-unit duplex, refinanced, and then rented out.

At that time, I had about $500,000 in cash and equity in all my properties. Real estate prices have gone up, so I re-let the condo. This was a clean and repeat process. Every time I reinvested, I bought another property or reinvested in the stock market. Sometimes I borrowed money privately or participated in joint ventures, where I met with other people to flip houses. I have also done private lending deals for investors, where I can get a very high interest rate on the money in a short period of time.