What It Really Takes to Be a Millionaire by 33

Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Getty Images

Growing up in Ontario, Liz Enriquez experienced such acute financial anxiety that it led to panic attacks. She coped by working three jobs to put herself through school, and then dedicated her 20s to making and saving as much money as she could — at least 50 percent of her income every month. That led her to FIRE, the personal-finance philosophy that preaches aggressive saving and investing in order to retire early, and she started a personal-finance blog in addition to other side hustles. She bought a house at 24 and by the time she was 30 had invested more than $250,000. 

Still, it didn’t feel like enough, and Liz was constantly burned out. Sometimes she would barely sleep and not leave the house for days. Finally, she hit a breaking point — and a financial milestone — and decided to cut way back on her work hours. Now 33, she talks about what she sacrificed to save so much, and what she’s doing to make up for it now.

What got you interested in super-saving at first?
A lot of my early motivation came from feeling like we didn’t have money growing up. My family immigrated to Canada from Mexico when I was 5, and we lived in a two-bedroom apartment with six people. I know that money is relative, so compared to where we came from, it was a huge upgrade. But compared to all my peers, I felt very self-conscious. I never had people over. I didn’t get to go on field trips or do extracurriculars. Whenever I was invited to birthday parties, I was super embarrassed because I would bring the shittiest gift from Dollarama. I felt very left out. So initially, I was trying to be normal and fit in. Then it became addictive to see my money accumulating. So I decided to keep going. And it really snowballed.

Then I discovered the FIRE community, and that made me want to work and save and invest more. In my early 20s, I realized I’d caught up to most of my peers financially, but I didn’t actually want money to go to the mall or to do what everyone else was doing. I wanted money to have choices and possibilities. So I kept going.

What did that look like on a day-to-day basis?
I didn’t really make any friends at university. I never spent any time partying or going out. I always had two or three jobs, working at least 40 hours a week in addition to school, and I was paying for my own tuition and my rent. I worked every single weekend. I was really scared of going into debt and having a lot of student loans. Most of my colleagues at work were older, not in school, and were making the same amount of money as me, but they were always complaining about their financial struggles — their student loans, their bills. And that was not the future I wanted. They seemed tethered to jobs that made them miserable. So I focused on building a safety net and creating multiple income streams because I didn’t want to be stuck doing something I hated for the rest of my life.

What were some ways that you managed to make and save extra money?
I started my first business as a side hustle a decade ago, managing social-media accounts for companies, while I still had a full-time job working for the government. Then I started my own personal-finance blog, which also became profitable through brand deals. I saved about 50 percent of my income for a decade, $2,000 to $3,000 a month at first, and then eventually about $50,000 a year. I also house-hacked. I bought my first home when I was 24, and I had roommates, which offset the mortgage costs. I also never had a car; I walked to work or took the bus.

What were the trade-offs to being so focused on your finances?
My relationships and my health definitely suffered. I would be irritable and annoyed with my family and with everyone. I was sick a lot, running on fumes all the time, constantly overworked and on edge. I very much bought into hustle culture. In retrospect, it wasn’t great. I wasn’t totally clear on my values. At the time, the most important thing for me was reaching these financial milestones, and everything else was secondary.

When things were at their worst, I would be crying a lot and not going outside. Sometimes I would go multiple weeks without seeing friends or family, and my house would be gross and dirty. Things in my life would start falling apart, and my anxiety would get really bad. I would start to feel those butterflies in my chest, and not in a good way — like something was getting fried internally. Unfortunately, I was also very comfortable in a burnout cycle. I would just keep going until I crashed for a little bit, and then I would do it again.

When did you realize that your relationship to money was becoming a problem?
I’ve been in therapy since I was 19. My first anxiety attacks were about how I was going to pay for school. I was so stressed out. I’ve always understood that I overwork and overcompensate to the point where it’s unhealthy, but in more recent years, I’ve been like, why, though? Why do I do this? I had resistance to changing anything because, on some level, it was working for me. I was making money and successful. I was a functioning workaholic. But I wasn’t thriving or enjoying it.

Did therapy help? How did you start thinking differently?
In the last five years or so, I’ve come to understand that I have an anxiety disorder, and it drives a lot of my behavior. I’ve also been doing internal family systems therapy, which is about understanding your childhood and what stories you told yourself as a kid. I’m trying to think about my values in the world and how I act in accordance to them. For my 20s, my values were money and financial security, but now that I’m in my 30s, my number one value is my family and being a good mom and partner, and then also having good relationships. I don’t have to prioritize my finances as much.

Hitting financial goals also helped. When I reached the $500,000 net-worth mark, it made me feel more secure. I invested $250,000 before I turned 30. But I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully unhook from the anxiety because it’s an internal, integral part of my life and personality. My husband and I have achieved Coast FIRE status, which means that we both still have to work, but not nearly as much as we used to because we front-loaded our investments.

What made you realize that you had to make a change in how much you were working?
It was a forced process when I had my son. I think I would’ve kept going at that pace otherwise. The pandemic also changed things. The world shut down, and I had a newborn, and I just could not keep working all those hours. I didn’t want to be irritable, not cooking for myself, not eating, not going on walks, stuck in these sort of manic episodes where I would work for three days straight without showering or leaving the house.

It took a little while for my nervous system to ease into that new phase. I hadn’t watched TV for most of my 20s, so I never knew what people were talking about, and I finally watched everything. I was watching three episodes of Game of Thrones per day. Then, last year, I decided to take a pay cut to focus on environmental conservation work. Now I’m a project manager at a not-for-profit that does tree and garden plantings and community cleanups. I make about $30,000 less than I used to, but I only work 35 hours a week, and it’s very flexible.

What does your financial anxiety look like now?
I still have anxiety around money. I have to remind myself: You can spend money, you have money, it’s fine. But it is a challenge for me — it pains me to spend money sometimes. I have to pull up my accounts and my net-worth statement to calm down. I’ll look at them on my phone and be like, “Okay, I’m okay.” I am rewiring my brain to feel safe. That’s ultimately what money helped me do. I feel safe now. I feel at peace and under control, even though I do need constant reminders. I don’t want to be someone who worked so hard to save money and not be able to enjoy it.

How would you describe your current financial situation?
It’s funny — I feel like I’ve caught up to my peers who had generational wealth. I’m 33, and a lot of my fellow millennials are living at home with their parents, or living in basements, stuck in relationships because they can’t move out on their own. Meanwhile, a lot of my new friends are moms, and their parents helped them with a down payment. They have a house for playdates.

Also, I have the time to say yes to things that cost money. So when people are like, “Do you want to go to this concert tomorrow?” I’m like, “Yes!” The people I hang out with now are usually people with more flexible schedules.

Do you ever begrudge other people for having what you worked so hard for? 
Everybody judges and nobody actually knows anyone’s full story. I probably get judged too. But people who know me, they knew that I was going to school and working and then going to another job — they saw the hustle. I am a hardworking person who made her money by working a ton. No one gave me anything. I try not to judge other people, though.

Did your financial goals ever cause conflict with your spouse?
I’ve always dated financially responsible people. That’s who gravitates toward me, too. I’m really comfortable talking about money. I remember probably a month into dating my now-husband, he was like, “Do you want to hang out?” And I was like, “Oh, I’m working on my budget tonight.” It was almost a test. I wanted to know how he was going to react. And he was like, “Oh, that’s awesome. It’s amazing that you do that.” It turned out he loves personal finance, and he was impressed by the fact that I had a blog about it. So we were working on our budget together very early on in our relationship.

He’s a super-saver too, but he has a healthier money mind-set. If we’d go out to dinner and I would only order water and a salad, he would be like, “You can get a drink.” I’d be like, “No, no. It’s $9. That’s not what I want to spend my money on. I can go home and get a bottle of wine for $9.” I had trained my brain to always order the cheapest thing on the menu. And he was constantly telling me, “Just enjoy your meal. You’re allowed to get a bigger meal and a drink, and another drink if you want, and dessert.” He has helped me let go of this scarcity mind-set. Sometimes I’ll just have him pay for things because I don’t want to see the bill. It makes me too anxious. Even though he’s paying with our shared money in a shared account, which I review every month, the act of paying for something is very hard for me, psychologically. So he steps in so that I don’t ruin dates by overthinking how much they cost.

How did you coordinate your financial plans?
My husband and I planned to hustle in our 20s and slow down a little in our 30s. We’ve been together almost eight years. We would track our net worth every single month and have money dates where we would go over our spending and saving, with an eye on hitting $1 million in net worth. If you include our primary residence, we’ve achieved that. Excluding our primary residence, it’s around $750,000, although the number fluctuates depending on how the market is doing. Once we hit that benchmark, we were ready to kick into the next phase of our lives.

My husband quit his job before I wound down my businesses. He used to run a painting company with a staff of about 40, and it was very high-stress, especially during the pandemic. He was like, “I need to take a break for my sanity.” He got a part-time job at a local restaurant making pizza on weekends, and he loves it. At first, I kept running my businesses. And then after a while, I was like, Wait, I want more flexibility and more time, too. I thought it’d be harder to make the transition to working much less, but it isn’t. We do lots of daytime outings. Even though my son is in day care, we usually take him out at least once a week to do a family activity.

I’m in this phase in my life where relationships are more important to me because I have the time and energy and the finances to prioritize them in ways that I didn’t before. I’ll do random spa days with my friends all the time. We’ll go on a Tuesday when it’s less crowded.

Our household income used to be between $120,000–$160,000 a year, and now it’s more like $80,000–$90,000 combined. And that’s all we need. We spend about $80,000 a year on our lifestyle. And we don’t have a ton extra, but that’s okay, because it’s part of the plan. We invested early so that our money will compound. We could probably retire for good and live off our investments by the time we’re about 50.

Do you still live very frugally?
There are a lot of things that I don’t spend money on for environmental reasons. It’s not so much about being frugal as it is about minimizing consumption. I walk as many places as I can. I don’t take Uber. I never order in food; I don’t want to deal with all the packaging and the carbon footprint of someone driving my food to me. I buy all my clothes secondhand. It’s just second nature to me.

Do you feel like your workaholism was worth the outcome?
I don’t regret it, even though my motivation was not the healthiest. I think anyone pushing hustle culture or crazy aggressive saving is probably dealing with some sort of anxiety disorder. But it could be worse. I could be doing hard drugs to cope with my childhood trauma. Instead, I have more money, which makes me feel safe. I think we’re all striving for a sense of safety.

I thought my 20s were my prime, when I was so crazy productive. But now I look back and I’m like, “That was rough.” I think my actual prime is now, when I can enjoy what I worked for.

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