The fastest way involves a ton of luck. Start your own company, or become an early employee of a startup with stock options. Hope the company executes well and earns tons of revenue, or gets bought out. This is not the safest.
The safest way is boring as heck. Spend less than you earn. A lot less.
Take that extra money and invest it in non-risky stocks. You should be able to get 5% return per year at a minimum. I prefer dividend reinvestment plans because that way I get more stocks each quarter, along with the shares increasing in price.
You could also look at buying real estate and renting it out, as that traditionally increases in value. However being a landlord can be tough, and it's not always guaranteed to result in an increase in value.
I'm not looking for a budgeting app so much as something that tracks my expenses. I don't know how much I'm going to be making each paycheck, so traditional budgeting doesn't work for me. What I'm looking for is:
- Import bank files (ofx / qfx)
- Let me flag some transactions as 'do not import'
- Ability to categorize transactions, and have it auto-categorize transactions as they're imported. This should be done by name and amount. Eg - $80 from Chevron might be Auto Fuel, but $5 from Chevron might be Snack Food.
- Ability to split transactions
- Ability to manually enter transactions. Because sometimes I pay cash
- Ability to have sub-categories. Eg: Car; Car : Fuel; Car : Maintenance; Car : Repairs; Car : Insurance;
- Ability to view spending by category by month / by year. This can either be by sub-categories, or roll sub-categories into a parent category. Be able to drill-down to get more details.
The safest way is boring as heck. Spend less than you earn. A lot less.
Take that extra money and invest it in non-risky stocks. You should be able to get 5% return per year at a minimum. I prefer dividend reinvestment plans because that way I get more stocks each quarter, along with the shares increasing in price.
You could also look at buying real estate and renting it out, as that traditionally increases in value. However being a landlord can be tough, and it's not always guaranteed to result in an increase in value.